Ugh. I am in the throes of what Stephen Maturin (of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin novels) would call the "blue devils". I'm melancholy. I'm irritated with the world. I'm irritated with myself. And I'm not entirely sure why. I'm partially sure why, but I'm not admitting those reasons to myself. Instead I'm eating melted Hershey's chocolate and gazing mournfully out the window at the yet-more rain.

See, I'm possibly having a piece published in a nationally-distributed magazine. But this isn't bringing me all the joy and fulfillment I thought it might. Instead of affirming my sometimes tenuous belief that I'm a better-than-passable writer, it's stomping me down into the doldrums of maybe-I-suck-dom, for various reasons I don't care to elaborate at the moment.

Also, I think PMS might have something to do with this. More chocolate, please! And if there's a Johnny Depp in sight, bring him over too.

I hate writer's block. It's way worse than writer's cramp. Writer's cramp I can fix by just massaging my hand and wrist (or my back if I'm hunched over the keyboard). But it's really hard to massage my imagination. I can feed it, but I'm not sure I can massage it.

So yeah, I'm working on my novel, which I have neglected for simply weeks, and I'm stuck. I just deleted about 2 pages of stuff because I decided I didn't like where it was going, but now I don't know where I want it to go instead. And I'm irritated by my main character. I just don't like her very well. If she was a real person, I don't think I'd hang out with her. And that's okay, because she's supposed to start out kinda off-putting, but then get nicer and more likeable as the novel progresses. But I haven't gotten to where I can like her yet. I think she's stupid.

So, I'm stuck in the novel, disliking my main character...time to blog. Maybe it will loosen up the imagination blockage. Or maybe I should quit and go bake those apple pies I've been planning. I kinda thought my sister-in-law, The Chameleon, would be here by now and might want to help me peel alllllllllll those apples, but so far she's a no-show. Probably still asleep.

Hmmmm. Maybe I'll go check out MB's blog and see what she's posted lately...

Well, after an absence of...I don't want to think how long it's been since I blogged. I actually didn't think this thing would still be around. But my friend MB set up her own online journal recently (http://maribel.easyjournal.com), and suddenly I've gotten the urge to resume blogging.

I have three sad things to say.

My darling dog Westley is dead.
They canceled Angel.
Creed has disbanded.

It has been kind of a depressing year, now and then. Other than the above 3 horrid occurances, life has been good though. We're in WI now, not MN. We live near my Cowboy's family, so that's kinda cool, we get to hang with them a lot. Good thing we all get along fairly well, eh?

I have a lot more to say, and I hope I'll get around to saying it. Oh, I named my new camera 'Marlowe' after Raymond Chandler's gumshoe Philip Marlowe. That's really old news, but it fits with the last post I left oh so long ago...