Kentucky Mountain Girl News by Henrietta Asher Handy

It is so gloomy outside my window I simply don’t have the heart to share it at all. Just take my word for it if you don’t mind.

How is everyone on this Thursday?

Yours truly has been a very busy girl of late!  Besides going to doctor’s appointments and having in-home physical therapy, I am working on items to put into an Etsy store!  Excitement!  (Must be said like Elvira, Mistress of the Dark *heart*)

When I made beaded jewelry and was going to different little festivals to set up our little kiosk, was one of the most joyous times in my life.  I met different people; learned interesting facts; learned different folk stories, and just enjoyed making the things I sold and then enjoyed selling them to people who liked the pieces and wanted them.  It was an amazing time for The Husband and me then.  In order to go on a date before the disability came through, we would go to Speedway and get one of those giant drinks for basically $1.  Then we would go to McDonald’s or some other like-minded store and each get $1 burger or cheeseburger.  (Sometimes we would get a large French fry to share.  Those were the dates that were a little more thrilling.  We went all out when we each had our own McDonald’s meal!)  We would then go to this one specific park and eat.  Sometimes we ate in the vehicle because of the weather or my pain or condition at the time.  Sometimes we went out into the park.

I want that feeling back of enjoying making something and offering it for sale.  There probably won’t be much profit.  My goal is to make enough money to keep me in yarn since I will need to order yarn in instead of being able to just jump in the car and go to Hobby Lobby or Michael’s, or even Walmart in just a few minutes – depending on traffic, of course.  Those days are gone.  Thankfully, the World Wide Web exists here now and all I must do is be a wee more patient in getting the tools I need to work with.

One truly wonderful thing is that we are across the creek and just down the block from the post office!  This will save a lot of time and hassle for The Husband because he will be the “warehouse foreman and shipper” for me.  Is that a real job?  If it is, I hope the title is a lot better.

Anyway, the YA is advancing.  It is very difficult to not push forward and add loads of writing in with the crafting.  I have found a HUGE! hole right dead smack in the middle.  *facepalm*  Thankfully, the bullet journal has helped me locate where the hole began forming and then where it came back together again.  Yes, I feel like an idiot.  I didn’t pay close enough attention to the notes I’d made and forgot to show how these two civilizations have co-existed: a premise of what would it be like if the Europeans had been mature about their new world and unbigoted about the people they found there and how it would affect a civilization in our generation and then the Cataclysm and  a thousand years after the collapse of civilization as we know it.  A place where fey has returned, especially faeries.  There are some of the traditional fantasy races and several different ones I’ve discovered while wandering through the forests and glens of my imagination.

The more I see this story coming together, the more I am beginning to wonder if this will qualify as a “young adult” novel after all.  No – not going there.  Story first.

So, how are y’all?  Whacha you been up to?

It is fall here in the mountains.  Seeing the leaves fall and other leaves begin to turn, I feel in the center of the season instead of just sort of observing it as I would’ve done in Lexington.  Instead of making me sad or pensive, because I can see the Earth prepare for slumber.  It is getting into its pajamas now.  I’ve never seen fall through these eyes before.  Does that mean they’re old?  Or, just older than last year and the many years past?  I must admit, some days I feel way older than my years and ancient in my heart.  I am glad it passes – I couldn’t handle feeling like that every day forever.  I guess I am just not ready for it, but, Are you ever ready for that stage of life?  I wish my Mommy here so I could ask her.

And it is true – you can’t cry pretty.

Eight years ago today I began blogging here on WordPress.  Before that, The News was on Livejournal for four or five years.  My how things have changed, and how they haven’t.  Life rolls on.  Words come and go.  I can’t say the past eight years have been wonderful for me, but, I know that without this blog I would never have gotten introduced to some wonderful people, and some not-so-wonderful.  So, overall, this has been an interesting journey so far.  I wonder what else is down the pike waiting to be written about.

When I began blogging, I thought I knew exactly what I wanted to accomplish and what its purpose was.  That purpose has changed several times.  The love of the thing, though, hasn’t dimmed one ounce.  This is due to all the readers and emails I’ve received.  You all have given me interesting things to think about and write about.  The blogging community is one of my favorite communities to visit.  Sadly, I don’t get to visit every day, but, each visit is filled with wonderful gems of information, funnies, sorrows, and people just living one day at a time and sharing their progress and setback, like a community should be.

Friday the Fourteenth will be a GOOD day!

• Was air-lifted from home to Lexington last week
• Found out I did NOT have a stroke
• The doctor in the hospital decided that since I didn’t have a stroke his work was done and let my pain get out of control
• Said doctor refused to come when I asked for him and said he “was NOT coming back into the hospital”
• All I asked for pain was ibuprofen – I was only given 200mg of ibuprofen
• The doctor only requested the tests and meds he could get by with that were listed with my insurance company.  Question:  Was he saving money, or did he just not care?
• Was discharged while still weak and unable to move my right side well
• Home – getting back in order
• Getting lost in fantasy writing today

A lot has been going on here in the hills.  Some stressed occurred recently I wasn’t expecting, along with some rain, so the ol’ arthritis is kicking up its heels at me.  It is, of course, attacking my right hand with swelling and painful fingers, but, I am still typing and still knitting.

I haven’t worked on FK in several days.  It feels like weeks.

I have written myself into a corner because an interesting plot thread appeared and I had to follow it to see if it was a good one or not.  Thankfully, the thread didn’t go too far.  This means backing up, reassessing and then moving forward.

Having to back up and re-work some sections is frustrating.  However, I let myself follow a thread I normally wouldn’t have and there were actually some good things that came out of it, even if it didn’t completely work for the over-all arcing story.  Information about characters I didn’t consider before became clear it needed to begin earlier in the story, and two very good scenes were glimpsed and are useful.  I’ve decided it doesn’t matter if they are just scenes hanging out in the file until I need them.  Usually, I go straight back to the point to where I think the scene should go, work it in, and then catch up with the rest of the manuscript.  I am not doing this with FK because I am uncertain of how well I am actually doing on a young adult novel.

At first, when I was deciding whether or not the scenes/plot thread worked or not, I created a file just for the purpose of letting it rest a couple of days and then returning with fresher eyes.  Even though it didn’t work as a whole, there was some good information out of it, and I am ready to move on to the rest of the adventure.

FK is the first story I’ve seriously tried to ‘craft’ in a while.  Luckily for me, the pendulum didn’t get out of control and swing so far into the ‘craft’ area – I am not spending my time worried so much about minuscule details and getting the timeline down to nanoseconds.  There is still a lot of creative freedom and an end-game I can glimpse.

Once again I must call on the merits and benefits of having a bullet journal just for this story.  Even seeing the notebook helps me get centered on the writing day, as well as ease some of the creative stress because I am not afraid I’ve called a character by two different names and descriptions because I know I haven’t because of the notes I’ve made in the journal.  What did I call that one area back in Chapter One?  I can just flip back to what it was called and continue on with the story.  Ideas about people?  There is a section for that, and specific questions I feel I need to answer in the over-all story arc.

The writing bullet-journal isn’t an end-all, be-all, magical thing to write your book for you.  It is there to be used as a tool, and it isn’t going to work if you don’t put down things in it or fill the writing bullet-journal up with graphs and cute pages.  The reason I bring this up is because I’ve received several questions about how I use the writing bullet-journal and then have received some pictures of the ones people have made and there are a lot of pages in there I don’t find necessary at this stage of the creative process such as dedication page ideas and samples, flowery decorated pages of encouraging quotes for a bad writing day, etc.

Here is how I use my writing bullet-journal:

• I decided straight away there would probably be more than one bullet-journal for this novel, so made sure to write inside it was volume one.
• Each novel in this particular series will have its own bullet-journal(s).
• Index page – I count out four pages at the most and two at the least.
• Chapter list and word-count for each chapter
• A box graph showing me which chapter of the story I am currently on.
• The main bullet-journal begins with the chapter number and name if there is one;
  • Under this heading go ALL names & descriptions of the characters;
  • Names of places with a note or two about them I want/hope the readers can remember;
  • Also under the chapter notation, and in a different color of pen, I list questions, make notes, and leave some space after for the answers discovered later on, or decided upon later.

The use of different colored pens helps a lot.  I also use high liters and colored pencils to denote something important, something I’m taking out, or something I’m changing.  I make sure to keep the chapter number and name on each page so I know when the chapters change.  Then, in the index, I list the page each chapter can be found on.

It isn’t difficult.  It makes sense.

Happy Wednesday.

Happy writing!