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Winter Break road trip episode 4: Serendipity in Carrizozo
At the end of the last episode, Winter Break road trip episode 3: Roswell, NM, your intrepid blogger had spent the day getting her picture taken with little green men and stuffing her face with Mexican food (note: your intrepid blogger spends lots of time stuffing her face with Mexican food). We left Roswell about an hour before dark, a fact which shall become important momentarily, headed in the general direction of Albuquerque. Let’s drive awhile, we said. We aren’t tired, we don’t have reservations, let’s see how far we get. Note: if someone says this to you when you’re in the middle of the desert at dusk, kill them,…
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Writing as an act of faith
[Lewis Carroll] understands that the text you create is an object that collides with the mind of the reader–and that some third thing, which is completely unknowable, is made. –Jesse Ball, “The Edge of Sense,” in Light the Dark: Writers on Creativity, Inspiration, and the Artistic Process (Penguin, 2017) Tomorrow is IWSG Day, and until about 20 minutes ago, I didn’t have a topic or even an idea for this month’s post. Then I read Jesse Ball’s lovely essay on Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky, encountered the quote above, and was reminded yet again of how big a role faith plays in my writing. I don’t mean religious faith, though that too can play…
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Winter Break road trip episode 3: Roswell, NM
At the end of the second episode, Winter Break road trip episode 2: Alamogordo to Carlsbad Caverns, your intrepid blogger had survived a trip 800 feet beneath the surface of the earth. Your intrepid blogger emerged like Persephone in the spring to continue her desert odyssey with a search for alien life forms. Translated from pompous-ese (the native tongue of academics like me), hubs and I drove from Carlsbad to Roswell. For those of you who don’t watch cheesy shows about UFOs, Roswell is the site of a rather famous crash. What crashed, you ask? According to the US Air Force, a weather balloon. But spoiler alert: you don’t see…
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IWSG: My love-hate relationship with writing
The January question for the Insecure Writers Support Group Blog Hop is: What started you on your writing journey? Was it a particular book, movie, story, or series? Was it a teacher/coach/spouse/friend/parent? Did you just “know” suddenly you wanted to write? I’ve always written, and I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with writing. I hated writing assignments in school. Hated. Them. I’d whine and complain and fuss and struggle and whine and complain some more. Then I’d suck it up, write the stupid paper, and get an A on it. At the same time that I was being a huge whiny baby about writing assignments, I was journaling. I started…
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Skip the resolutions – set goals instead
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0XGlXSW45Y] I don’t make New Years resolutions, and for the most part I never have. You can’t fail if you don’t try, right? Yeah, there’s your inspirational quote for 2020. Seriously, I don’t make New Years resolutions, because I can only make major life changes successfully when I am truly ready, not when the calendar says it’s time for self-improvement. What I do set at the beginning of each year, though, are goals. What’s the difference between a resolution and a goal? Glad you asked! Resolutions vs. goals A resolution is a commitment, usually broken by MLK Day, to start or stop a habit or make some other big…
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Winter Break road trip episode 2: Alamogordo to Carlsbad Caverns
At the end of the first episode, Winter Break road trip 1: Flagstaff to Phoenix to White Sands, your intrepid blogger had survived a minor dust storm, depressing country music (is there any other kind?), and a drive across a missile range. Yeah, your intrepid blogger knows how to take a vacation. After spending an uneventful night in Alamogordo (is there such a thing as an eventful night in Alamogordo? Well, maybe – depending on what’s being tested at the missile range), we drove over the mountains and through the desert to grandma’s house Carlsbad Caverns. Cloudcroft, NM: Cloudcroft is a cute mountain village at over 8000′ elevation. It was…
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Winter Break road trip 1: Flagstaff to Phoenix to White Sands
It’s Winter Break for most of us academics in the US. Work is quiet, lots of holidays, so it’s the perfect time to: Get caught up on work. Get lots of writing done. Catch up on house chores, maybe clean some closets. Cook and freeze some meals for next semester. Say to hell with responsibilities and take a road trip! Guess which option the hubs and I chose? I’m writing this on Sunday morning from an old motel in the booming metropolis of Carrizozo, New Mexico (population 996 according to this Wikipedia article). I don’t have any pictures of Carrizozo yet, because we skidded into town (almost literally) in the…
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Christmas past–with Krylon
Note: A version of this piece first appeared on my garden blog three years ago. I’ve mostly retired that blog to focus on this one, but I hope to share a few pieces from it—and from other past blogs—on here from time to time. I’m busy preparing for a long-awaited holiday road trip, so this seems like a good time to recycle something from the past. I hope you enjoy it. Christmas is one of those times when past and present converge in a strange time warp. Memories haunt this time of year, resurrected by the familiar sights, sounds, and scents of Christmas: happy memories we try to recreate for…
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Lessons from #NaNoWriMo
So I managed to write 50,000 words in November. See that shiny NaNoWriMo winner’s badge? Yeah, I earned that. Yeah. I did. Me. Winner. [thumps chest] I won NaNo once previously, in 2014 when I was drafting a novel called Vanishing, Inc. that still isn’t quite done yet because I’ve been revising it since 2015. sigh Anyway, I was proud of myself then, but this NaNo feels even more satisfying, because it was so much harder. Some days it felt like I was doing nothing more than spewing verbal vomit all over my screen, solely because I wanted to get those damn 50,000 words (Which I did. Me. Winner. Thumps…
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Living the Dream
The December question for the Insecure Writers Support Group Blog Hop is: Let’s play a game. Imagine. Role-play. How would you describe your future writer self, your life and what it looks and feels like if you were living the dream? Or if you are already there, what does it look and feel like? Tell the rest of us. What would you change or improve? I imagine this a lot. Usually when I should be writing. While other middle-aged straight women fantasize about Brad Pitt or The Rock and a bathtub full of Jell-O, I daydream about hitting it big as a writer. Book tours! Interviews! Swanky cocktail parties!…
Janet Alcorn
Suspense | Horror | Romance
