Woke up to Christmas hatching out in the living room. My brother decided it was time to try and see how the furries will deal with trees and decorations.
Our John Deere Santa hanging on the room divider, with mermaid tail looking for a home.
Nutcracker trying to hide the stationary bike.
Dragon coming along.
Challenging piano solosNice easy carols, easy font to read. Fun, quick to master.
More challenging less known carols like the Wookiee one.
All 7 pages of When Christmas Comes Around (Polar Express)Probably the most challenging to me sounds the easiest, Linus and Lucy. And one I want to sing with (and my hands take all my concentration for now) Oh Holy Night.
For next year, I hope I start Christmas music before Halloween. I’d like to be more proficient by this point. And I hope I know those last few songs with very little brush up time.
Oh, in case you need to see how gentle goals help:
I started back to piano last October. The goal: sit and play as long as it’s fun, then move on to something else. At first, I’d only play a song, or five minutes. Today I’ve clocked an hour and a half! And it’s still fun! And I’m not hurting as much as I used to.
Ties waiting for their turn in the light.
The two frogged and reworked. Still not striping up like I’d like.
And a new writing goal: 500 words a day starting today. And work 4 scenes a day on Folie à Plusieurs. But TrackBear is being a BEAR! So I need to find another way to keep track. I did get 637 words in a zoom sprint with Yvensong.
I mentioned yesterday how NaNoWriMo seems the time for math and charts. Everyone knows to reach 50,000 words in 30 days, you write 1,667 words a day. But get ahead or behind, one must ‘math’ it out.
I use tons of junk mail envelopes and other scrap paper figuring out how to get to goals hourly, daily, weekly. When the brain needs to make sure it’s right, pull out the calculator. As if ‘adds’, ‘subtracts’, ‘timesies’, ‘dividing’, and ratios, and “Hey, look a prime!” aren’t enough. Then I run over to TrackBear and many times a day update my latest word count to find out if I ‘bear down’ can I reach my goal? And they offer a cool chart to prove it.
This year (and this is subject to change at any minute) cooking and housework call my attention that I normally seem to ignore.
But naps and dream times bring my characters alive or bring questions.
This morning I woke to the title of this post. Folie à Plusieurs, the Musical.
How? I asked the muses, mermaids can’t sing or dance except in cartoons. ADHD mind now sings, “Look at this stuff….” And tightening the lasso on the muse I bring back the line of questions.
Are there animals with gills and lungs? Do any of those animals make noise? Who can do the tap dance?
This story started with males I was sure were going to be the antagonists. Nope, not so much. The next three a mermaid, a selkie, a melusine, the two tail finned mermaid ala Starbucks.
The problem with the mermaid, um, hard to run to safety on land if even a tear of moisture creates said tail fin.
Selkies are rather pretty, though noisy, seals. Maybe a pad around on stage but singing voice needs help.
The melusine can move around due to the two tail fins and wings. But she’s too powerful for stage.
Then comes the never ending research. I hope you can see the Tubes I found. They aren’t showing up on this writing page. If not maybe research the fishy questions above. Eye opening! The little fish can supply the tap dancing sounds. The other voices plus a whale or two may supply tunes. Musical? Maybe?😂🤣🥴 (And yes, I count these words!)
Finally working on the top ( which means I work upside down so I can reach that part.)The Inktober prompts I’m using today: artic and rival. These are the only thing I could sketch to represent. The story perceived them differently.Two faces facing off.
So far I have 8,951 words. I have more to write tonight. Yeah, I’m behind now. But I am having fun with my imaginary friends. NaNoWriMo 2025. By the way, that site is TrackBear. A way to keep track of wordage.
Some of the songs I’m playing with now.All the socks in progress now.
I’m already frustrated with NaNoWriMo. What started with energy and ideas at 12:10 am November first, is now pulling teeth.
What has helped are the Inktober prompts. My randomly generated characters and their development resulted in a mermaid. Is it due to the fluid in her IV when she was brought in due to extreme jaundice and fainting or something that was innate just waiting for the right combo of chemical, genetic,or circumstances? We don’t know yet.
And another character was needed. Her random name is America, like the actress.
Sunn (the suddenly evolving mermaid) is running for safety when she meets America.
Quickly they are separated. Not knowing what else to do, America ends up at a family restaurant preparing and eating tacos. Yeah,I guess I was hungry.😂
This occurred as the prompts ‘shredded’ and ‘drink’ came up. Here’s my quick sketch:
Today I knew I had to include ‘trunk’ and ‘ragged’
How these will fit in the story escapes me. But that’s the challenge, right? I think it is stash from previous merfolk.
How do the stories of the reunion class picnic apply to the discovery of mermaids? I don’t know So far these are people in their 70s. Some at the picnic are smoking, so? I’ve never smoked weed. So I can only go by the stories I’ve heard. But I do love to swim. I love tacos… Trying to write what I know. Yes, arthritis and bad eyesight get a chance here.
Ah, but I still need 1,036 before I can go to bed.
Though writing is a lonely task, by necessity, it is nice to have company in the process.
I have an overactive imagination and writing helps harness that mess of the muses. Still, I know anywhere from 1 to 30 days I will long for human contact.
Sadly, it is hard to help my family and friends to know when they can help and when I need solitude. Sometimes the muses make me work for every letter, sweat and swearing can apply here. The fam and friends can wave in passing, just don’t feel hurt if they are ignored.
Then there are the desperate days, company helps open the mind from the hurricane of the deserted brain. But whereas in normal days I can luxuriate in the glow of love, in writing times, like NaNoWriMo, I have to limit myself to people, even the well-meaning, can stifle the process.
When there are folks accompanying my creative pursuits, I cannot look at other’s fantastic works. I think I have hypochondria to other people’s musings. Sorry, everyone for not peeking. We’re all safer that way. I can’t wait until my Inktober and NaNoWriMo fuse is finished so I can check out all the glory you all have created.
This past couple of weeks my energy has been low. I worried whether I’d feel up to NaNoWriMo (I certainly lost the Inktober during October) but I plan to incorporate the Inkprompts with the writing. I have enjoyed drawing my characters.
But after three 20 minute naps I was still tired and went to bed around 10.
At 12:10 I woke with enough energy to skip into the living room to open my laptop and write! I managed 1,684 before sleep call again. I’m so happy with the story so far. I can’t wait to see what happens!
By the way, I think my title is Folie à Plusieurs (the madness of the masses). What would you expect from a reunion of old hippies?
Working on my series: Haven.
Doodler (zendoodle.com)
Music major: voice and piano
Mom of four great adults
Reiki II practitioner
I have been on disability/retired for 10 years now from depression, anxiety and fibromyalgia.
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