Help!

Hi kids! I don't know if anyone is checking in, to see if anything new is going on here, so I'm taking a chance. Would anyone be wiling to do crits on my MS? I'd really like to start submitting it soon, and the more feedback I can get, the better. If you'd be interested, leave a comment here, or drop me an e-mail, and I'll forward it along to you (at least the first chapter or two, which I've been polishing up the past 2 weeks or so).

Thanks everyone!

Writting Assignment...

I have decided to start us all on an assignment to get things rolling again. Okay here is what we are going to do. Over the course of the week I would like everyone to people watch. Pick one person to observe for a brief moment...not too long or they will think you are weird. Then after you watch that person come up with a short story line for them. At the end of the week you should have at least 5 mini characters.

Post a short description of your character story. For instance where that woman in the car next to you is going...is she meeting her secret lover? Or perhaps she is on her way to a job interview. and she needs this job to prove to her parents that she can survive on her own, or she is a single mom (whatever you come up with)...Where are they going, or how did they end up where you at the moment you are there?

K ready set go!!!!
~Charity

P.S. Don't forget to look away if they see you watchin them....LOL

CHECK IN

It's been a while.

I know.



If you too have new visions of writing greatness for the new year and want to keep this blog up, check in by responding to this post and I'll leave it up.

If not, I was thinking of deleting it.

What say you?

Wrong post, right place

Hey Everyone! As you can see, I, once again, posted to this blog instead of my own. I thought I had gotten over that! Must be the excitement about NaNoWriMo! I left a comment in the post from wanaki, but let me just say, I so totally believe in synchronicity! I was blogging about my first 150 words for NAno, posted here, and found out that some of you are doing it too! Hooray!

Anyway, sorry about the long previous post! Good luck to everyone!

I'm writing a novel...what's your excuse?

OK folks. It's November. Not only is it my birthday month (hooray! I'm still excited, and I'm closing in on 40. Check back in 4 years for an excitement level update...), it is the month of lunacy, of dreams and words and chest pains and writing averted...It is National Novel Writing Month! And, yes, I am participating. There. I've said it. Put it in writing. Have to do it now! Of course, I have given myself the caveat that if I don't reach 50,000, that's ok. I must write more than 150. Hey! I just did that!

Truly, while I neglected my poor, recovering from an unnamed virus son, left him in the less-than-capable hands of X-Box and Spongebob, I wrote 150 words. Of course, I stopped every few seconds to assure him, "Yes! I will cut you a piece of cake." "No. Two bites is not enough of an apple to have cake." "You knocked a guy's head off? That's great!" "Spongebob forgot how to make crabby patties? That's terrible!" "Yes. I will get your cake!"

As I sit gazing into my son's earnest hazel eyes, cake spatula that he just brought me planted firmly on the table in front of my computer, I wonder...Is it worth it? What will I gain from writing a novel in a month? Will my children need me? Just how many words can I hope to produce? How many episodes of Spongebob will my son watch? How many Go-Gurts can I let my one-year-old daughter wander around the house with? Can I really be as selfish as my college writing professor who threatened her children that only if there is blood, actual blood (or fire), are they to disturb her while she is writing?

Not sure. What follows are my 150 words. I'm quite proud of them. The baby just woke up from her nap and we're off to eat cake.

My First 150...

The birds woke me up again today. It’s not what you think, the chirp and twitter of robins and chickadees singing the sun up. It’s not the raucous cawing of crows three times the size of my black cat. It’s the smell. Every morning, windows up or windows down, I can smell the birds. I smell flight. Smell the dust and tiny pieces of down falling silently from beneath their wings as the tufted tit mice, and yes, the chickadees, rise to the feeder. Smell the fresh earth scent of sunflower seeds and oily blackness of thistle as the birds eat their breakfast, prepare for a day of flitting and flying, sailing alone and in pairs around my neighborhood and beyond. It is the beyond that wakes me. The strange and alluring scent of the unfamiliar, wafting from the birds’ wings that pulls me from my own dreams of flight.

Hello Strangers!

Hey all! I see everyone has been raring to go and write lately! Heh. Just thought I'd pop in and say hello and see how you're all doing. Well, I hope. Maybe since no one has been on here in a while it means you've all been off your asses and writing. I'll be the first to admit that I have been slacking big time. But that's all about to change next week. I'm going to try NaNoWriMo. Anyone else doing it this year? Anyone else tried it in the past? If you did, or if you are, would anyone want to start a little support group? Just something informal, to give each other a little encouragement and to see how everyone is doing with their daily goals, etc.

Anywho, just a thought. Have a great day!!

Daddy's Little Girl

As much as I hate to say it, the story was 100% true. I was talking about my father. There's a lot more to the story. Lots of little things that he did or didn't do for my brother and I.

I haven't spoken to my father in three and a half years. Apparently he's much happier in his new life, without us.

ForF (see I said I would participate)

It was a dark and stormy night...no seriously it was, and he was leaving. He thought I was upset because he was going out of country, but I was actually happy...you see I was afraid of him. I always thought I could handle myself in any situation...a guy tries to touch me? Knock him out. But a boyfriend that is much bigger than I am chokes me, and there is nothing I feel I can do but be very very nice, and hope that the day he leaves will be the last I ever see of him.

A couple of weeks after he left, I became closer with a guy that I had, had a crush on for almost a year. He was magnificent! Handsome, strong, and a bit cocky, but what soldier isn't? He swept me off my feet and after our first date my heart was his. He too left about a month after we started dating. He was going to another duty station and I just knew this would be the last time that I would see him. There would be a few phone calls, maybe a letter or two, but the realtionship was over.

Three days after he left I was still heartbroken. I know three days isn't a long time, but usually I am able to bounch right back after a relationship. It was a Friday night and he called to tell me that he was coming back for the weekend. He was at jump school about 3 hours from where I was. I can't even begin to explain the butterflies that were flying around inside of me. The weather was horrible and I was afraid the roads were bad because of a tornodo that was chasing him, and all I could do was wait.

I had gotten a hotel room, and around 3am he finally showed up. The cologne he wore brought back all the feelings I had been haivng over the course of the month we had together. What was I thinking being with him all over again, knowing that at the end of this weekend I would have to say good-bye again.

We went out to the lake with some friends, and then went over to those friend's apartment. We all sat around watching a movie and joking around. I stood over by the door looking out as it started to rain again, and he came up behind me and whispered in my ear, " you know I love you right?" I turned around to give him a hug, and then he dropped down on his knee and pulled out a ring, and not just any ring. It was the ring that I had looked at a couple weeks previously when we had been walking through the mall. He had been planning this!

I know what you are thinking...they had only been dating for how long? They were only 19? I accepted and I spent the rest of the weekend looking at my ring. Sunday morning he went back to jump school, and this good-bye was harder than the first.

I didn't see him again until after he graduated from jump school. It was only a weekend he could spend with me before he had to report to his new duty station in North Carolina. I would still be stuck in Georgia until my medical discharge could be processed.

I went to work the next morning, and on my way I felt a shiver run up my spine. As I walked through the office door, I turned around. Driving by was a very familiar car...he was back. He pulled into the parking lot and started to come towards the door. I hadn't talked to him since I first started dating my fiance. He had been having me followed. I told him to stop, and that we were no longer together. As he walked towards me I felt the power he had held over me start to come back. I glanced down at the ring, and all the things it represented gave me strength. He stopped in front of me.

"I hear you have been busy since I have been gone." He stared down at me...had I mentioned he stood at six feet six?

"I am getting married. He is really great, I hope that one day you find happiness." I started to walk away and he grabbed my arm.

"You were mine."

"I was for a time, but you and I both know it wouldn't have lasted much longer...I am stronger than that." I pulled my arm away and walked into the office releasing a sigh of relief. He didn't follow me, and I haven't seen him since.

My wedding was in September, and we were able to see each other about once a month until I was finally discharged. Today I still get that feeling of anticipation when he comes through the door after work, and I know that no matter what he is my strength, and I can always count on him to come through the storm.