Saturday, July 17, 2010

Of Bums and Blogs

Many thanks to Tiffany J., who created a website for Light Beneath Ferns. She's a really talented, artistic teen who has much more patience and timeliness than I do - not to mention technical ability. More on Tiffany when she gets her own website up and going (sorry T.J.J. -just a slight push there)

And here's another kitten picture I really like. We should probably stop calling them "the kittens" at this point, since they just turned a year, but they may be stuck with that name in the way BabyCat is now two or three years old and still BabyCat. (She was feral so the shelter couldn't be exactly sure of her age)

I have been a total blog bum, sort of like the kitten picture, and a bum in many other ways for the past couple of weeks. I went down to Long Island for a few days and left Dad in charge of the kids. I left food in the fridge, the kind made with simmering and vegetables and seasonings, but they ordered pizza both nights.

The rest of the time I've been cleaning out a scarily crowded basement, working in the herb garden and figuring out what I want to write/work on next. I haven't been around the Internet at all, but I'm sort of back now in the way anyone can be back on a computer during nice weather.

I have to thank Jemi for the The Versatile Blogger Award which she awarded me back in...maybe June? It's been awhile. In any event, the rules are:

1. Thank the folks and link them
2. Share 7 things about yourself
3. Pass along to 15 bloggers
4. Comment on their blogs to tell them of the award

But since it's summer, and half of the bloggers I read regularly are on a temporary hiatus, if you read this blog, consider yourself nominated. That's the great thing about blogs; you can bend the rules into circles. Ok, so seven things about myself:

1. I almost never watch t.v. It makes me a total misfit (that's right, just that, and nothing else) I don't know anything about those sexual selection shows or any of the plots of the medical dramas. It just bores me.

2. When I do watch tv, the kids run from the room because I like to watch weirdomentraries like: The Boy With Three Ears or The Woman With the Ninety Pound Tumor. It's kind of a weapon: "Ew, Mom's watching TV!!!! It's another of those medical nightmares!"

3. I could be a bum. Very easily. I have no work ethic. Maybe that's why I like cats so much. Their occupation is preening between naps. That sounds pretty much ok to me. And a little bit, it describes a fair amount of my adolescence.

4. Speaking of cats, I get really scared when I think about the kids leaving and look around at the amount of books and cats I already have in my middle age. My fear is turning into one of those grotesques in Charles Dickens who lives with too much dust, too many memories and way, way too many cats. I mean, I'm sort of there now...

5. I can't stand writers who take themselves oh so seriously. You know, the kind who meet you and give you an autographed bookmark five seconds after saying their names and launch into a long explanation of their latest plot struggles. They seem so angsty and pained by writing it makes me wonder why they do it at all.

6. When I can't sleep, I look at real estate on the Internet. Not local real estate or anything I could buy. I go on tons of virtual tours. Last night, I was all over Rhode Island.

7. When I write, I have at least two full time stories going. I work on one or the other depending on my mood and my latest ideas. Other writers tell me this is a very, very strange way of getting anything done. So I never tell them that I often choose between three simultaneous stories. There have to be others who write like this.

And that's it, for now. If you've read this, you have my nomination to do one of these. Since mostly writerly types stop by here, I can vouch for their versatility.

13 comments:

K.C. Shaw said...

I feel like a cat today, lazy and inclined to sleep. Your kittens are so adorable and fluffy!

My mom goes on virtual real estate tours online too. I don't know how she manages to fit them in between watching House Hunters episodes, though.

Anne Spollen said...

Hot weather makes me feel feline also - nap and bath weather. Yea, the kittens are really, really cute.

I'm not sure what it is about those virtual tours - escape? seeing houses without cat condos and giant sized teen sneakers all over the floors? But I keep going back...

Kells said...

Can I spend the summer at your house, Anne? I want to come work in the herb garden, play with the kittens, hang around with teenagers and write great novels. Wait, no -- do I want to BE you? I think so...thanks again for helping me the other night.

Kelly : )))))

Anne Spollen said...

You're welcome, Kells!

But you forget: the endless laundry, all the pet poop,
the cooking, the teen angst in the middle of the night, the weeds in the garden...but thanks.

Good luck on the novella -- let me know how it goes.

Carolina M. Valdez Schneider said...

My dear, I think we'd get on famously. Except I don't have a single cat. I will have to live vicariously through you. But I have plenty of dust, and I have no idea what to do with people who take themselves so seriously either. Perhaps they need a cat and a little dust to lighten up.

(congrats on your award!)

Anne Spollen said...

Carolina, maybe better yet when one of the kitties comes blinking sleepily from a nap under the sofa with dust on her whiskers. That would loosen them up.

Thanks for stopping by!

Anonymous said...

I'll check out your website.

My cats are four years old and I still call them "tiny ones."

I'm surprised at your #3. I judged from your blog that you were industrious. But then again, I take a lot of naps. I don't know how I get things done.

Anne Spollen said...

I think the kittens will forever be "the kittens" so I understand your tiny ones, Medeia.

Hope you like the website. I like "teen made" tech -- and I meant by #3 that I don't need a job, like teaching. I could write and hang out with my kids and be utterly happy.

Anonymous said...

Yes, I liked it a lot. Teens are so handy with tech stuff. I am too, but sometimes it's nice to put things in their hands. I have Light Beneath Ferns and can't wait to read it.

Nora MacFarlane said...

I love the cover of your book. Beautiful! The website is well done, too.

Anne Spollen said...

Hope you like LBF, Medeia. It's for a younger reader than Shape of Water. And yeah, it is nice to let them share the stories you write with teens.

Thanks, Nora! Flux has some really great covers on their books and the website is completely teen made - they even took the photo of me for the website.

Mary Witzl said...

Except for your numbers 3 and 6, this is ME. I always have several stories going at once -- both very intensely -- and I can't even take myself seriously (or rather, I do, but I don't want anybody to see this because I sound like a ninny when I talk about my plots and ideas). But I could never be a cat: the diet would kill me, and I like yoga stretches, but if I'm honest with myself, I can't really climb trees or leap from perch to perch.

I love those kittens. Last year, we had a cat we called Baby because nothing else stuck. Her new people still call her Baby and she's a good-sized cat by now.

Anne Spollen said...

I think I may be wrong about #3 - everyone who knows me and read this tells me I am a hard worker who doesn't do a whole lot of sitting. Maybe I should rephrase it to "I am happy being home with the kids and working really hard on writing. I sort of don't need a job-job to feel fulfilled."

Yes, I knew there were other folks who didn't work on just one story at a time. So what if you actually get it done - it's so much more interesting to be at work on a few, right?