A whole new year

The holidays were busy and filled with delight but it's nice to settle back into routine.

Walked the kids to school today then came home and got right down to business.  Business today was completing my application for the MFA I intend to begin in the autumn.  I am still assembling the "package" - transcripts, letters of reference and a portfolio sampling some of my work but the application itself is done.

While putting together "the package" I rewrote a chapter in my novella Patriot.  I needed to clean it up and flesh it out and I am very pleased with the finished result - so pleased, in fact, that rewriting Patriot to novel length has moved up the priority list.  Root of Evil still needs to be finished and The Witch has been waiting too long and Gerry has barely stumbled out of the gate but Patriot is beckoning.

I guess I have a lot to do...

It's starting to look a lot like...

The atmopsphere is very festive.  A pair of kids are eager for Santa's annual visit and are currently bouncing off the walls.  The tree is lit and decorated and a multitude of gifts are crammed beneath.  In the spirit of the season we are snowed under.

Last night I took Willow out for her midnight constitutional and snapped a few pictures.

I actually find myself not minding the snow...too much. 

 This morning my wife and I were shovelling out when the most musical Christmas noise imaginable drifted on the wind...our neighbour with his borrowed snowblower heading across the road to clear the end of our plowed-in driveway.  Ahhhh - like a choir of angels!

I've been under the weather this past week or so.  Unfortunately Gerry won't be done in time but I plan to secretly work on it while we visit the in-laws over the Holidays.

We have been entertaining visitors - friends from Vancouver - my mother before she left to spend Christmas with my sister in Newfoundland - and I even had a nice little chat with the local Jehova's Witness guy before wishing him a

 Merry Christmas and sending him on his way.

As the holiday descends I, Santalike, am making a list.  I currently have nine items on submission with various publications.  I am in the midst of preparing an application for an MFA Creative Writing 

program.  I have several stories in different degrees of completedness that will need to find homes in the New Year AND I have two kids, a dog and a wonderful, patient wife who all need some extra special attention at this time of year.

Merry Christmas to all.

Here There Be Giants!

It has been a while since the last post but I haven't been idle. I'm continuing to chip away at Root of Evil and revisiting The Witch every now and again but for the past few days I've had something spinning in my head that needs now to get down on paper.

Years ago, when my daughter was a very little girl, I was about to read from one of her story books at bed time when she asked, "No, Daddy. Tonight I want a made up story." I was surprised how easily a story gelled in my mind and how effortlessly it spilled from my lips. That story was Gerry the Giant and for the past few years I have been promising to write it for my daughter but I just couldn't find the right beginning.

Well, yesterday, just as Root of Evil was about to take a turn for the grisly, those thoughts that have been rattling around suddenly fell together. I am happy to say that Gerry (the new title of the story) is off to a strong start and with any luck will be ready to present to my target audience by Christmas or, at least, by her birthday.

Time to get back to Gerry.