Haus of Rhi

Or, Rhi's Nano-Adventure Begins. Terribly fascinating, the way these things happen. Since I initially began writing this MHT anthology short story, I'd been planning to hammer out the last of it during Nano and have done with it. I desperately want to do a story for this project and despite the obstacles that are arising, my plans to finish it have not changed. However, just as I sat down to write today I read a note from a reader asking about the potential for a sequel to "Blacker Than Black." And in the course of penning my response, Red woke up. No, no. Red didn't just "wake up." Red came roaring to life like a soldier shaken awake by incoming mortar sirens and impacts. It's a good thing that she and I are so familiar with one another or I might have backhanded her into Alpha Centauri. As things stand, however, my Nano-Adventure is off to a roaring, energetic start (which is how these things usually begin, is it not) with 3k already dumped...

My struggles with this current writing project have led me on an artistic journey the past few weeks. They've ranged from wood-burning projects to metaphysical reinforcements. It doesn't feel as though the creative energy is lacking this time. It is simply this powerful subject matter leaves me struggling with how best to evoke the emotions and response from the reader audience that I intend. Part of that is parsing free just what I intend. There are many times when I don't know for sure. Sandalwood malas. I think it's safe to say that each of us lives in a society or culture that has a number of forms of acceptable violence and aggression. It's called any number of things; discipline, punishment, a tradition of hazing, tenderizing the fresh meat. And really, it's a failure to communicate, right? Communication is a two-way channel along which we give and receive information. Transmission and reception; both parts carry equal import. Without it, frustration...

I am melancholy this evening. It grew from a mellow mood this morning when circumstances reminded me of the date. Silly mundane things like paying bills and doing my duty at the dayjob brought it to my attention. Today marked the twentieth anniversary of the Battle of Mogadishu. Shughart and Gordon will never be unseated from their Throne of Badassery, at least not in my mind. A toast of blood from a writer's cluttered workspace. I spent much of my mental energy today recognizing all the small things, all the privileges, that are encompassed by living, and growing old, that are largely taken for granted. Be they irritations, or the flaring light of sunset, or the thousand shades of sunset as fall colors blush to life in a tree. Or Mike, who's learned a new trick of rolling over and now flops on the floor like a dead fish, without prompting, at the merest scent of bacon treats. And so I am melancholy, though grateful, and offer up a toast of blood (Bull's Blood, m...

Much like crows, vampires, and leprechauns, I am a writer easily distracted. Those distractions come in myriad forms, as strangely inconsistent as a menagerie of mythical creatures. (Mildly alliterated analogy unintentional.) On vacation for the past week, I spent my time doing things deliberately unrelated to writing, plotting, or creating. Especially no creating. Nothing that demanded creativity in the least. My brain needed a vacation as much as I did from the dayjob. The most creative things I did were: cook french toast (involving sourdough loaf and heavy whipping cream, seasoned with cinnamon, nutmeg, sugar and vanilla extract); carry on a detailed conversation analyzing the ethical implications of character choices in the third season of The Walking Dead; and go to the local RenFaire for a day--not in costume, for once--and make a few lewd comebacks in the bartender's general direction. Today, though, marks a week for easing back into the writing thing and striving fo...

There haven't been many instances for me to catch actual butterflies in the garden. There were three of them, the other day. All adults, two of them with colors so faded and wings so damaged and battered that I was astounded they were still flying. The one I recognized from a few days prior; that time, though, it had been alone. Guess it loved the bush so much it came back and brought its buddies. Took these with a faster shutter speed and the auto-focus function engaged (the default "sports" setting on my camera) because I'm terrible at gauging these sorts of things. It reminds me of when I was young and my parents would give me their camera to take family and group photos. It was an old Kodak, 39mm with a five inch manual lens. And I was a myopic adolescent without corrective lenses. Suffice it to say the photos were always blurry and messed up. "I can't tell if the camera is focused or not." It was one of the more supremely frustrat...

I'm not a terribly avid or educated gardener. Evidence of such: a few years ago I trimmed back the juniper outside my front door--and chopped off ALL the aged berries in the process. They ended up in the trash with the rest of the yard debris. I didn't know what they were until about six months later when I was looking for a way to use juniper in a natural herbal mixture for a very specific application. I was suitably horrified. Those berries take three years to form and mature. I'm hoping for my first crop later this fall. Most of the other plants in the ground at Haus of Rhi have been foisted upon me by the matriarchal Master Gardener among my close relations. Among that number are: a T-Rex variant hosta with these gigantic leaves that gets the daintiest little lavender flowers later in the year; a butterfly bush that has started to rival my juniper and cypress bushes for girth and height; and the most recent addition last fall, a deciduous bigleaf hydrangea that I cra...

I have this enormous TBR list, and I don't find much time to read anymore. Between the day job routine, writing projects, and general boring mundane stuff like finding time to eat, do yoga, and keep the house from looking like a landfill, reading is rather low in clout when it comes to prioritizing. It's taken me months to finish a single book, in fact. I've been reading Meyer's Into the Fire  since last fall when I received a complimentary hardback copy. In that time, I've added another five books to my pile. Meyer's book has left me with mixed feelings. I knew writing a review for this one would be difficult. Just reading it has been a roller coaster of emotions for me. Over the months, I've shared quotes from the book on #soldierporn [you can find them by scrolling through the Reading List tag, here ]. But even those don't convey what it evoked as I read it. I need to figure out how to describe the impact this writer and his story have, af...