Mortaine’s Blog

My Halloween costume, minus the makeup (I couldn’t stand it and washed off my whiskers 10 minutes after I put them on):

As most of you know, today is Halloween, my favoritist holiday. It’s great for many reasons, most of which have to do with having license to run around wearing cat ears. But it’s also NaNoE’en, the day before the writing frenzy that is NaNoWriMo. My username there is mortaine; add me as a NaNo buddy if you like.

Because I have utterly failed to get a Big Honkin’ Tech Writing Job in time for November (and, hey, I’m available right now), I am participating in NaNoWriMo after all. This means that, over the next month, you can look forward to bizarre, sleep-induced posts with writing excerpts, and single-sentence posts like “2,600 words today– whew!”

Here is the rough concept behind my novel. I don’t really have much more than this, so I hope you will bear with me in the coming weeks:

Getting Buried in Vegas: A Zomedie in 3 Acts

When in doubt, add zombies. Think planning for and traveling to a wedding is stressful, crazy, and in some ways a whole lot of fun? Add zombies– it’s only funny until someone loses an arm. Then it’s hilarious.

Tom and Katherine have finally chosen to tie the knot, but she wants to do so in Las Vegas, taking a week or two to drive there and stopping to see the sights on the way. “It’ll be like our Honeymoon, but before the wedding!” Unfortunately, they embark on this journey on the eve of the zombie apocalypse, and so everything goes horribly, horribly wrong.

With legions of undead rising to devour human flesh, a maid of honor who keeps whining about her dress, a gaudy pineapple-flavored wedding cake, and a best man who’s been waiting and planning for the apocalypse since he was 12, what’s a frustrated bride- and groom-to-be to do?

Tune in for the zany, weird ramblings of a cross-country journey, a zombie apocalypse, and some really, really ugly taffeta.

I post a lot of lace progress and finished object pictures, but I don’t often post about what knitting means to me. Here are a few of the little things I’ve learned about life, as learned through lace knitting:

• Being too tense or too relaxed can make a difference in the moment, but ultimately, all your tension should even out in the end.
• There aren’t many second chances in life, but knitting lets you frog and restart over and over again. Embrace the chance for a re-do; they don’t come around often.
• A squiggly rumpled mess really can transform into an elegant work of art. It’s just a matter of a little soap and water and some hard work.
• It’s always smart to have a safety line.
• The negative space representing what isn’t there is just as important as what is.
• Never underestimate the value of something warm embracing you in a cold moment.

John and I went scouting this week for RV parks near Big Bend National Park. With the International Chili Cookoff happening in Terlingua on November 1, we’re down here to enjoy the cookoff and visit the amazing and beautiful state and national parks in the area.
All of the parks listed are on Highway 170, [...]

Originally posted to Life on the Road. Read the rest of the entry there!.

I took some time off from the USTravel.today.com blog. Mainly, I needed to do a little life balancing. See, I had an epiphany recently. I have time in my life for work, knitting, reading, writing, social life, tourism, music, etc… but only if I pick 3 of those things to focus on in any given [...]

Originally posted to Life on the Road. Read the rest of the entry there!.