No Writing On Snow Days

Here we are in the new year with snow and ice and a couple of snow days. You'd think this is the perfect time to get some writing done. Umm, no. Between "Left for Dead" playing in the background in T's room with its screams and groans and gunshots, HGTV and the shopping channels my mom watches, the music and games Em's playing, and my homework, I can't find a quiet place to sit and think. I wish I had a snow day and everyone else did not.

I've got a new story banging around in my head, playing itself out, rewinding, changing, and playing again. I really want to start writing it but it isn't letting me get anything concrete on paper about it yet. It keeps changing about as fast as I try to nail the details down. So, I'll just wait on it to get tired and then quick scribble some of it on a piece of paper and see where it goes from there. This is really exciting for me. I was so terribly afraid that I'd lost my storytelling ability. With all the writing I do for school, my funner, fictional side went very quiet. Either that or the homework was screaming so loud I couldn't hear the fun stuff anymore. Now, though, it's back and it's loud and I'm so, so, so happy about that.

By the way, while I'm thinking about homework, Microsoft has a good program that creates flowcharts called Visio. Does anyone know of any other, preferably free, program that does something similar? I'm making oodles of flowcharts for some programming I'm doing and I will break down and buy Visio if I have to but I'm checking out all the alternatives first. If anyone has any good ideas, please let me know.

I've been reading a few good books over the past month or so. The first set I have read recently is the first four of the "Mistress of the Art of Death" series by Ariana Franklin. The first in the series goes by that same name. They are set in the 1100's so if you like mysteries of that period, I can heartily recommend them to you. They are well written and even though I arrived at the answer before they did, lets face it, that isn't hard to do in most mystery fiction, they weren't far behind my own deductions. She isn't an author that gives you everything you need to get to the answer then at the end throws you a curve ball by giving you the one piece of evidence that would have changed everything if you'd had it within the first five pages like the characters did. I hate those types of stories. Anyway, I think you'll like this set of books if you decide to give them a chance. I've read some others but I'll get to them in another post. We mustn't tell all we know in one go, you know.

In other news, both the kids are loving their snow days. I'm not sure if they realize they lose some of their time off school later to make up for these days, but if they don't, they will, eventually. Mom has a terrible cold. I had to ban her from being within three feet of me. She just has to sneeze and cough, geez, it's enough to give me a cold. I'm working my way through an avalanche of homework. It's insane how much you have to work through at the beginning of a course. It seems like it tapers off till the last couple of weeks then you're deluged again. NOT enjoying this. Speaking of avalanches, we have four inches of snow on the ground. That's all I'm going to say about it. Most of you already know what I think about this already. Sigh.

Words of wisdom: If someone throws a snowball at you in August, duck, it's probably a baseball. Just thought you should know.