By Patricia Stoltey
I feel like someone pulled me through a knothole backwards.
I took a little time off last week and went to visit family in Illinois. And I went unplugged for five days. The five days was great. Now I’m suffering the consequences.
My To Do list is so long I’m as jumpy as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. I wake up in the middle of the night, thinking of something I forgot to add to the list.
Because I was out of town, the young lady who helps me keep the house from looking like a total disaster couldn’t come, so when my critique group met at my house last night, they had to wade through the clutter and pretend not to notice the dust.
Thank goodness they had no reason to look in my refrigerator or freezer. The ice cream has whiskers and there are unidentified things in containers and plastic bags that might have developed teeth and claws.
I’ve already read all that stuff from the time management gurus. They might as well try to teach me how to milk ducks.
Okay, so those colorful little phrases about knotholes, cats, whiskers, and ducks are not mine. They were swiped from my paternal grandmother who had a fun way of describing her world. That’s her voice, not mine.
That’s where I’m at today. Stealing words from my grandmother because we should have had a guest blogger in this slot.
Instead, you have me.
And that leads me to the point of this whole post.
The Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers blog has a team of regular contributors, each with his or her own point of view and unique voice. We also leave dates open each month so we can host RMFW members who want to make a guest appearance to talk about a pet topic, promote a new book, or share writing life experiences. It’s another way we can introduce members to each other (and to the world) between conferences and workshops. That variety of voices blends in a beautiful chorus that describes our organization and our writing lives better than any one writer could.
Starting in January 2015, we’ll have quite a few of those guest spots to fill (two in January and more in February and beyond). If you’d like to be a guest, contact me at patriciastoltey (at) yahoo.com or Julie Kazimer at jkazimer (at) msn.com.
Plan ahead, because we try to fill the calendar a month or two in advance.
You don’t want us feeling like that long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs, do you?
Nice post, Pat. One of the great parts of writing for the RMFW blog is that this is a REAL publication! I have often mentioned that RMFW has 600 members and so our blog has a true circulation. This is one of those “free writing experiences” that builds the writing portfolio editors and agents are always looking for. Thanks for the opportunity to write and share “my voice” publicly. PS – On the house? Phyllis Diller is supposed to have spread get well cards on her mantel every time she got behind in cleaning. Then, when people visited, she always had a good excuse for the way things were.
Thanks, Liesa! Working with RMFW on this blog is fun work. Julie and I want to keep on making it better, so all suggestions from RMFW members are welcome.
Oops! I also meant to say I’ll be saving up all my get well cards from now on — Phyllis had the right idea.
Hi, Pat! Milking ducks, LOL! Your grandmother must have been a hoot! Love the get-well cards on the mantle. A sense of humor can get us through so many things. Your blog reminds me of an incident that happened In my twenties. I had an impossible boss and was unbelievably over-worked. He came by my cubicle and dropped a mean note on my desk: “A cluttered desk is the sign of a cluttered mind.” Furious, I waited until mid-day, when he took long, leisurely lunches while I slaved away, working through my lunch hour every day. I went to his impeccably clean, sanitary office, and dropped a note on his desk: “And an empty desk is the sign of what?”
That was gutsy, Janet. I like your style! 😀