Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Tracking the story


Just because I want to see Andif's photo of the path again. I hope I can follow it today to the end of a new short story.

51 comments:

Nancy P said...

And by "today" I mean Thursday, which it isn't yet.

Pooped. G'night, sweet princes and princesses.

Larry Kollar said...

Yeah, I'm kinda stuck in the middle of a short story. A couple of them, actually. Up too late now though, I'll whine about it in the morning. :-)

Rick Bylina said...

Looks like the path least taken to me. Just fine. Awkward segue here. I've got another idea for some thriller writer to steal up on my blog. Take it. I want to read it in a year or two.

-rick
http://muse-needed.blogspot.com/

AndiF said...

Right now (well, not this "right now" because it's too cold but in recent memory), you would get a nice reward for making the journey down that path: frost flowers.

Anonymous said...

Morning, andi! I've never seen anything like that. Is it really a frozen flower? Or something else? As with all of your work, it's stunningly beautiful. Thanks for sharing!

Anonymous said...

And good luck on your short stories, everyone. Don't know if I'll ever figure that particular art out.

GhostFolk.com said...

Yesterday's news, sorry. My personal routine is up in the moring, work like a dog, quit as soon as possible and/or distracted.

Jen, I will wash your car for homemade halupkis. In my silly go-nowhere-really travels, I dscovered halupkis at a doofus taco-stand trailer thingy at an outdoor flea market in Brimfield Mass.

I was in love. And these were, everyone told me, the crummy ones.
Good enough. Comfort foods, I am told, are supposed to be foods from your childhood, family hearth etc. Nope, halupkis is/are the world's comfort food.

Far, my step-daughter Great Dane followed ants on the sidewalk, nose one-inch from the concrete. She also had a pet toad. The thing showed up at her outdoor food dish (slobbery dogs' food dishes are best kept on the deck).
We just got used to seeing it there.

She'd push it with her nose, jump back and almost fall down, then settle in, lie down and just watch the thing. It watched her back.

I don't know and hadn't considered, though, whether it was a Kansas City lick-me frog.

Andif, No! Is that really a frost flower? Frost on a leaf?

GhostFolk.com said...

This is An Apology. I read this blog, and others, as a blog, at the blog page. A small devil named sparks sits on one shoulder and tells me it's okay to respond to comments.

I thought everyone looked at blogs the way I do. I figured when I posted an inane comment, you could just pass over it and move right to a more sensible one. Someone pointed out to me last night that many people when they sign up for a blog receive follow-up comments as email.

I am so sorry I have stuck such inane things in your email, kind friends and gentle foes. I have looked at blogs from both sides now and promise to try to make sense and to be less rude. I really don't know blogs at all....

Anonymous said...

You always make sense and are never rude, ghost. If folks sign up for follow-up comments, then they're responsible for anything that shows up in their mailbox.

Sparks is right.

Don't stop being you!

AndiF said...

Hi Beth (btw, yes I do sleep but not much) and Ghost.

Here's a good explanation of frost flowers.

I'm glad you like them -- because I've got a bunch more I'm saving up to post during the blah days of late fall.

GhostFolk.com said...

Thanks for your comments, Beth.

As for You always make sense, though....

Uh, Nancy, tell her. One of my more famous rejections (from a super nice editor btw, Ed Gorman) said simply "If you want to send me something coherent, I'd be happy to publish it."

I used to carry that one around with me.

Frost Flowers are entirely new to me, Andif. What a dandy little miracle they are.

Anonymous said...

Thanks andi! I've never heard of them. We didn't have them in the forests of Washington. Very cool. And beautiful!

Anonymous said...

LOL, ghost. Okay, maybe "always" is too strong a term.

Then again, maybe my understanding you is a reflection on me...hmmm...

Anonymous said...

Is anyone else receiving comments from Blogger? I'm not getting them again today.

Or does Blogger just hate me (sob)?

GhostFolk.com said...

Hey, Far, there is a close tie to Michigan and the Southern working man. Deetroit City and all. Maybe wokring in the auto plants is where my hillbilly kin learned about sardines.

GhostFolk.com said...

So, Nancy, what are you not writing today? :-)

Family Man said...

Morning Nancy and all.

Very busy here this morning.

Ghost don't you change a bit. It's up to people if they want to get email messages for comments. I don't remember at the moment how to turn them off, but it can be done.

Beth I haven't had any trouble with receiving comments on blogger lately, but it does happen from time to time.

katiebird said...

The question is, can you get the email-comments without MAKING a comment first......

(professional lurker)

Rick Bylina said...

Frost flower...way cool.

Anonymous said...

Apparently not, kb. Or at least I haven't figured out how to.

I tried to find a place to tell Blogger I'm having problems, but they don't have a "contact us" link. Grrr! I guess I'll just have to go back to checking regularly, like I did in the olden days.

Sigh.

Jen said...

Aw, Ghost, no need to trade labor, I'm always happy to share halupkis. :)

Beth, fwiw I haven't been getting any emailed comments since day before yesterday. Sometimes the system just goes wonky a bit. [insert clever ghost in the machine joke here] It usually clears up in a few days, ime.

Re: short stories, I finally finished a draft of a short fiction piece I've been working on for an absolutely ridiculous length of time. (It's much darker than the one fiction thing I've posted at my blog.) The fork in the path that led to the pot of gold turned out to be merging two totally different versions of the story together. Hooray!

Larry Kollar said...

Hey all. Lemme grab a bagel and some coffee. I see the bacon isn't done yet though.

Ghost, no probs with the comments. I don't check the "email follow-up" box myself, but I know I'll come back here later to see what's going on. Here's my own Great Dane story: we had a paper route when I was in high school, and one of our customers got a GD puppy. He was a real sweetie, and we'd take a few minutes to play with him during our route. He went inside over the winter. One spring day, we came to collect the bill, and my knock was answered by "ROO ROO ROO!!!" and this tank came barreling through the living room and plastered itself against the flimsy screen door. He was looking *down* at me at that point. Then he got a sniff and he was "oh hey, you're my buddy!"

Andi, we get much smaller versions of those frost flowers on this planet, usually covering shaded banks with white fuzz.

Nancy P said...

Coffee! I'm not alive yet. Pretend you didn't see me. I'll get a cup and shuffle out again.

Ghost, change nothing!

Nancy P said...

Email problem. . .I found out that others are having the problem, too. I hope it gets fixed soon! Ghost, maybe you scared it when you threatened to behave yourself. It said to itself, "If I can't forward Ghostfolk's comments, I ain't sending anybody's."

http://groups.google.com/group/blogger-help-troubleshoot/browse_thread/thread/c22c9b3ee30bc54f#9fcc15c96a0009e6

Larry Kollar said...

Oh hey guys, check this out. Carnacki has an interview with Kimberly Steele up. I can sorely relate to her comment: "What it comes down to is that I simply do not have the time to chase down prospective publishers and agents. Creativity is for me the only effective anti-depressant. Life for me is very unpleasant without it."

As can be gathered from the above comment, she has self-published her book, Forever Fifteen as an audiobook on iTunes and on her website.

Kelly McCullough said...

Wanted to cleverly link Jen's ghost in the machine joke with Ghost's talk of reducing his comment load (don't you dare, by the way) but I'm insufficiently caffeinated to make it work. Sigh.

Scottish Breakfast this morning and a bad case of the groggies.

Fab pic, Andi.

Unfinished Short. In a quick glance at the in-progress folder I count something between 50 and 60 shorts. This exclude the stuff that's been moved from in-progress to mostly-dead.

Speaking of in-progress...TTFN

GhostFolk.com said...

The fork in the path that led to the pot of gold turned out to be merging two totally different versions of the story together. Hooray!

Brave, brave writer, Jen. Hooray indeed!

GhostFolk.com said...

"What it comes down to is that I simply do not have the time to chase down prospective publishers and agents."

Yup. Nail on the head, for sure. Two different worlds, really. Two different jobs. And it's very very hard to be good at both.

Nancy P said...

Slightly alive.

Andi,I ditto everybody else's comments about the frost flowers. They remind me of something edible--oh, I know! Those fish-flavored white "crackers" at Asian restaurants. I don't know what they're called. And I'm so sorry that everything I say this week relates to food!

Nancy P said...

Ghost,today I am not writing anything in my alleged novel. I AM finishing a ss. This is akin to planting a flower in a pot while the yard goes to hell.

Anonymous said...

It's still a novel, Nancy. It's just not any longer than it was yesterday. When you're ready to get to it, you will.

And I'm starving. You need to change the title of this blog to "Ah, Sweet Mystery of Food We Shouldn't Eat."

And thanks for the info re comments. Guess Blogger is f-ed up. I'll stop whining.

Larry Kollar said...

"Alleged novel." *chuckle*

I AM finishing a ss. This is akin to planting a flower in a pot while the yard goes to hell.

At least you're finishing it. I'm still stuck on the conflict part of mine. My first thought has been done to death (protag, more or less single-handedly, saves the village from raiders). I should be able to imagine something a little more original, but my Idea Gun is shooting blanks. Or jammed.

So not only is the yard going to hell, I'm staring at a broken pot, potting soil all over the floor, holding this flower and trying to figure out where to stuff it. :-P

Kelly McCullough said...

Apparently I've got an "s" deficit going this morning. Please take this batch sss and insert them in the appropriate places in the original post.

Kelly McCullough said...

BTW, the tone on my earlier comment about shorts would best be described as rueful. I count that stack of unfinished shorts as a failure of not insignificant proportion.

Nancy P said...

Poor far. :) It's a terrible thing when the yard looks like hell AND the flower pot breaks. At least you saved the flower. Stick it in a glass of water, fast. Or possibly vodka. Or put it in your lapel and call it finished.

Nancy P said...

Back from breakfast with my son, so I'm slightly more human now. Or maybe you guys should be the judge of that.

I'm on my way to see if I want to steal your idea, Rick.

Beth? Did you see Jen's recipe for meatloaf in the previous post?

Kelly, we alwayss undersstand you, even with missssing ssss'ssss.

far, I love the raw bacon photo.

Beth, lol.

Family Man, have you chromed your house yet as far suggested? You Trend Setter, you.

GhostFolk.com said...

This is akin to planting a flower in a pot while the yard goes to hell.

And aint that flower beautiful!

Family Man said...

Hey Nancy I haven't chromed it yet, but it's such a good idea. When it's 100+ down here during the summer, I'd much rather have something that reflected the heat, than absorbed it. Then again, if the reflected heat got too concentrated, I might burn down the neighborhood. :)

Anonymous said...

Thanks, Nancy, I didn't see it. I just emailed it to myself. And thanks, Jen, for the recipe!

It's not an "if," Nancy. I'll definitely be there the first of April sometime. Unless I die first, in which case ghost might have to help me get there. You think I'm going to miss chocolate malts and onion rings?

Oh, and the chance to meet you and kb in person, of course! :-)

Nancy P said...

Beth, that's great!! A perfect time to come, from my pov, cause I don't have anything else on the calendar except for (maybe) a luncheon gig on the 2nd of April. I think katiebird has a very important event happening a little later that month, so we can celebrate earlier. I will say no more.

Family Man, you'll be easy to spot from space. :)

Anonymous said...

Hey, I got a comment! Granted, it went to my spam folder, but at least one showed up.

Yay, Nancy! We'll plan on it all. I can't wait.

GhostFolk.com said...

I think katiebird has a very important event happening a little later that month...

No kidding! Wow. Congrats to you, Katiebird! And to the happy father!

Nancy P said...

You are SUCH a bad boy, ghost. :)

Blogger officially says they've fixed the email prob. They didn't say what happened.

Larry Kollar said...

KB, just remind me of the day. I will hoist as many cold ones in your direction as either of us can manage!

Nancy P said...

Kb is working really hard right now--until midnight last night, I heard. Kb, if you see this--we miss you! Tell those slave drivers to give you a break. A blog break, of course.

boran2 said...

Good luck with that story, Nancy!

katiebird said...

(love those email notices!)

Hugs to everyone & THANKS! You can be sure that you'll hear ALL about it as soon as I'm able to blab....

Here's the page that kept me up 'till midnight the other night. It took forever for me to get that slideshow configured.

Weird, it doesn't look hard now that it's done.

I'm so glad the email notifications are back. It's almost impossible to Lurk Successfully without it.

I THINK there's a law somewhere that if someone notices you are busier than you can stand....

They give you just one "quick thing" to do.

Andi, I LOVE the frost-flower. I've never seen one before.

Nancy P said...

Katieb, what a wonderful slide show!

Nancy P said...

Thanks, b2. I made good progress, even if not to the end. But the night's young. :)

boran2 said...

Nancy, Perhaps you'll need to do an allnighter. ;-)

katiebird said...

Aw, shucks...

:)