Mortaine’s Blog

Happy Halloween, everyone!

In case you haven’t been to my journal, go there now to see the spiffy Halloween-esque layout and such, before it goes away. . . .

I got a nice Halloween card from , fellow tech writer and lover of all things Halloween as well. Yay! Thanks, Kelly!

My sister () posted today that she’s giving out cookies to the places they go trick or treating today. Can you imagine knowing the people in your community well enough that they would trust you and accept a cookie from you? Steve is on the city council or something, and they are both very active in the community, so everyone knows them. It must be nice, but also frustrating (no privacy!) And, for Jen: I know you can imagine living someone where you don’t know your neighbors well enough to accept a cookie from them– remember all those Halloweens where we had to throw away any piece of candy that wasn’t wrapped and wasn’t “perfect” in case it was contaminated?

I am pretty much the only one here at work wearing any sort of costuming. Erp. April took my picture this morning– I might see about transferring it later today (using Herb’s adapter) so I can post it online. I will be brave and wear this thing for as long as I can tolerate it, or until it becomes so wildly inappropriate I must take it off. At which time, I have brought spirit gum remover and a hairbrush, which are all I need to return to some semblance of “normal.” I am still, however, wearing the Halloween socks that Mom bought me 10 years ago.

John bought me a snuffpuppy last night. I asked him to. I’ve had a stomachache for the last couple of days, and he asked if I wanted anything from the drug store when he went out last night. I couldn’t think of anything to help my stomach, so I asked for something to help my spirits. He bought me Christmas socks– they’re cute, inexpensive, and I wore them to bed last night. Real special.

Nanowrimo starts tonight. I had my first anxiety dream about it last night. Whee. Is it wrong to re-think my NaNoWriMo novel idea this late in the game? I even have my journal set up for making my novel notes in and everything ( in case you didn’t know… Jen, I just added you so you can see all the good stuff). But then I keep second-guessing myself and wondering if that’s not an idea I want to spend more time writing, and maybe I should do something more fantasy-oriented, since I’m so familiar with it. . . . Ack. And I keep getting tempted to write something really ambitious– a literary novel with some real “depth” to it. Only it can’t be a very good novel if I write it in a month, and a bad “literary” novel is really just trash. Help?

I also had an anxiety dream on Tuesday about Election Day (not showing up to the polling place on time, etc.) Can you tell I’m stressing out just a bit?

Only 9 days to the exam.