The Seventh Day of Christmas

Happy (almost) New Year, to all my family, friends, and members! I hope you have a very safe, very nice New Year's Eve celebration. I plan to spend mine at home. If I can keep my eyes open, I'll even toast in the New Year with a shot of brandy.

On this Seventh Day of Christmas, we celebrate the gifts of the Seven Sacraments that our Good God gave to us. These are: Baptism, Penance, Holy Eucharist, Confirmation, Holy Orders, Extreme Unction, and Matrimony.

Baptism is like New Year's. At the end of a year, as we face off into the next year and wonder what it will bring, it's like a renewing of life, of living. New Year's Eve is the advent of what will be in the coming year. It's a rekindling of hope, of anticipation, of renewal.

Baptism is the Sacrament by which we are washed clean from the stain of Original Sin, made children of God and heirs of heaven. Baptism is a renewal of life spiritually, a kindling of hope for our salvation, of anticipation for our future in heaven. There is the same pattern of expectation, of hope that this new year, or this new life, will bring peace and happiness to us.

God bless and keep you all. Happy New Year, my dears!

On the Seventh Day of Christmas my True Love (God) gave to me,
Seven Swans a-Swimming, (the Seven Sacraments)
Six Geese a-Laying, (the Six Days of Creation)
Five Gold Rings, (the Pentateuch)
Four Calling Birds, (the Four Evangelists, or the Gospels)
Three French Hens, (the Theological Virtues)
Two Turtledoves, (the Old and New Testament)
and a Partridge in a Pear Tree. (Our Sweet Jesus Christ)

We're nearly at the end, aren't we? It's almost Little Christmas! Too bad I have to work on that day. Oh well. I'll celebrate anyway.

Right On Target

Writing is like a game of darts.

Okay, I can see you all going, "What? Has Katrina LOST it?"

Well, I admit. My family were playing darts outside, and each game reminded me of a writer's perseverance.

Think about it. You've got the bulls-eye, which is your primary goal, an acceptance for publication. Then you've got the plain little targets which are like your multiple submissions with either personal or form rejections. Then there's the doubles, and triples, which are like your royalties or advances.

So, then there are the darts themselves. A dart is an idea. Each idea you aim at your board either lands on an acceptance or rejection. If you land on a rejection, you need to revise...in other words, you get to aim again. If it lands on an acceptance, bulls-eye!

But sometimes a dart pops out. That's usually an idea that fizzles. You can either try to revise it, or just choose a new dart. I usually try to revise my darts. I can't stand seeing a dart go to waste. Most of the time, when I aim again, I manage to get the dart to stick. Not all fizzles are failures.

Would anyone like to join me? The board is new, and the darts are fantastic.

Finding Words In Woodstacks

So, my family and I spent an hour of the morning stacking wood. It's not my idea of the best time I could ever have, but it's vigourous and splintery, and a good workout.

As I was tossing pieces of wood to my younger sister (not really tossing, just occasionally chucking a piece to check her reflexes), I thought that writing was rather similar to harvesting wood for the winter.

See, you start with a tree, which is like a wonderful glorious story idea in your mind. Then you cut the tree down, to see how it looks from a different angle, much as you plot up different story scenarios to figure how best the story would flow. Then you cut the tree into lengths, like you cut up the storyline into different chapters, to get an idea as to how much story is hiding in those lengths.

Next, once you've loaded the "chapters" onto your truck and brought them home, you split them into logs, opening them up to see how fruitful the ideas are. Then, you throw all the wood into a pile and let it age, like a good idea has to be mulled over a little bit in order for it to work.

Then comes the stacking. You go through the pile of wood, your ideas, good and bad, that are all thrown together. Gnarly, knotty pieces of wood, or splinters, or bark bits, all the pieces of wood that are impossible to stack, you lay aside for later. Smooth, square bits, perfect stacking wood, you lay neatly in rows on the deck. The neat rows are your sentences. The occasional odd piece of wood that is perhaps slightly too long or slightly too short are your plot changes. The odd gnarled bits that you plop on top of all the good rows are your climaxes and twists of plot.

In the end, they all create one thing: a wonderful roaring fire of a story that you can enjoy every evening during winter...and hopefully with a story, every evening of the summer, as well.