L is for Little by Little

Little by little, the time goes

Little by little, the days pass by

Little by little, the air clears

Little by little, I can breathe again

I can breathe again --

Little by Little - Robert Plant

Most days I feel I’m living that verse. Little by little the minutes and days go by. I start the work day looking down a long, dark tunnel and the closer I get to quitting time, the cleaner the air becomes. I get in my car and take a deep breath. I drive home to begin my real life, which is very different from the forty hours I spend at my job. I suspect I’m not alone in this.

The closer I get to being able to retire, and the clock stands at a little over three and a half years, the worse the days become. But I have no choice except to ride it out.

But little by little, time moves forward in deliberate increments to that magic day in 2019.

Little by little, be they good or bad, the days full of obligation pass.

Little by little, the days spent breathing city air are fewer in number.

Little by little, I dare to believe I’ll be able to fulfill my dream of writing full time.

Little by little it’s going to be a reality. All I need is a patience, little by little.

Rayne

http://rayneforrest.blogspot.com

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Simple country pleasures - the tufted titmouse

It's Thanksgiving morning and meal preparations are well underway. We've fixed a few turkey dinners so the division of labor is established. We're not quite a "well-oiled machine" but we do okay. This Thanksgiving morning, we have a flock of distractions. That is to say there is a flock of Tufted Titmouse birds in the backyard. 

Enter the cat. 

The cat is very interested in the birds. He's stalking them, as a matter of fact. The birds are, so far, alert to his presence and he's not getting very far with his little cat mission. This is a good thing. 

The bad thing is I'd love to feed the birds so they and other species hang out here over the winter, but I'm not sure if I should. I'm sure the CAT would love it, but I don't like it when he kills small critters. I know it's just his nature. My grandma used to say, "a cat's a cat and that's that." She was correct. 

So maybe I will scatter feed for the birds this year. The way of nature is the old and weak fall, not the young and healthy. I think I can be content for the birds to be birds and the cat to be a cat. 

But as for today, it looks like the cat will have to settle for enjoying a few tidbits of turkey and be satisfied with that. 

Rayne
rayneforrest.blogspot.com
twitter.com/rayneforrest

Of insistent muses - she said "blog" and here I am

Ah, the insidious little voice. You know the one. That persistent, annoying whisper only you can hear. We all have one. Call it the devil on your shoulder or your muse. Call it worse than that if you want. Heck, I won’t stop you. I generally refer to mine as my muse and she’s such a whiner! For 2015 she's been prattling on about blogging more regularly until I gave in and said I would try. 

It was basically a lie to myself, but here I am. Searching for something to blog about. 

I’m not sure what my topic should be today, although this past week certainly provided fodder. Everywhere I turn there's something going on. From the atrocity in Paris to Matt Kenseth standing his ground (yea!), news abounds. But this is supposed to be a blog about the writing and the author behind it. 

I’ve been busy writing this past week. Very busy. My alter ego finished a manuscript and turned it in - WITH the forms. That's not a small feat. I needed to get that finished and clear the decks for Thanksgiving. This year, I'm fixing both Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners for us and my mother and stepfather. It's not a hardship. I have a plan, and my beloved is onboard to help. 

Today is the last NASCAR race of the 2015 season, and I plan to watch most of it. It's Jeff Gordon's last race, and while I'm not precisely a Gordon fan, I have no trouble admitting he's had a stellar career. While the race is on, my partner and I will finalize the game plan for Thanksgiving and Christmas cooking. Christmas is easier because I have the day before off work, but all will be fine. 

So here it is. I’ve completed my exercise in self-discipline and blogged on schedule. Thankfully, the muse didn't insist my blogging be cohesive, or even on point. See ya next time around. Have a great day! 

Rayne Forrest

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"I never promised you a rose garden..."

I beg your pardon… I never promised you a rose garden…

Have you ever had a bit of a song get stuck in your head? Of course you have. You know what I'm talking about. That annoying line that plays over and over in your head until you're ready to slip into madness. Yeah, you know all about it. This morning what do I get? Anne Murray.

Now I like Anne Murray. She has a wonderful voice that has become richer with the years. There's something to be said for someone who continues to improve and grow regardless of natural talent.

But this (great) old song? Why not something more current? Why not something with a driving beat that would make me fly through my work and enable me  to get to the fun stuff -writing? No, no. Not Dragula (talk about a driving beat!).  Why not Elton John? You know.. The Bitch is Back. No? 

I know… Beautiful Day! I like U2. So why not Beautiful Day?

I beg your pardon… I never promised you a rose garden…

So I'm wondering what in my subconscious needs to hear Anne Murray. It may remain a mystery and sometimes the mystery is one of the joys of life. 

Rayne
www.rayneforrest.com

Rayne's Ramblings - Writing is like Gardening

Having been at this business of blogging for many years, I have quite an archive of blog entries. Twenty-six Keys is simply the latest incarnation of the many blogs I've had over the years. It got to the point where it was easier to start fresh than go back and remove old, invalid links and outdated content. And so Twenty-six Keys was born. 

Since I do have all that old content, I'm going to recycle some of it. What follows is an entry originally posted on one of those now defunct blogs in July 2007. It may be eight years later but I find writing is still like gardening for me, and this old blog entry still applies. 

Rayne

http://www.rayneforrest.com

Writing is like gardening

I've been a lifelong gardener. I suppose it's in my blood, passed down from generations of women who knew long before the evening news told them so that houseplants keep indoor air fresher. One thing my mother and grandmother always had were flowers.

My mother used to collect cardboard milk cartons to trim and fill with potting soil. In these she started her seeds. Once the seeds sprouted she would turn the cartons every day so the tiny seedlings weren't forced to stretch one way or the other toward the sunlight.

Mom nurtured the plants until the first of May then the cartons were set in the garage to "harden" before being planted in the regular beds or pots after May 10th, which is historically the day the chance of a hard frost is over for our immediate area. By July my mother's yard was blooming and she was hard at work weeding and watering. With the arrival of October she was clearing the beds of frost damage and making mental notes for the following year and washing out new milk cartons to stack in the garage for next March's seed sowing.

Mom has scaled back some in recent years but she still maintains a flowerbed that stretches along her driveway. She's mostly content with a smaller area but sometimes we reminisce about her hundred foot long border along the edge of the backyard of the house I grew up in. Glory days. 

Writing, for me, is much like gardening. The seed of a story comes to me either from something I've already written or from whatever it is beyond myself that makes me want to create characters and stories. The seed sometimes quickly sprouts, sometimes lies dormant waiting for a different season. Once it begins to grow it needs attention, nourishment, and sometimes a lot of weeding. If I'm lucky it eventually matures and blooms into something I can be proud of, something well worth all the work.

RF

Old dog, new tricks

One of the scarier aspects of self-pubbing my old stories isn't whether or not they have any shelf life left. I have no control over whether or not anyone buys a copy and I'm actually content with that. The thing is I enjoyed creating them and there's no reason to hide them away on my computer. So what is the scary part? Creating a decent cover.

It's pretty proven wisdom the cover needs to catch a reader's eye. Okaaaaay. What catches a person's eye is a personal thing. Can we please everyone? Of course not. 

I'm learning how to make simple covers. So far I like the results. They've been very clean without a lot of frills but the more I learn about manipulating the software to match my vision, the more complex they'll become. 

I'm rather pleased to report the old gal (me) can still learn a new trick. 

Rayne
http://www.rayneforrest.com

When least expected

Life has a way of handing you the unexpected, and it's not always a bad thing. Sometimes it's something you've wished could happen. Or maybe it's something you planned to work towards and never quite got around to it, being absorbed with the busyness of the daily grind. And I've certainly been busy.

Yesterday, Super Bowl Sunday, marked ten years since I sat at the computer and began to write my first book. While that story remains unpublished, I've had what I consider to be great success with my writing career. After all, I never set out to have a writing career. I set out to write a novel just to see if I could.

I guess I got my answer.

As for the universe talking to me, yes, it did. I've long pondered what to do about my older stories, the ones which had limited runs at publishers no one ever heard of and never became mainstream, or were at houses that closed, or should have closed. Today, a simple email was a signal it's time to move forward and get those books back out.

The epublishing world was a lot different back in 2003. It's matured, and, thankfully, so have I. It's going to take a little time to go through those stories and apply those things I've learned in the last ten years, but I think the stories are worth it. My technical skills are better and it's important to me to do the best I can in everything I do.

So I suppose I'm climbing "back on the horse." We'll see how it works out.

I think it's going to be fun again.

Rayne

A Bridge Just Far Enough

We passed a milestone this past week. Thursday marked six years since my partner's last major cancer surgery. Coincidentally, the day also marked six years since his last cigarette. I'm not sure what to say about a man who smoked his last cig in the parking deck of Johns Hopkins moments before he stepped inside for them to remove half his liver. Tough? Strong? Stupid? Contradictory? Let's go with the last one. It applies to all of us, doesn't it? 

If my partner had any special feelings about the day, he didn't voice them. Well, not in words, anyway. He called and said he was fixing dinner and I should come straight home and not "bee-hop" around town shopping. "Bee-hop" is a good local expression which means go from one location to another much as the way a honey bee goes from flower to flower to flower. 

Dinner was a quiet affair, with no mention of the significance of the day. If that seems strange to you, I will tell you it did not to us. We said all we needed to say eight years ago when the doctors said, "inoperable" and "give him a little extra time." Never have I been so grateful for a cadre of doctors to be so wrong. Trust me when I tell you after hearing those words meatloaf, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn and green beans is a celebration feast. 

All this got me to thinking about bridges. Whether physical, or metaphysical, bridges carry us from one side to another, safely above whatever danger lies below. We encounter them every day, recognized or not, and we step across them to the other side. Sometimes we move with confidence, sometimes with fear, but we go. And frequently, what we find on the other side is something wonderful for us. 

I passed this little bridge one day on a quiet country road and was unable to resist its charm. I hope the owner didn't mind that I took a moment to walk across it, and back again. It looked so perfect I had to learn what it had to say to me, and what perspective it could show me. 

I think this bridge is waiting for someone else, maybe for the person who placed it there, and that's okay. It was enough to share its creek for a few moments before I moved on, looking for the next bridge, the one waiting for me. 

Rayne
website: http://www.rayneforrest.com