Your Daily Digression: Self Help at its Zaniest

Need a little help being sillier? Is life a bunch of stern looks and red tape? Well I have the book for YOU! Or I will, a year from Christmas...

My Digressionista is a giraffe

See, I've had this idea for quite a while... know those calendars with a little inspirational quote every day? Something like THAT, but digressions... thinks or acts to make life a little more random, though not random in the mathematical sense, because all said, in a year of randomness, you are likely to end up with the same thing several times if it were truly random... random including some repetition and all... but I digress! (see how I did that)

*cough*

ANYWAY... with my other writing and my LIFE interferences (gads, I hate that) I've decided the only way I'm really going to get this written is if I write ONE digression each day. Then I will finish in a year, just in time to format and get it ready for Christmas (which means it needs to be a 2017 calendar, yes?

Giraffe-necked weevil. Not nearly so cute as a giraffe.

BUT... (this is the part where some of you might be able to help me) it's be really cool if there were some art, yes? Photos or drawings or ink blots or some combination of the above? And IS THERE anywhere to produce something like this Indie, or should I start bundling this as a proposal for some publishing company? Who does this sort of thing? (and if I'm going that way, should I be thinking about a 2020 calendar #commentaryonthespeedofpublishing

Anything anybody knows about anything like this would be amazingly helpful.


And the OTHER One.

So I should finish the final (of this round) spit polish of Also Appearing tomorrow...

Here's the pitch at its draftiest:

Leia Clarence feels like an extra in her own life. A bystander. A bit part. An “Also Appearing”. Her friends and older sister have social skills she can barely understand, let alone display. To compound matters, her parents are relegating her to a summer at the lake, away from her friends, with poor internet and cell phone connections and no way to keep track of the social scene back home. It's going to be the worst summer ever.

Until she meets a cute guy who lives at the lake year-round. Trey is mischievous, charming and hot. And the crazy thing is he seems to like her, too. Not her friends. Not her sister. Her. She isn't a shadow, but the focus of his attention and affections. For the first time ever she has a starring role in her own life. At least until something goes wrong.

Back at home she tries to recapture that feeling of mattering, of being somebody, but it seems easier to just numb the fact that she doesn't. Alcohol, drug experimentation, and a different sort of boy all fail. Is there anything Leia can do to grab back that leading role, or better yet, write the script for her own life?

Also Appearing, at 59,000 words, is a contemporary young adult novel about a girl's struggle to break expectations that her friends have and to find an identity that not only fits, but allows her to soar.


I would LOVE LOVE LOVE feedback on this, especially if this is a genre you read or write in. And IFF anyone is honestly interested, I am looking for a couple second round readers.

Dolphins, Digression, and Delirium

Though as an animagus, this would ROCK...

Delightful Dolphins

Back in my Harry Potter days when we used to discuss things in all seriousness, like what our Patroni (patronuses?) would be, or what animal we would change to if we were to be animagi, I frequently came to the Dolphin. Now admittedly, a dolphin would be a far more helpful Patronus than an animagus form... animagi being the animal you CHANGE INTO, and dolphins needing sea water... but as a Patronus, I think it's quite fitting. You see, I am a waterbaby and so having a waterborne protector... especially an animal so inclined to actually... you know PLAY PROTECTOR... well I fell in love with that idea... So I present to you, the dolphin...

Look how HAPPY they are!

Digressing...

If you're new around here, you may not know I look at Digression as religion... it is something that if I fail to attend to, I suddenly feel much less MYSELF. I have a Digressionista who is my spiritual guide... she is obsessed with giraffes. As for me, I typically am a llama girl, myself, but I've been known to digress in very diverse ways... Misattributing (my superpower) is a part of it, as is nakedness... hard to be obsessively focused if you're naked annallat... So if you are ever completely confused as to what I am trying to do here, with this blog... it might help to keep this in mind.

And it really wouldn't go amiss, since it is Naked Thursday, to urge all of you to consider the Naked World DOMINATION Movement... It is a future where we are all comfortable and nice because we are naked. *nods*

Delirium

I featured Susan Kaye Quinn recently with her new serial released Debt Collector series, but SINCE THEN, have managed to WIN IT!!! I'm very excited... I am jumping it ahead in my TBR pile (which is HUGE) so maybe at about Q I can give you a review... but for NOW... I will just shout YAY Delirium!!!


Don't forget to get around to the other A to Z bloggers!

Digressuary: You're Invited

Know how February is the worst month EVER?

You don't?

Well lemme e'splain...

Seems combining holidays would improve them greatly

Stupid Holidays

You know, I could probably forgive Groundhog's Day. Who DOESN'T love a rodent holiday? But it is followed fairly soon by EASTER and that darned bunny reminds us that Groundhogs don't hide candy. Or presents. Or money. They just HIDE. And then there is that sappy St. Valentine's Day, named for a guy who, for all we know, never ONCE got laid (they don't saint people who have sex do they?). Yet we go out and spend money and think WE'RE going to get lucky? What are the odds of THAT? And then there is presidents' day... which I don't even get OFF, but never mind... but it's REAL purpose is to remind us that though there have been 44 presidents, we only get ONE holiday for them.

yeahno.  DONE with this.

But my REAL ISSUE?

Is it STILL winter? For real? You have GOT to be kidding me. I'm tired of it already, now move along. In all cases I like the beginning of a season much better than later in the season, but winter is my least favorite season. Winter sucks. It makes me cold and I can't abide it. I even felt this way in Oregon where winter was just gray and rain. GO AWAY NOW.

What Am I To Do About It?

I'm replacing February this year with Digressuary. I'm hoping it will bring my Digressionista, Mari, back out of the blogging woodwork, will reconnect me with my faith (I practice Digression religiously) and help us forget DUMB FEBRUARY!!! For a month we will play, be silly and digress. So there. I am empress of the world and dib it so. Or at least empress of my blog... but if anyone wants to join me in PLAYING AWAY the rest of the bloody winter, PLEASE DO!

Note: Very amusing stuff if you 'Google Image' Digressionista... all from Mari, Tara and I, it seems...


And if anyone wanted a REAL blog today, I am over at Burrowers, Books and Balderdash, talking about PLOTTING!

HPANA

Otherwise known as the Harry Potter Automatic News Aggregator

I'm not sure if I am mourning, or waiting for a resurrection, but a website that literally changed my life, seems to at the very least have lapsed into a coma. It's not there. It isn't clear whether it might return or not.

So I'm going to tell you its amazing tale, or rather, the amazing way it changed my life.

In 2005, while eagerly waiting for Half Blood Prince to come out, I came up with a couple theories about what might come next. See... I'd read the first five books several times... alone, and with each child... and then all those AGAIN as Order of the Phoenix came out... (so six times...) In fact I think I was started on a seventh run with my son...

So these ideas kept flying around... you know... those MIRRORS... the matched set... that one of them broke when Harry found the package and was so mad at himself he hadn't used it...

Well... I think I thought Sirius had taken the other with him through the veil... or something. And it was bugging me enough that I ventured out to find someone to TALK TO about it.

Now there were a bunch of websites with Harry Potter stuff, but THAT one was more user friendly to get onto, and FAR easier to find conversations than the sites that have a lot more stuff going on (HPANA had a news page, but is completely member generated stuff otherwise)

Anyway, when I started browsing topics, one really struck me as having the most potential... The Wizard War... it was anticipating... you know... the WAR that was started, whether Fudge wanted to admit it or not.

Joris, of book cover fame, and I on the London Eye 2008

And THERE, I made lifetime friends. Seriously. MANY. We had some courtesy rules... greeting new people. No name calling... politeness in arguing. Honestly, it was mostly a bunch of teenage boys and middle age women. But the conversations were FABULOUS. There were deep, thought out theories. There were a ton of laughs. There was even delusional Thursday (my own baby) where we tried to use canon to support joke theories (thus things like cross-dressing death eaters)

I've had the honor of MEETING several in person... JelE (NY, yes, I know someone named Jel E. Bean), Stacy (TX, twice), Holly (DC), Holly (MO) (yes, two Hollys), Courtney (PA), Colette (IL, twice), BrioNI (AUST), Andrea (AUST), Bill (PA), Leanne (MA), Mari (NORW, twice), Jessica (UT), Tara (WALES), Joris (Netherlands), Sarah (DC), Marissa (FL), Sally (FL)... I'm lucky work sends me places, and most places I go, someone I want to meet up with is near. Colette is the only one within driving distance, though both BrioNI and Mari came to visit me HERE (from Australia and Norway, respectively—man, I want so bad to return the favor!) (WW friends in RED, writing friends in blue—purple is both--Marissa's purple is more red than the others because she doesn't believe me yet, that she needs to write, but she does and Tara's blue is a little less blue because she occasionally dropped in on the WW) but I digress (see, the site even changed my religion. I didn't KNOW about Digressionism until I met Mari!)

And lo and behold... several of these theories in... was the formation of a bigger idea that encompassed several of these, and I wrote my first long work of fiction—about 180 pages, completed in six months... a writer was born.

I tried a few styles. I made more friends, several of them OTHER writers... in fact that WRITING set, was the origins of the Burrow.

It was where first my Thursday Twin, Natasha, then my Spazdik friend Stacy said not only 'I love your writing' but, 'you need to write real books'.

I've been a bad HPANA member of late. I've been too deeply immersed in all the other things I do. But I will be so sad if HPANA is gone for good. It's like the burning down of a family home. I still am in touch with the vast majority of the friends I made there—facebook is great that way. But really... I just feel sad.

In its heyday it was easily supported by advertisements. Members could donate. I only did a couple times because you KNOW how my money situation is. I think with dropping participation and REALLY dropped ad revenue, Cheeser just couldn't keep up.


So anyway... even though I don't know if it's a Rest in Peace, or a 'Get Well Soon', I am feeling pretty sad about it.


I love you HPANA! You really DID change my life!


And so you know. I've got a computer-free obligation that may very well take all day. I'm sorry I can't get around to visit and it may be late before I can respond. Believe me. I'd rather be here.


This just in:  Jeff (Cheeser) came across this this morning and thanked me and updated me. If the site can come up with the money it owes (about $2400) it will go back up. In case anyone sees who loves the place.  I don't know how to get to the donation spot at the moment, but if you are able, you can reach Jeff at cheeser@mugglepost.com.

AND:  The Paypal Link (thanks, Tara!)