Nancy Bartholomew

Okay- Four days of the Novel in a Month deal = 12, 374 words! That's above and beyond my self-imposed 2800 word a day parameter.  I'm not saying they're good words, necessarily, but I'm on page 47 and that's farther than I've been in awhile.

My reward? I get to have lunch with Ellen before I go see private patients this afternoon!  We will have a two hour ramble.  That is a fitting prize for applying the backseat of my pants to the surface of my chair all week.

Someone wrote in and asked how I can do it and still lead a "normal" life.  Who said I was normal?! No, seriously...I used to write when the kids were small by inviting a group of their friends over and slapping a batch of cookies in the oven. While they played, I wrote at the kitchen table. 

The boys are self-tending now but I also work two part-time jobs, cook dinner most nights and try to keep up with my clogging.  So how do I do it?

Simple.  I don't.  Bit by bit, over the next month, things will slip.  In particular- the housework.  But when I'm finished, I'll attempt a catch-up before I begin my revisions.

Yeah, right. Like that'll happen!

In the meantime, I'm going to lunch to see if Ellen knows her stripper name. (You take your childhood pet's name and add the name of the street where you grew up)  Mine is Snoopy Lancaster.  Is that great, or what?  Maybe that should be my pen name.  I'll sign all my books, "Love, your best friend, Snoopy Lancaster!" 

I know, you don't have to tell me- I'm getting a little loopy already! 

Maggie the Psycho Dog is writing a "Novel in a Month."  She saw that I was attempting it and didn't want me to suffer through the process by myself, so she joined in.

After two days of this madness I can tell you, she has a better chance of finishing a manuscript than I do.  2800 words a day?  What are we, nuts?

Not exactly.  It is our, er...my attempt to eliminate my bad writing habits.   Bad habits like "Failure to Complete a Manuscript."  I've got to stop writing the first 50 pages over and over again.  In the "Book of the Month Club," I have to keep on writing, without revision or correction, until the month is over.

Bad Habit # 2- I don't write every day.  Writers are supposed to write- every single day.

The Wonder Dog and I are following advice gleaned from my grandfather years and years ago. 

He was a regional sales manager for a large siding company.  As part of his job, he was required to attend quite a few luncheons where cottage cheese was served atop a pineapple ring.  Papa Lee hated cottage cheese but for some reason, (which I am only just now beginning to question, ) he felt it important that he get over this "limitation" in order to continue to rise through the company ranks.

 So, for thirty days my grandfather ate cottage cheese every day.  At the end of that time, he said he no longer hated cottage cheese.

When he retired he was a Vice President with Reynolds Aluminum. 

Papa Lee stopped short of crediting his newfound love of cottage cheese for his successful career but I'm no dummy.  I can read between the lines. 

You gotta do what you gotta do to become better at your chosen career.  

I'm not going to eat cottage cheese.  Not now.  Not ever.  But I will write every day...almost.

One stop shopping.

Saw this sign on my way home from a day at the nursing home.  It's a lot like my life at the nursing home.  The conversations I have with people are often a hodge-podge of things that don't seem to go together- like bait and notary publics.  

When I first met Eleanor she had just arrived at the nursing home from a stay in the hospital.  She was recovering from a stroke and couldn't find the words she needed.  So, instead of wasting her time on looking for the right word, she'd wave her hand in the air and roll her eyes at me.  "Oh, doesn't matter!" she'd say and burst into tears.

Today she saw me and waved me over to her table in the day room.  "How are you!" she said, beaming.

I slid into the chair beside her, fairly certain she had no idea who I was.

"Guess what?" she demands.

"What?"

"Do you have any idea how old I am?" she asks.  Then, not waiting for my answer, she says, "I thought I was 78, at the most 85 but my daughter looked it up and guess what?" Her bright blue eyes twinkle mischeviously.  She's grinning like she's won the lottery.  "I'm 93 years old! Can you believe it?"

"No!" I say, having forgotten it myself.  "That is unbelievable."

Eleanor nods.  "Isn't it? I couldn't believe it myself!"  We laugh, partners in the grand joke.

Later, I ask how she likes her new, private room.

Eleanor nods wisely.  "You know, my father put me in with that girl.  He thought she would help me, but I tell you, he was wrong.  She points her finger at me like this." Eleanor demonstrates, jabbing her forefinger with an accusatory flourish.  "And her hand is a claw!"

Eleanor and I shake our heads, commiserating at the perfect picture Eleanor has painted of her former roommate- a scowling, shrewish woman with advanced dementia.

"I couldn't take it any more.  I told my daughter I didn't care if it made me sell my house, as long as nobody..." She stops, the word lost.  Then she waves her hand in the air, just like she did when I first met her and says, "Oh, well. You know."

I nod.  "Yeah, I know.  As long as it doesn't hurt your daughter's inheritance."

"Exactly," Eleanor agrees.  She chuckles then looks me right in the eye.  "You know, I've been ready to die for awhile now.  I just don't know why I'm here."

I cover her hand with my own.  "I know," I say, because really, I do know.  She has been telling me this every time I've talked to her for months now. 

"I mean, I've done enough.  Nobody went off into the sky or anything," Meaning she didn't raise a rocket scientist or a president.  "But they did all right.  He told me there were 284 who showed up last week."

I think about this for a second, remember she has a son and guess he is a minister.  Turns out this is correct.  

"Being a mother is a very big deal," I say.  "You raised two wonderful children."

She nods in agreement.

"You know I live here now," she says, shaking her head in disbelief.  "I never wanted it to come to this."

I squeeze her hand and she grips mine tighter.

"But," she says, and the twinkle returns to her eyes.  "Now I finally got my own ter-let.  I don't have to share.  Of course, it's big.  I sit down and the next thing I know, I'm stuck in the thing."  Eleanor laughs at her misfortune.  "I have to pull that piece of string." She waves her hand in the air, unable to find and say "call bell."  "Then they, you know."  She flails her fingers above her head, her laughter so contagious we both giggle.  "I know they're saying, 'It's the old lady again! She's stuck in her terlet!" 

I hang onto my friend's hand, hoping that should I have the misfortune to wind up at 93 in a nursing home,  I somehow  summon up half the humor, bravery and grace my friend, Eleanor seems to pull out of thin air.

 Boo-Boo baby watched the Academy Awards and felt the same way I did about it.

Bor-ing!  Sorry.  Boring, boring, boring!  And I love Jon Stewart but it's just not funny this year.  Maybe the writers have the same problem I do when I'm trying to get back to work after a writing hiatus- I write lots and lots of crap until I finally get back in the groove and write, well, somewhat better stuff.

So, while the Academy Awards are on in the background, I am tilling up my "writer's" garden plot and preparing it for a new book.  The seeds have been planted.  The ground is warming up and tomorrow I will sit down at the computer to begin the actual process of writing- hoping to "raise" a new novel.

It's been awhile, so I'll probably write a good deal of stinky prose.  That is truly a good thing.   What's a garden without a load of fertilizer?

Maggie and I returned home to a house full of sickies, so  it's been chicken soup and homemade lemonade time around here.  The cabin will have to wait awhile for a return visit as even the cat is sick.  Back in Greensboro, the daffodils are blooming- giving me a wicked case of Spring Fever.  Had to buy 2 gardening magazines at the grocery store the other night and I've been pouring over them and compiling a long wish list of David Austin roses, foxglove, hollyhocks and heirloom tomatoes.

 The Fever's hit so bad, I've even been window-shopping for vintage tractors and plow attachments for Mertis's ATV-anything to get the ground plowed up and the beds ready for planting.   However, once  the fever's reined in, what I'll really need is the name of a Bubba and a tractor looking to make a little piece of money.  Back in the day, when I lived in Atlanta, there was an old guy who'd come every spring and plow up the vegetable garden for me with his antique steam tiller.  I'm sure there's someone like him in Franklin County...At least, I'm hoping.

 There's nothing like the feel of dirt between your fingers and the scent of compost for chasing away the  Winter Uglies.