NEW RELEASES
A Great Definition
Writer’s Block: When you imaginary friends won’t talk to you.
That doesn’t exactly define my problem. It’s just that right now, I’m not really liking what they have to say. Or, maybe it’s that they’re speaking a foreign language and it’s too hard to try to figure out what they’re saying. It’s hard to concentrate when there are so many good distractions. And what I’m working on now is very hard.
One of my favorite distractions texted me this evening so I spent quite a bit of time screwing around with him. I miss him terribly and I’m sorry that he’s so far away. He’s one of the few people who truly appreciates my snarky side. In fact, that may be his favorite thing about me. We’ve made efforts lately to be in touch more. There’s really no excuse anymore. Technology has made it so easy to goof around from far away.
I needed to know when barbed wire came into existance so I spent a lot of time the other day researching that. We can add that to the list that includes the history of muffins and sugar cubes if the Sister’s ever get on a tag team version of Jeopardy. You all better watch out. The three of us could take it all.
That’s one of the challenges about writing historical fiction. You constantly find yourself trying to decide if a word is too modern, if food is accurate, a saying too recent. I know that Isabella wrote a brilliant blog about this very topic. It’s so easy to get sent off on a tangent of research. It’s the very same principle as a dictionary. Every time I haul out my ginormous dictionary to look something up, I spend twenty minutes in there. “Ooooh what’s that word mean? And that one? What’s that illustration? There’s a map! I can never resist a map.” The minute I get onto Wikipedia I’m lost for at least an hour.
It’s not hard to lose your way when you really don’t want to get back. Those people have been in the parlor fighting for at least a week and quite frankly I’m sick of it.
I admire women who can write historical fiction. I love all those periods of past history, starting with the one where the women wear long and romantic gowns and don’t have to mess with mascara and eyeliner. I could do that! I wouldn’t even mind pinching my own cheeks to create that fabulous blush, even though I have a very low pain threshold. I even like the era where women wore socks with those boxy high heels. In romantic novels, they lived on the edge, even though they were “good girls” whose primary residence the YWCA, when they left home to work on their own.
My era is so far into the future that even my closest friends think I am weird. My husband thinks that I am weird.
Where I live, work, and play, most of the people that I know are of that “other persuasion,” far to the right of center. Oddly enough, they basically leave me alone when it comes to politics and religion. I never say anything–I only listen and occasionally look away as if I am bored with the conversation, which I am. I think they know that if they ever questioned me, I would chew them up and spit them out. Yuck! What a scary thought!
I have no imagineray frinds. All my friends are real, up to a point. I wish that I did have imaginary friends. They could be whatever I wanted them to be if they were imaginary. Instead, I have friends who bring me back to the real world whether I want to be there or not. They keep me grounded. Is that a good thing? Hmmm, I’m not sure. Someone once said, “The world is too much with us.” and I think that is true. Yikes! Whatever shall we do??