Monday, September 1, 2008

Still kicking ... Me in my writer's hat

Where, oh where, did the past year and three months go?

It just ... went. Like a Kleenex snatched out the car window. It's been a busy year, including a return to fan fiction, (oh, joy, someone combined horror with classic rock, a classic car, and handsome spook hunters - catch "Supernatural" Thursday nights on The CW) raising and losing a beautiful new Border Collie pup, moving to a new house with acreage (renting), and working my freakin' arse off so's to support my new-found travel habit.

Yup, took a 6-day road trip to see my parents near Seattle last October, went to a fan convention in Orlando in April (EyeCon), went on an 8-day Moot/road trip to New Mexico and Arizona as my annual ladies' escape with friends, competed in some out of town sheepdog trials, and I'm fixing to go to another fan convention in September. The height of hurricane season. Pray for me. :-p

Work-wise, I clean dog kennels and sheep pens two days a week, help a friend work her horses, help another friend with odd jobs around her property, and pick up other under-the-table work, all involving labor and/or livestock, whenever the chance permits. It's cash, baby, and I'd rather work outside than in an office. :-) I don't fare well in captivity ...

With the loss of my beautiful 1-1/2 year old pup, Flynn, to accident in early May, my dog-training pals went together and got me a new pup. Nick is a completely different dog from joyful, elegant, grey-hound fast Flynn, but he's impeccably bred, smart to the point of scariness, wonderfully level-headed, and at only 4 months, I can tell he's going to be a helluva dog. I will mourn Flynn until time spins down, but Nick has filled my heart. Yes, I am blessed in friends.

This morning I awoke from the satisfying exhaustion of a weekend sheepdog trial, and discovered summer had momentarily given way to the sharp, clean bite of autumn. From mornings of 65 desert degrees, the mercury dropped to a startling 40. The day will warm, even here at 5800 feet among the pinion pines, but it reminds me that Fall is fast approaching. It's coming time to reorder my time. Less play, more work - and more writing. I'm giving myself September to finish playing hooky, but I've manuscripts in need of the knife and words in need of whittling. Time indeed to call the muses back from their summer among leaves and sunlight.

Until then ... to whomever should chance to read this ... may you find crisp apples and rosy tomatoes and thick green zucchini as your part of the harvest bounty, and watch you for the cheery faces of pumpkins among the vines. :-)

~ G. M. Atwater

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