Chapter 1

I started out this year setting a goal of doing at least two blog posts a month. It keeps me at least writing something, it may be a general ramble about nothing of any particular interest but it keeps me writing. I have of course started previous years with goals like this too and faltered by mid year, so who knows what will happen. 

I had started a blog post called Bizarre things we say to our kids, using my example that gave me a wtf moment the other day. I said to my lovely 9 year old daughter, if a boy gives you all his money, you can't just up and leave. Stay around and play with him for a while so he thinks it was worth giving you the money. I stopped short after that and thought...wait, what did I just teach her? The basics of prostitution? 
In my defense and to put this into context a little, it was an online interactive game where some boy was trying to buy her friendship and after getting the money, her brother was trying to get her to up and leave so she could share her new found wealth with him.  I felt that since she'd encouraged this boy to part with his money the least she could do was spend some time playing with him. I ran out of things to say on this blog post though as it turns out I don't say as much bizarre stuff as I thought. Stop stuffing your dirty socks everywhere, flush the toilet, and stop annoying each other really didn't seem to cut it.

The good news on my writing front however is that I am back to writing fiction. I haven't been inspired for a long time, and have only managed to push out a few Drabbles (100 word exactly) and odd small  very short pieces. I have friends who have been bugging me to get back to a half finished story they were reading but I seem to have lost my mojo on that one. Every time I sit down to finish it I feel like I am forcing a new paragraph out. It was never going to be an epic long story, but it has potential, and in time I would like to get it finished, just not now.

I have started a new project, something I am quite inspired and excited about. This will not be just a short story, I have plans for it to be novel length, yes, a full book. Also it's going to be a work that my mom can read and enjoy, that means keeping the erotica fairly tame or at least editing it out on her version, she is after all the one who has been bugging me to write a full length story. I hope I can keep the momentum up, I have my plot outlined in my head and the first full chapter is down "on paper" well actually it's on Google Docs, waiting to be edited. I'm setting myself a daily word goal (well for the days when the words are flowing at least) and I figure I'll have some time to write while I sit in airports and on planes in a months time. 

Now if I could just keep myself from getting distracted by twitter...

Predicting the future

I met a girl when I was in my 20's who believed she could read palms. I was mildly buzzed at a party so I agreed to let her look at mine. Something I have always regretted. Unless someone is going to tell you you're going to win the lotto and live a charmed life, you don't want to know the future.

She looked at my palm, scrunched up her face and ominously said, "Oh...wow. Have you hard a very hard life?" To which I probably looked vaguely confused, I mean I grew up with three older brothers, and was a little bit of a social outcast at school, does that count? When I replied with a "Not really." She looked a little mortified and started back peddling, mumbling something about how she had always been told not to tell people of bad things in their future then scurried away.

That left me a little concerned about what life had in store for me, and every time I go through a rough patch I'm left wondering, was this what she was talking about.  I've had my share of trials over the years, leaving South Africa and starting again was hard, not being able to get pregnant and going through years of drugs, being put into false menopause and doing IVF wasn't exactly a walk in the park. Having a son born with a club foot, needing surgery and years and years of casts and corrective devices wasn't a whole lot of fun either, but none of these are what I would've considered enough to tell someone they're going to endure hard times. I guess one persons hard time is another's idea of life.

I figure after 20 odd years I'm safe from her prediction, I'm not even sure I really believe anyone can predict the future. I'm not sure I'd want to know. If you knew what the future held, would you try change it? What would you miss if you changed it, it could be something defining and important.

To quote a country song, 

"I'm glad I didn't know 

The way it all would end, the way it all would go
Our lives are better left to chance
I could have missed the pain
But I'd have had to miss the dance" - Garth Brooks

Yes don't judge me, I've been known to listen to country music from time to time.