2012 End of the Year.

And here we are.  2012 is drawing to a close.

It was a good year.  Most of it was preoccupied with building this:

Here's what it looks like today:

And inside it is a place where I can get work done:

My coffee service centre - essential fuel station for the ambitious writer.












And the desk.  Lots has been happening here lately.

And, of course, The Thinking Couch.  No writing office is complete without one of these.

I call it my office, but really it belongs to Willow.  The in-floor heating transports her to heaven as soon as we come out here each morning.

It has been a productive space -

These are just some of the short stories I've written this year.  But here's the biggie:

That's Herne.   Finished, edited and sent off yesterday.  This novel, like The Platinum Ticket, is being entered into the Terry Pratchett Anywhere But Here, Anywhen But Now First Novel Prize.

What else?  What else?   Oh...I helped out the local library and the big guy himself just before Christmas:

As always, it was a joy and honour.

Willow celebrated her 11th birthday at the beginning of the month.  She's lovely and wonderful.  Here's a picture from this morning's walk:

We had another birthday - my daughter's and it was a significant one.  No - not a teenager yet - that's next year.  Here in Ontario, when you turn 12 you need not sit in the back seat of a car anymore.  That's right:

SHOTGUN!

She looks pretty pleased about it.

I even had an excuse to make a Red Velvet Cake:

It spent just a minute or two too long in the oven.  Slightly dry but delicious.

Speaking of delicious, this Christmas we went with Cornish hens:

Stellar meal courtesy of my wife.

And here's my Christmas present.  Books are always under the tree in this house and always will be.  Here's the treasure I unwrapped on Christmas morning:

Now that's something to keep me busy until the New Year....

My Hallowe'en includes the apostrophe

This is the time of year I usually rant and rave about how every spell-checker on the planet decides that Hallowe'en, spelled properly, deserves a little squiggly line underneath.  I won't do that this year.  In a world of lol's and rotflmao and emoticons (which, by the way, survives the spell-checker just fine) I suppose it is kind of selfish of me to expect people to add that cumbersome apostrophe every time each year someone types out Hallowe'en.

Moving on...

This year I wasn't as prepared for my favourite holiday.  Lots has been going on and Hallowe'en snuck up on us.  Although preparations were mostly last minute, we were able to put on a pretty good show.

I was an accident victim, my daughter was Zombie of Green Gables ("Zombie with an 'E'").  Her friend was a broken doll and my son was scariest of all.  He was a door to door salesman!

For a rushed job, we decorated in style.  The boy wanted a puking pumpkin, so there was that...

Note the Pumpkin Ale to the left.

There was the unearthed grave, right on our front lawn:

We had a pumpkin that I was still carving as children came to the door:

I also managed to gouge a goodly chunck of my finger in the process, but what's Hallowe'en without a little blood?

  Tricksie the Hallowe'en Cat made her annual appearance:

And this was new - A lovely Dr. Seuss Tree full of skulls:

The best part...

They're all infant-sized skulls.

Happy Hallowe'en

Into the workspace

It's been a month since I started using the new office in earnest.  I must say, I'm pleased with the results.  Since the kids went back to school I've written two longish short stories, plunged ahead with about six thousand words on Herne, a Heritage Matters article for the local paper and  have been revisiting Loremaster with an edit.

The office is slowly growing into an ideal work space.   The shelves are filling with reference material and some favorite novels.  The table by the window currently holds a stack of library books and papers from the County  Archives - research for a story on local haunted houses for the Heritage column.  And the couch - now called my "Thinking Couch" has been used a couple times for thinking and only, I'm glad to say, for two actual naps (but what naps they were...).

All things considered it has been a very good month.