Linda Nelson

Finding That Happy Place:

This past week I got to observe my son while he found that happy place that he had lost so many years ago. It made me want to giggle inside to see the boy that I once knew reappear before my eyes. He was cheerful, excited and so full of life.

You see; my son is an addict. This is a huge deal for an addict to find their happy place. It lowers their need to use to acquire the same feeling. And when they do use to find that feeling, their outward results are not the same. They exhibit false excitement. Their excitement is caused by their drug usage as an after effect/side effect of using that particular substance. It is not real.

And when it comes to be full of life, they become tired and sleep their life away. This is also an after effect/side effect of using the substance.

His happy place was rediscovering his love for fishing. He was always pretty good at setting the hook in his younger years. Once again he had no problem setting that hook to catch his first largemouth bass in over five years. That’s right! It has been a good five years since he went fishing. One can’t fish while sitting in jail or rehab.

The fish my son caught.

Seeing him happy reminded me of how I once found my happy place. I remember it well. It was when a friend/past co-worker made a VHS tape of some home movies of mine that I had not been able to watch in years. You know those old 8mm tapes that have gone the way of the dinosaur. They held all the happy times in my life when I had no cares or worries and was able to dance away, not caring about what others thought. The innocence of a five year old child is a cherished moment.

Coming Events:

Talk about excited and happy moments!

Next weekend I will be going to my very first RWA Conference. Granted it is not the main event, just a chapter event, but the same, I’m going to a conference. Can you tell I’m excited?

The New England Chapter of RWA is holding their annual Conference, and I decided to attend it. I can’t wait to meet these girls. I’m looking forward to their workshops they have scheduled.

Then the following weekend I will be going to the Workshop my own chapter has planned. It is a Deb Dixon Workshop.

We will see if the workshop lives up to its name, A Book in a Day. I will be spending that following Monday at home trying out her techniques.

ROW 80 Check-in:

It has been a while since I have checked in.

The writing has still been going slow. In the past two weeks, I have managed to add no more than 3k words to the next Orgarlan Book. I also have two other works that I have been dabbling with, one of which is my little story on Wattpad.

Sleeping on the Beach is a panstered story – unless I break down and plot the thing out, I really don’t know where the story is going or what it is about, except that the main character is having a bad bout with insomnia. It appears that sleepwalking is the result of her insomnia.

Oh, I just had an ah-ha moment. I know what to do with the story next. I won’t tell you – you’ll have to read the next chapter. (lol)

The third story I have been plunkering with I won’t tell you anything about it. I don’t want to get your hopes up. Not yet anyways. Right now it is just a junk story. (Is plunkering a word? It is now. I just made it up. I just Binged it, and it is a word. J )

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You know someone is a bona fide writer once you hear them speak. They don’t even need to read an excerpt of their work for you to know how good of a writer they are. When you are done listening to them you will walk away not just saying wow, but you will feel inspired to continue with your own works.

That is how I felt today when I left the meeting at my local writers’ group, The Monadnock Writers’ Group. Our speaker was James Patrick Kelly. Do I need to say more? – Fabulous speaker –

Actually, I had never heard of him before today. At least, I don’t remember hearing of him, even though I used to subscribe to Asimov’s Science Fiction and Fantasy Magazine years ago. From what I learned today, James is a regular to that magazine.

He spoke about the differences between Science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Then he even touched a little bit on playwriting. Each subject he spoke about struck a note inside me, the kind that awakens the Kraken – the Muse. Having my Muse awoken was a welcome feeling.

Dragon background design provided by: NVT Office Clips

He touched the subject of Slipstream. Before I had written Aaron and Keja, I didn’t know what Slipstream was or that it existed. It took someone to tag my book Slipstream for me to go and investigate what that term meant, and then I still wasn’t sure about it. I thought it was just for books that used portals between worlds. I didn’t know that it was for stories written without a set of rules to adhere. As when the Orcs find Aaron and suddenly they have no problem communicating with her without the help of the talisman given to them by Arch Lankus.

Thinking about this causes me to rethink why she can do this. Well, if she can read the minds or hear the minds of the creatures – big and small, then what is there to keep her from being able to understand the creatures and humanoids of the other world?

If you have ever read fantasy books, or epics, then you will know that each world has its own set of rules. So if Aaron does not follow the rules of the world, then that must mean she is a rule breaker.

Now that I know that I have a rule breaker on the loose in Orgarlan, I know that anything can go.

So here is to the letting go of realm rules.

May the Gods, Goddesses, and Dragons have mercy on the inhabitants of Orgarlan in the coming pages.

Who rules that world? Frankly I don’t know, but all the inhabitants have their own opinion on who is the overseer of their world.