Still Waiting, & a Twist

Still waiting for the Storm. Since it's taking a bit longer to get here, I'll be out to do another police of the ranch today.

Meanwhile, I don't recall where I saw the idea, but do recall it being somewhere on LJ here. Just a little nudge for an idea source, actually, for some creativity. First a brief aside:

Once long ago I organized a very informal workshop for friends interested in writing. We did this once a year for about three-four years. Most of us were interested in either or both science fiction or fantasy, and all of us had done some writing, though no one had been published. In fact, I'm not sure any of us ever did get published, at least not in that genre. I guess I can claim I've been published, but that's for another time.

One of those years, someone posted exerpts from insurance reports at work, one to two liners which, taken out of context, were pretty hilarious. The one I recall well was, "I looked at my mother-in-law and drove the car into the river."

I transcribed that list so that each line was on a 3 by 5 card, the cards went into a box, and each participant drew a card. That line needed to appear in what would be the opening paragraph to a short story or novella. We did three rounds on this, so after the first paragraph was done, the cards went back into the box, and we drew again.

The purpose of the exercise, then, was to take something which sounded (in 'reality' whatever that is) very odd, and work it into something that would be feasible. Spark the creative process by bouncing off the proverbial wall.

Somewhere in my surfing through LJ, I crossed a comment that instructed people to take the subject lines from Spam e-mails, and use that as the same creative process spark: make that image real.

So, of course, I've started a file...

Up Date

Frances cleared the Bahamas and did exactly what we expected it to do; stalled right over the Gulf Stream. The eye is reforming, and it is slowly strengthening. This is a really big storm; it need not be super strong to be nasty to us. It doesn't even need to pass over us, and we'd still get a lot of water out of it. As it stands, it is coming our way, and slowly. We're going to get good and wet.

All the livestock water troughs are full. All the chicken water jugs are topped off as well. Our Really Big Cooler is full of water for birds as well as two other plastic bins formerly used for recycling. Their change of occupation from recycling bins occurred this morning when we unloaded them and while I ran the last of the trash out to the dump & recycling area. It's not just trying to keep fresh water for them, the mass keeps them from blowing away.

We're still cleaning out some recently used two-liter jugs and filling them up; keeps us from being bored. Right now we're looking at about two weeks worth of cooking and drinking water on hand. This is up from what we normally keep on hand, but not by a huge amount. Living out on a rural electric co-operative, the power is known to go out during any bad storm.

It's the pace of progress that has me most concerned. This storm is going to pound us for a while. Charlie tore up the length of the peninsula in around 12 hours; it's speed of progress is one reason it was still a category one storm when it left the east coast and headed out over the Gulf Stream. Frances may loose strength after making landfall (then again, may not), but it's going to be around for a bit.

OK, Phyne!

Thank you, teiwazlaguz  & marjai ! How very timely, and exactly what I need right now. Yeah, Right.

Ran that Element meme. Guess what?

You are water. You're not really organic; you're neither acidic nor basic, yet you're an acid and a base at the same time. You're strong willed and opinionated, but relaxed and ready to flow. So while you often seem worthless, without you, everything would just not work. People should definitely drink more of you every day.

No offence, but I don't think I'll leave the link to the quiz here today. :-)