I…Uhm…I can’t even… I started laughing at the intro and I’m glad the captions were on because I was laughing. Out loud. Enjoy this very Southern Thing! Have a great weekend, all!
I saw a…post(?)…tweet(?)…whatever they’re called now on X the other day. It was in one of the writing communities and the author posted this question: Have you ever written a story based on a dream you had? *this is me doing a side eye* Um…kay. *more side eye* I don’t know about y’all but almost all of my stories are based on dreams–whether sleeping or simply staring out the window and daydreaming. I had several messages from the Universe tucked back for use today and then the following popped up in my inbox yesterday.
Let’s get back to basics, Silver…
You live in a dreamworld where all things are possible.
Your mere existence is the undeniable proof.
Hallelujah, The Universe ©www.tut.com
P.S. And you once wondered if your dreams were realistic. Oh, Silver, you crack us up.
Well all righty then. Doesn’t that just explain everything? It certaining does when it comes to writing–as far as I’m concerned. But it also works in real life. Have I mentioned I had to take some philosophy classes in college?
“Dubito ergo cogito, cogito, ergo sum.” That’s the original Latin. It translates, basically, to “I doubt therefore I think. I think therefore I am.” Know who said it? Raise your hand. 🙋🏼♀️ That would be the ubiquitous Rene Descartes.
I would respond with “Ego somnio ergo scribo. ” I dream therefore I write. Seems pretty simple to me. Put those thoughts and dreams into words m’friends. There are readers out there dreaming of reading a good book.
How can it be Wednesday? I mean…wassn’t it Wednesday just…like…two days ago? *flail* In other news, Toby is keeping me on my toes. I’m getting my steps in getting up to find him when it gets too quiet. Yes, at some point, he will like be written into a book. Until then, I must rely on an abundance of patience and caffeine. I have not yet succombed to alcohol yet, but trust me. It remains an option. In the meantime, words! I have some. Last week’s Thursday Threads prompt was: *”I don’t want to talk abou that.”* While it might not directly follow last week’s words, this week’s snippet is part of the same scene. Yay. And here…
****
Aisling opened her mouth to chastise him but snapped it shut. In retrospect, she couldn’t fault him for toeing that damnable book. She swiped her hands against her skirt, an involuntary movement to rid her of the feel of those cold flames dancing across her skin. How could flames be cold? And slimy. She shuddered but hid the action by turning and crouching to gather some scattered papers into a loose pile.
Looking around, Ariel found a broom and a metal dustpan. He used them to scoop up the recalcitrant book. He carried it over to a metal file box and dumped the book inside. With a quick flick, he closed and secured the lid. He surveyed the room. Aisling remained on the floor picking up papers and books reaching up to place them on a nearby work table. There was so much magic in this place it made him dizzy.
Since Aisling’s attention remained focused elsewhere, he watched her. All the feelings he’d suppressed rose. Distracted by her, he picked up a book and recognized it immediately. It had been stolen from Oberon’s library almost a century before. Doubt crept in, dampening his ardor.
“Aisling, how did you come to work here?”
“I don’t want to talk about that.”
“Fine,” Ariel said, losing his inner battle. “I didn’t want to talk anyway.”
Before Aisling could move, he’d drawn her into his arms and kissed her. Hard. Which quite effectively silenced her next words. And she didn’t mind at all.
****
That’s probably their first kiss. Not sure. And it needs a LOT of expansion but hey, flash fiction is flash fiction and the one I play is limited to 250 words. Things are progressing, whether they understand the reasons or not. Writers, do your thing, should you so desire. Readers, what do you think? Should this be their first kiss?
It rained. All day yesterday. I needed birdseed, dog food, and gas. Especially those last two items. But it rained. All day. Taking Jake in the rain is always fun. Not. Taking him and leaving him in the car (it was a whole 64 degrees so totally not hot!) makes for an unhappy Jake. Sending LG out after he was up the majority of the night on dog duty? Yeah, I didn’t have the heart to do that either. But I was literally out of dog kibble and low on cat kibble–not that I would feed the boys cat food. 😏
Yeah. About that dog duty. Jake and Toby encountered a skunk at 3 a.m. yesterday morning. LG didn’t know who was more surprised–the boys or the skunk. Anyway, they got sprayed. Luckily, we had deskunker spray. He got them cleaned up and smelling mostly fine. Yeah…good times.
Speaking of dogs, Toby is still chewing. Every time LG leaves the house, he comes back with more storage boxes of various shapes and sizes. The top of my dressing table is empty, for the first time in like…40+ years. All the stuff is shut up in boxes now stacked in the closet. Same for our shoes. Oh, and LG bought Toby his own pillow because he kept chewing the throw pillows (now also in plastic). Does he play with it? Of course not. 🤦🏼♀️
I’m loving the cooler weather. I might get out and do some yardwork. That will upset the dogs because they can’t go into the front yard with me without being on leash and I can’t trim bushes while holding leashes. It’s a catch 22. I’ll wait until LG is awake. Toby’s bark will wake the dead.
I do have to get out today. Birdseed. And sunflower seed for the squirrels. And I still need gas.
I will write today. Dammit.
What happens if a mom tells a dad joke? Are there mom jokes? Asking for a friend.
Okay. I’ve finished my first cup. Time for a second. This is gonna be a multiple cup day. In the meantime, how’s your weather?
August is almost over. Next Monday is Labor Day. Where did the summer go?
I admit, I gritched about the weather a lot. It was hot. But not hot. Which is weird, I know. We only hit triple digits one day this summer. We teased 100 often, but only hit it once. It truly is the humiditiy because 98 with humidity over 50% makes for a “feels like” heat index in triple digits. We did that a lot this summer. We had rain. I will never complain about rain. What’s crazy is a Canadian front came through last night and we’re looking at a high today of 70, maybe. And rain. Yippee!!!
My marathon relisten of Thea Harrison’s Elder Races is drawing to an end. I have a couple of novellas and one, maybe two novels left. Once I’m done, not sure what I’ll plug in to listen to.
Writing. Well. Yeah. About that. I managed some words betwixt and between cursing the computer set up. Say hello to Beetlejuice. He is mostly working. There are stupid things that I haven’t found the solution to. I have hopes that things smooth out and BJ settles down and plays nice. At this point, besides the bespelled books in the Special Collections of Aisling’s library, I may give her a haunted computer.
Critters. I could spend pages discussing that topic. Toby is beginning to settle in. The stress levels among cats and dogs is starting to ease. Pete and Toby often come nose-to-nose. Toby backs down. Good dog. Loki–who is mostly a hermit cat except for Jake and occasionally LG–is starting to come out at various times. He and Toby stare at each other and Saturday night, they actually got within about a foot of each other. I was there, hand on Toby’s collar, just in case. Hopefully, they continue to make friends and learn to play together. Loki wants to play. Toby wants to play. Jake and Pete do not. Seems like a good match to me. Jake is the older brother, complete with lots of eyerolls and snorts.
I have one other thing to say. Ragweed. That is all, and explains a lot.
Here’s hope for a productive week. We’re looking at cooler temps and rain at least until later in the week. LG’s birthday was yesterday but with everyone’s crazy schedules, we tend to hold the family celebration around Labor Day because that comes between LG’s and Uncle Fix-It’s birthdays and we celebrate them together. No firm plans yet. With the weather, I’m hoping that puts me into a writing mood. We’ll see. Anyone have plans for the week?
Okay. First, this is totally cool. Second, this dude is very creative. Third. This dude has waaaaay too much time on his hand. But that’s okay because…see “first.” Have a great weekend!
Sweet Baby Jesus, grant me the strength. I can’t even. Yesterday was the day from hell. Today starts round 2. I hate–absolutely HATE!–with eye-stabby fierce hate when $h!t doesn’t work the way it is supposed to, especially when I’ve paid a great deal of money for it.
The wireless keyboard and mouse that came with the new computer would not sync. I don’t think the keyboard works period. It’s supposed to have a light that shows when in use. The light comes on when I fiddle with the batteries then it goes out. Computer settings says it doesn’t exist. Same with the mouse.
I’d planned on using my plulg-in ergo keyboard anyway. And my wireless mouse has a dongle thingy. New computer is mosty up and running but I still need to use the old one for stuff and to eventually “decommission” my stuff so it can go to Stormy.
I love LG. He called in the middle of me having a meltdown. He was out and about and planned to stop at Wallyworld. He was calling to ask if I needed anything. I was sharp and short and said something about a pitcher of margarties because Toby has just knocked my coffee mug over, I was dealing with a BIOS update that could have wiped out my computer, and Toby had gotten in the closet and chewed two pairs of my shoes. I hung up on him. He brought me some sort of pre-mix thingy that freezes and is margarita flavored but wine based. Bless his heart.
Microsoft and HP are not playing nice. Windows Hello says there is no camera. The camera words in evry other app.
I think all my files are intact and transferred. I am having to do software piece by piece. When I quit yesterday, I had Google Chrome, Drop Box, and Scrivener. All my Scrivener files are in Drop Box so those are good to go. I have more to track down and install. It sucks.
I think I’m ready for that wine now. How’s your day?
I may or may not be fine when y’all are reading this. I really am totally not a fan of technology–especially computer stuff. I’ve learned a little bit along the way but frankly, teaching new tricks to this old dog is something of a waste of time. It’s hard. Even with written instructions. Anyway, just in case I’m still elbow-deep in the set-up and tranfer, I’m preprogramming this because I know y’all anxiously await your snippet each week. Today’s prompt is: *”I hope you’re happy.”*
****
The flashlight beam bounced as Aisling’s hand shook, cutting wild swathes across the floor, walls, and ceiling . Something clicked behind her and a moment later the buzz of florescent lights hummed before the space was flooded.
She gasped and the flashlight clattered to the stone floor as her lifeless fingers loosened. “Who would do this?” Aisling threw up her hands, staring around the room in dismay. Books and papers were scattered higgledy-piggledy on every surface.
Ariel carefully toed a book with his boot. He flinched when Aisling slapped his arm.
“Don’t do that!” The angry librarian crouched and touched the book with a reverent finger. “It’s okay,” she crooned to it as she gathered it up and carefully smoothed a page before closing the book.
Thought he steadied her as she stood, Ariel’s attention focused on the book. The faded letters embossed on the cover shimmered. He backed up a step. “Aisling, put it down.”
Her eyes narrowed and her lips pressed into a thin line. He could almost feel her testiness. “This is a valuable book.”
“Maybe but it’s also dangerous. Please, put it down.”
Her brows knit together and her lips turned down in a frown. “Wh—?” She didn’t get the word out before flames licked along the edges of the book. With a high-pitched scream, Aisling threw the book at him. He didn’t catch it.
“Fine,” she sniffed. “You were right. I hope you’re happy.”
“Do I look like I’m happy?” He wisely hid the smirk forming on his lips, especially when he recognized the sadness lurking beneath the frustration she displayed.
Aisling simply stood for a moment, then turned a slow circle. Taking in the chaos, tears threatened. Her voice hitched as she said, “I don’t understand.”
Ariel didn’t understand either but he now had ideas. “I’ll help you clean up.”
****
The mystery continues. FYI, just to tease a bit, before the new computer, I’d been working on some Bran scenes. I’ll continue those once I’m up and running again. 🤞🏼 In the meantime, writers, you know what to do. Readers? What’s made you happy today?
Presetting some blogs while I’m off-line. I have no recipe and no exact title. But this is the way I feel some days. You can always click on the link up there in the menu bar that says BOOK LIST and scroll through to find a title you haven’t read yet. Thank you for your patience while I stumble through the technical side of life. FYI, this meme about authors’ pleas to readers always makes me laugh. Tanks for being a reader. 😉
What book are you currently reading? I’m listening to Thea Harrison’s A DRAGON’S FAMILY ALBUM, an anthology of 3 Elder Races novellas.
August is on a downward drift toward Labor Day. It’s always hot around here until Labor Day. After that, we get pretend fall, summer, maybe fall, summer, fall…nope just kidding, Indian summer, and finally, if we’re lucky, actual Fall toward the end of the month. I’m ready, even though we’ve only hit 100 once this summer. Humidity, baby. That’s the difference.
There was soccer this weekend. Stormy’s team won 2 of 3 games so yay. We made it to one game on Saturday, taking both Jake and Toby with us. Toby is getting a bit better but it’s obvious he’s had no training. We plan to train him as we trained Jake, to be a serive dog. Jake is getting older and will retire at some point, hopefully years from now. The way things are going, it may take that long to train Toby. I’m only partially kidding. He’s smart but ohhh sooo stubburn. The cats are still stand-offish but there’s been no fights or eating of “prey” which is good. Anyway, it was really hot at the game so when we got home and cooled off, everyone napped–dogs and people. I slept until almost 7 p.m. Yeah, I was tired. We didn’t make it to the night game and then LG had some health issues overnight so we didn’t make Sunday morning’s game. Match. Whatever a soccer thingy in called. It sucks to be old.
I’m still marathoning through the Elder Races series. At least I’m catching up to my Goodreads reading challenge. I was woefully behind.
Very little writing got done. Some, but not much. Not sure how much will get done this week, hence today’s LOL meme.
Y’all remember when I said I was getting a new computer and then the order got cancelled? Well, the same computer at the same price popped up again yesterday morning. Taking a chance, I ordered it. It came with same day delivery and it was delivered at noon yesterday. I’ll be out of order until I figure out how to get the new ‘puter set up. Hopefully, my brain doesn’t break in the process because y’all? I trully am a technophobe. Anyway, don’t worry if I don’t appear for a day or two. Hopefully not three. Unless I need a day off to rest my brain. 🤣
That’s all the news fit for public consumption. Hopefully, I’ll be back up and running in time for Wednesday Words. How’s life in your neck of the woods?
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