World Peace and a New VCR

Why is October so frantic?!

I remember, when I was younger, that I would always have a test -- a major one, not just a quiz -- on my birthday. And that would be the kick off to Halloween parties, which means coming up with costumes and decorating, and then that bleeds right into Thanksgiving with all its major food prep and possible travel (miserable travel -- unless you fly on Thanksgiving Day and then it's a breeze!).

And then there's the headlong flinging of oneself towards Christmas.

I'll talk about The Holidays (dun-dun-DUN!!!) another time. For now, suffice it to say that October snuck up on me once again and I am at an utter loss for how to organize my time. There's a magic time in early September when I've got it goin' on: I've got the laundry done and the dishes done and the floors clean and the toilets sanitary and unsentient. The writing's done daily and in nice, productive 3-hour long blocks so I can write more than a sentence a day. My kids don't feel like their mother has abandoned them, and Mr MM is not walking around the house harrumphing for his fair share too.

And now it's October and all Hell's broken loose again.

Here's this week's list of Stuff I Really Oughta Do:

1. Finish cutting out/glitterizing Halloween decorations for the windows, so I can
2. Hang Halloween decorations around the house and in the windows.
3. Cook, a lot.
4. Laundry
5. Dishes
6. Floors
7. Toilets (notice toilets is #7? I hate that job too).
8. Write the wedding night for this poor couple*
9. Begin plotting the Christmas story I keep threatening people with.
10. Return phone calls
11. Return emails
12. Get in car, drive to store and find giftie for person in Ireland to whom I owe something very special -- I've been waiting for Christmas angels to get stocked. *wink*
13. Dig under couch cushions to find money to send Christmas angel to said Irish angel.
14. Deal with Mr MM's own ideas about what we should be doing this week, which will fatally randomize and destroy the above list.

*sigh*

It's 9am local time as I am finishing this entry.





*I did finish the wedding itself, and since that's the squeaky clean version of the situation, I did post that on the website the rest of the story is placed on -- to a really warm welcome -- thank you, everyone!!

But it's not here at Word Anxiety yet, because here I can post what I really meant, which includes their wedding night. Wedding nights in historical novels take time and care to write, because it is quite often the woman's very first time. I have two thoughts right now about this sort of thing: I have a responsibility to be believable, which means it will hurt her. It doesn't hurt because she's frigid. It hurts because she's never been stretched and hymens are tough and mean ol' buggers that require a little effort to breach. But, I am also a True Believer in the Good and the Beautiful, and that means he's going to love her enough to work himself senseless to make it as painless as he can. The lovely thing about writing this stuff is that, vicariously, I get to experience a man being a Man, meaning he's in the lead but also thoughtful and is paying actual attention to what's happening to himself and the people around him.

NEWS FLASH fellas! This is what women really want: your attention. Roses and chocolate and jewelry and lap dogs and fancy clothes and flashy cars are for you, so you feel like you're doing something. And that's not to say they aren't wonderful gestures that cost you a lot of money. They are, and bless you for remembering! But any woman really worth your time wants you to be emotionally and mentally available to her. Stay away from the sluts who only want what you can buy them. You want a woman who is genuinely interested in what you think and how you feel -- and she wants that level of interest in return. Otherwise, both you and she are wasting each other's time.

Ok, rant over. :)