Connect the Dots, La La La La.....

So, I was trying to get my head around this mess of a story that I have, when my husband-- in his always infinite wisdom-- told me I needed to find some way of tying all the pieces together.

I had bemoaned how my story had not only shifted time-frames in the writing process, but also shifted complete plot points. Granted, I have most of the same characters that I started out with, though quite a few others have joined the cast. But, the essence of what I thought my story was has suddenly become something unrecognizable.

It's sort of like those "Connect-The-Dots" sheets that elementary teachers were so fond of handing out for busy work--- I think they must get secret stashes of the sheets in their teacher survival kits. There was always a different sheet for every different "busy work" episode.

Unlike most of my peers, I thoroughly enjoyed running my pencil line from numbered dot to numbered dot--- there was something thrilling about seeing the page of seemingly random dots slowly become a fully formed figure. I never had problems completing most of the sheets as I was eager to see what picture would emerge.

The only time I did have trouble would be with the more complex sheets---the ones that combined numbers and letters---the ones that created layered designs if you used both paths. The problem that arose with these sheets occurred because I was in such a rush to see what picture would form, that I failed to pay close enough attention to where I was marking my line. Suddenly, the number 13 was the letter B, the number 12 was the letter R, etc....and before I knew it, I had a twisted mess that didn't look anything like it was supposed to look.

A connect-the-dots image in the shape of User:...

Story writing is very much the same as the "Connect-The-Dot" sheet, we don't have a clue what the end result of our story will be...even for all our planning and plotting and early drafting, there is no way to know for certain what the final picture will look like until we have every dot connected.

The only thing, I must make sure to slow myself down when I am playing my dot-connecting game or I may construct a picture that makes no sense. I can't allow my numbers 12 and 13 to be confused with R and B .......otherwise, instead of a wondrous Amazonian butterfly collage, I'll be stuck with a Mona Lisa that looks like she came from the planet Vulcan......

Bitter Honey

Weaving dreams of beguiling gold, a future's price for happiness. What secrets do you, determined, hold? asks the summer wind's soft caress. A guarded name, a hidden hope. Spinning wheels clutching time, grasping straw that falls away, What dreams may come, we soon may find, won't recall at end of day. A cherished life, a memory lost.

A-Z Reflections, year 4....

A-Z blogging challenge for 2014 has come and gone, seemingly without my realizing it. And, though I fell behind once or twice toward the end, I finished this year's challenge right on time. Really, I can't believe it's already over. I feel like I just finished my post for letter A... Year 4, for this blogger, was a far cry from the tortured state of despondency that was most of Year 3 -- I'll not mention the irony of this year's focus on death being easier to blog about than last year's foray into supernatural creatures, we'll leave that for my therapy sessions *ahem* As always, A-Z brought with it, not only 26 days of unbridled and far-reaching knowledge (disguised as entertaining and thought-provoking blog-posts), but a chance to connect with new faces while reconnecting with familiar faces--who had perhaps drifted away--from A-Z's past. I am always amazed by the ingenuity and inspiration that comes from lumping a couple thousand folk...

A to Z reflections....

Another A to Z challenge comes to an end--- another collection of posts and poetry have been written, another deep breath of relief is released. For my fellow bloggers that survived as well, it's another 'challenge-completed' notch carved into the writing desk. I've come to enjoy my yearly foray into the world of all things alphabetical. This was my third year, though it was only the second year I had a workable theme (which made the challenge substantially easier than the first year I attempted this challenge.) And, though my first year was difficult because my focus was so scattered, I found this year was more difficult because I lost the enthusiasm that came with the first year excitement----excitement which helped me plug along until the end of the challenge. Year 3 was a success in the sense that I completed the challenge, though, this was the year that almost wasn't---- Somewhere about a third of the way through the challenge, I seriously considered...

From the Inkwell, From the Vein.....

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