The Doolies doesn't think I post often enough. She thinks my Horribles are holding me back, causing me to only post on the Tuesday and Thursday when it's time to dequeue. She's partly right.

What she's missing is that but for the need to post my slashes of color, I'm not sure I would post any words. Writing has not come easy to me of late. I spent much of Sunday proving that. I scribbled all morning and was left with only half of a nothing to show for it. I managed six short paragraphs of story.

I focused on advice from Chuck: do plot exercises. I've read enough books on writing to know what they entail. First you pick a goal. You start your character toward the goal. Then you throw an obstacle between the character and the goal. You watch as hilarity ensues. You repeat this on both the macro and micro levels. The macro level is the overarching goal. The micro levels are the small goals that move the character closer to that big goal.

I picked a goal and an obstacle, and I almost got to the obstacle, before I found myself pounding away on the same six paragraphs, editing in the hopes of saying something more profound (which, I can tell you, is very difficult when the story is about trolls).

It's a start. And here are words for the Doolies. I have lots of other words in secret places on teh internets, but it turns out the world is not ready to read those words. I tried to share them with acquaintances--the people I thought would appreciate my verbosity--but was yelled down by the frivolity of it all. Don't they know I'm nothing but frivol?

Seattle is beautiful still. The weather threatens to fall past the cliff this weekend. I'm hopefully they're wrong. They usually are when it suits them.