Down to the Wire

I've only got a few days left in the NaNoWriMo challenge. I have become a little mentally unhinged, but I am almost there. Just a little less that 4,000 words to write. I can do it! And once I have completed the challenge, I can go back and find out if any of what I've written makes any sense at all. If it does, I begin the process of editing.

In the middle of all of this chaos, I took some time yesterday afternoon to meet with three old schoolmates  I haven't seen in 35 years. We reunited on Facebook a couple of months ago and had a great time catching up. Going from 18 to 53 and getting used to how we looked to each other was quite a trip! I haven't laughed so much in a long long time. Thanks Jane, Briggs and Annie for a wonderful afternoon.

Local Woman Receives Visit from King

(c) 2005 by Laurie Kay Olson

(From the Succotash County Times, August 23, 1987)

Well, I’d been cannin’ my bread an’ butter pickles all mornin’

An’ it was getting’ so hot in the kitchen I was sweatin’ like

An ice cream freezer at the Independence Day picnic an’ crawdad cook-off.

So I took me a break an’ went out on the front porch to catch a cool breeze

An’ put up my tired feet, an’ drink a glass or two o’ lemonade.

I’d no more ‘n’ got to feelin’ like my ol’ self again when this man walks up.

He had black hair an’ sunglasses on so’s I couldn’t see what he looked like

But he said the lemonade looked mighty refreshin’ an’ could he have a glass.

I said sure thing an’ he sat down on the chair acrost from me.

I introduced myself as I was pourin’ him a tall glass an’ refillin’ mine.

When he sipped at his glass he told me that his name was Elvis Aaron Presley.

Well, I thought my jaw was gonna drop clean through to China.

Just to prove it he took off his glasses an’ laid ‘em on the table.

Shore enough, I’d know those baby blue eyes enywheres.

An’ my heart gave that funny little kerflop just like it used to

Back when he was alive an’ kickin’ an’ singin’ up a storm.

I sez to him “Elivis, hon’, you’re supposed to be dead an’ gone!

What’re you doin’ walkin’ ‘round like this an’ scarin’ folks half to death?”

Then he says that he surely was well dead an’ buried at Graceland,

But he has a whole heap o’ unfinished business before he can move on.

So I ask him what’s keepin’ him here instead o’ with the Good Lord.

An’ he tells me he needed to let Priscilla know that he really did love her,

An’ that Lisa Marie was the pride o’ his whole life,

An’ he wanted her to know how sorry he was about her an’ Michael Jackson

An’ their break-up. Not ‘cause he was black or nothin’

But ‘cause show business, with all that attention an’ money.

Makes it extra hard to make a marriage work out.

He also said that for awhile he’d been on a campaign

To get people to stop singin’ “Happy Birthday” like they was a choir o’ mice

Or a pond o’ bull frogs rather than just plain folks.

But that didn’t work out too well since it seemed that the song

Was always started out by the most tone-deaf person there.

I can tell you, Elvis Presley is just one o’ the finest boys ever!

We talked for an hour an’ more, an’ he thanked me for the lemonade

I fixed him up a peanut butter an’ banana sandwich

An’ packed him another one for the road

‘Cause he said he was meetin’ Jack Kennedy an’ the Big Bopper

At a convenience store in Jonesboro that evenin’.

I waved good-bye an’ wisht him well as he took off

He turned back an’ told me he’d by me a big purple Cadillac

Next time he found himself out an’ around these parts.

Wasn’t that just like him all over? So generous an’ all?

I wasn’t until he’d been gone a good twenty minutes or so

That I hadn’t gotten a autograph or a photo or anythin’.

But he had sung me a couple choruses o’ Hound Dog an’ Viva Las Vegas

It’s somethin’ I’ll remember and cherish clean into the next world.

Saturday at Last

Writing a novel in one month is more physically exhausting than I have ever thought it would be. But it can be quite mentally energizing. However, my characters are starting to do things that I hadn't planned. That keeps throwing me off and I have to regroup and re-plan. My main character went and started to fall in love the other night and I hadn't see that coming at all. Especially since the character she is falling for is a bit of a jackass. So I've had to incorporate that into the overall story line. But it's not a bad thing. It's going to add some tension and drama that the overall story really needed. Once they start showing some interest in each other a crisis will hit sending them in different directions. Then the other characters will work to bring them back together. And now it is Saturday at last. I can write until I'm numb. No waiting for the work day to be over so that I can squeeze in a couple of hours. I'm only a little more than one-third of the way through the November goal and the month is more than half gone. Fortunately a four-day weekend coming up should help me make my way around that. So off I go!

Tired, Tired, Tired

Okay, this writing project is kicking my ass. More than halfway through the month and I am only a quarter of the way through the book. I lost the zeal I had yesterday. Even though I found a bunch of notes last night and another page of notes again today. The notes I really want to find remain elusive. In chatting with other authors on FB I'm finding that my book is truly different from what everyone else is writing. I hope that is a good thing. A couple of people have indicated that they would really like to read my book when they find out that the title is Tales From the Succotash County Times. I live on these tidbits of hope right now.

Last night I had a tough time winding down when I went to bed. The whole of Succotash County was still partying away in there. Still, this is what I wanted in my life. I made the decision when I was 8 years old and I'm sticking with it. The scary part is that I already have 3 sequels planned. A fellow writer has offered to load up a potato gun and shoot me. Death by my favorite food. I knew it was bound to get me one way or the other.

Well here's hoping that I won't be a stereotypically gloomy writer tomorrow. After all, it's nearly Friday. And next week is a short week. See, I'm feeling better already!

Racing with Nanos

So today I joined a new Face Book Group of people who are doing the NaNoWriMo challenge and trying to write a book by the end of the month. I am finding it to be a great tool already. The people in the group challenge each other with word sprints and word wars. I won my first war by 2 minutes earlier. Typing my fingers off I did 1,000 words in 31 minutes. Then I did a sprint. That netted me another 750 words. So that really got me moving on the book. Today I managed "Local Man Charged with Battery," "Local Man Makes French Toast," and got a dandy start on "Local Woman has Breakdown." After this I am beginning to feel a bit more optimistic about having a shot at making it by the end of the month. Well, that and the four day weekend coming up next week when I can really hammer away at it. If anyone out there has a suggestion of a topic to add to the book, let me know. Remember, puns are perfect!

Local Woman Abducted

© 1998 by Laurie Kay Olson

I first saw it up yonder, in the back pasture it was,

Where ol’ Bessie likes to go to chew her cud an’ think.

I’d gone up to fetch her back to the cow barn,

An’ all of a sudden there was these bright lights.

They come up over ol’ Doug Miller’s place down the road,

But way back towards the creek, you know, where he keeps his still.

You could tell he’d been up to making a batch o’ his usual shine

‘Cause all the trees was leanin’ away from the clearing

Like they was tryin’ to catch a breath o’ fresh air.

Eny-who, I didn’t know what they hell them lights were.

At first I thought maybe some ATeeF agents with flashlights,

Or maybe ol’ Doug had gone an’ blowed up the still again.

But it kept a-movin’ across the sky, all slow an’ silent an’ all –

Like ol’ Mabel Shively after she’s been to the all-you-can-eat buf-fett

Over to the new shoppin’ mall. You know. The one next to the Piggly-Wiggly.

Well. I plum forgot all about Bessie an’ just stared I’m tellin’ you.

That thing was bigger ‘n’ life itself an’ twice as shiny.

Then it shot this big ol’ light out all over me –

Just like I was some Hollywood movie star sashaying my backside up a red carpet.

Then that light somehow nipped my right up inside that big ol’ You-Fo

Just as slick as a whistle at a dog callin’ contest.

Next thing I knowed I’m lyin’ flat out on this table

That was colder than Neptune’s nether bits

An’ these li’l fellas with big ol’ eyes just a pokin’ an’ a prodin’ me

Like I was the prize pig over to the county fair an’ they was the judges.

They was talkin’ some language that sounded more furrin’

Than them dang’fool Eye-raki’s on the tv news last night.

Don’t think I didn’t just up an’ give them a piece o’ my mind –

Takin’ me so sudden an’ all. It was like to give a body a heart attack.

It must’ve worked ‘cause all of a sudden I was back in the pasture

Lyin’ there lookin’ up at the sky like I didn’t have a thing to do in this world

With ol’ Bessie starin’ down at me an’ chewin’ on her cud.

It was the strangest thing that ever happened ‘round these parts.

‘Lessen you count the time that Camilla Marie Boyd  over to Taylor Holler

Found a tater in her garden in the shape o’ Mr. Conway Twitty.

After what I’ve been through I can tell you one thing I’ve learned –

You just never know what might be hidin’ in the back pasture these days.

Block and tackle

After having a fairly good writing session last night I am feeling blocked today. So I've decided to leave the bouncing baby Bubba for another time and tackle a different section of the book entirely. I think that will jump start things.

I sat down this morning with the intent to just tear right in. Instead I ended up scheduling a lot of poetry to be posted in my blog for the next three weeks. What's with all the poetry you ask? Okay, you probably didn't but I'm gonna tell you anyway. Many years ago, while still fairly green at the poetry game, I noticed how many poems Emily Dickinson had written in her lifetime (over 2,000) and made a commitment to myself that I was going to write at least as many, if not more. I am pleased to say that I am more than halfway there. And some of them are pretty decent too, if I do say so myself. Of course, there are some that are total dreck. But you can't find diamonds without digging through the dirt.And you can't make them shine without cutting. So I am always editing.

So now it is time for me to get away from the past and get back to the future. I'm thinking "Local Woman Wins Trip to Paradise." Oh, yeah!