I mentioned in my last post that we had a houseguest. Tara’s cousin from Elko, Nevada, visited us for a few days. Like most of our first-time Wisconsin visitors, he was pleasantly surprised, and is already talking about a return trip someday.
I tell you, the Badger State has that effect on people.
I hadn’t seen Teran (a friend joked that his name is the past tense of Tara, but I think it sounds more like a verb, e.g., we’re Teran down the highway!) in four or five years – and even then, we only ever chatted briefly. He seemed like a nice enough guy, though I didn’t really know him. After a four-day visit, I can confirm that my first impression was accurate. He’s a cool dude, and I enjoyed hanging out with him, though Tara – who took the whole week off – did a lot more hanging than me.
But my hanging was quality hanging. Thursday night, we busted out Phase 10 for the first time in many years. Played cards, listened to records, drank adult beverages, ordered pizza. This is something I’d never do on a “school night,” but I took my first official CheeseGov vacation day on Friday, so I had no qualms about it. We spent pretty much all day Friday in Madison, showing off the city and taking Teran to some of our favorite spots: Atomic Antiques, Memorial Union Terrace, the capitol building, Camp Trippalindee, and – last but not least – the Great Dane. Needless to say, it was a full day, and Teran got the full cheese curd experience.
He left Saturday morning, so it was kind of a whirlwind visit, but four days hosting guests is just about perfect.*
*Unless said guests gave birth to you.
(Gotta add that disclaimer ’cause I don’t want to be left out of the will.)
After Teran left, I busted out the John Deere and cut the grass. First time all month, and it didn’t really need mowing, as the weather needle has been stuck on “warm and dry” for weeks, but I was tired of looking at all the fallen leaves covering the lawn. The JD made quick mulch out of those (though within an hour, newly fallen leaves had already taken their place – @#$%! circle of life). Unless the weather does a complete 180° and we are swamped with a deluge of epic proportions (unlikely), I’ll probably cut the grass one more time, once the trees are bare, before putting the lawn tractor away for the season.
The rest of the year is looking pretty low-key…at least for me; Tara’s planning a trip to Mexico with family in December. I’m okay with low-key. It was a very busy spring and summer, so it feels good not to have anything big looming on the horizon for a while.
Except possibly NaNoWriMo. I’ve been kicking around the idea of taking part this year, so I can finally get to work writing my sequel to No Time for Kings. It’s a huge commitment, but one that can pay off tremendously: I successfully completed NaNoWriMo in 2016, which enabled me to eventually publish Dream Sailors in serialized format on the Kindle Vella platform. One of my blogging friends has a mantra – “If not now, when?” – and, you know, she’s right. Left to my own devices, I might never be motivated to write that book. Life always gets in the way. NNWM would give me the kick in the pants I need.
But I refuse to force the issue. IF I participate in NNWM, I will need to have a very basic plot outline for Earth Fights Back. I refuse to write just to get words down on the page; I need some direction if I want this thing to turn out. That’s where I’m hung up at the moment. I have some ideas, but there are many possible directions, and I’m struggling to narrow them down and/or tie them together into a cohesive read. It’s been a long time since I’ve written fiction.
I’ll do some brainstorming this week and hope that inspiration comes a-knockin’.
Mark My Words 
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