Well I'm behind on my count by 400+ words so guess what? I'm parking myself here at the page and letting the words flow until I reach what I wanted to reach and maybe something wonderful will happen. Maybe it won't. Either way I'll meet my goal.

It's been an odd month so far. At times it seemed easy. So far all my goals have been met--with word count and by MS submission (if I manage to churn out 400 tonight. LOL!) Taxes were in on time and done well, even got a good start on organizing stuff for next year--don't need that crunch headache anymore. Then I realize I have to quit resting on my laurels and think about all the things that I have yet to get done, the major being--you guessed it--Abe's transcript. Lordy. Between that and coordinating this Europe thing. I start to feel the crunch again.

Well we finally got weather today. I'm not as relieved as that sounds. It was a tense afternoon for OKC, but it moved East, up close to my parents's and sister's place. Then they kept rolling east and it dawned on me that I don't have a good fix on exactly where my newly married sister is in the state of OK. I know it's between my folks and Tulsa, but if I had to pinpoint it on the map, it would be a bit like playing pin the tail on the donkey. Just aim in the general direction and pray you hit it. So I watched the lines move east while I cooked supper (late) and worried and prayed that everything would be okay.

I guess a poor flock of ducks didn't fare so well. Report was they got stoned in the sky by hail. Not high stoned, either. Forty birds. Some places had baseball-sized hail. The news should be interesting to watch tonight.

I'm rambling and I feel badly about rambling. I wish I could put something meaningful and memorable on the page. I've come to the decision that I really need to be working on a project. These words would still be new words and fresh words but they would be aimed (when I felt like aiming them) and it would give me a place to dig in whenever I opened up my writing practice.

So what do I want to do? The first thing that come to mind is the Pinckney biography. I have to think of a way to make the story inspiring for girls. For smart girls. That here is an example of why it's okay to love being smart, to work at building a good mind. This young lady did incredible things, and I'm still learning about her. There has to be a way to make her appealing to someone who is looking for an identity.

So those would be non-fiction words but still creative. Creative non-fiction. I think I need to check out Jean Fritz again. I love the way she handles history for kids.

Saturday is the 24-hour short story contest. I'm hoping that this regular practice will make a difference this time around. I've been creating characters and settings and blah, blah, blah. I'm anxious to see if the blah, blah, blah makes any difference come Saturday.

Well, I'm going to see how many words this is before I chase away any reader I might have left.

572--you're safe!