NaNoWriMo Word Cloud

Well, another year of NaNoWriMo is done. Fortunately, after the disaster of last year, this year I was able to get my act together and write a grand total of 50,044 words. Score! I wasn't sure I was going to make it though - I was suffering from serious Procrastination-itis near the end. But here I am with a brand new novel on my hands. A novel that needs a serious editing overhaul, but a novel nonetheless.

Thanks to the wonderful Worlde.net (I love this site. I want to word cloud everything). I created a Word Cloud for my NaNo novel. Here it is:

I think I use the words "just" and "know" too much. I'll have to work on that in the editing process.

Paths

The dreams of a seven year old are crystalline clear, simplistic and easy.
Growing and growing.
Within reach of chubby, sticky fingers that grab for all they desire.
Proclaiming with such strength, vivacious spirit, clear intensity, absolute truth

But time changes simplicity and the realm of dreams fades away
Further and further
Imagination, creativity, magic, innocence, fairy tale beliefs slip out of a weakening grasp
The world becomes too real, too boring, too close, too rationalized, too practical.

The years roll by and we are spectators to our lives, time moves faster and faster
On and on
Suddenly we are taller and older and somehow insignificantly less wise.
There are no easy answers and the future looms near

We are told to chose a path but there is no path, not one taken, not one less traveled
Searching and searching
Reaching only cloudy nothingness and continuing to walk blind
Desiring, yearning, wanting, wishing beyond all hope to go back

Back to innocence and dreams, creativity, magical wonder and wide eyed splendor
Dreaming and dreaming
To see what that little girl knew, look in her eyes and find it, find the answers, find out
That somehow in my heart of hearts, in my childlike memory, I’ve always known

Impossibilities of all impossibilities, there is no going back, no standing still, but…
Maybe just maybe
In this all too real, practical, rational, logical, suffocating world there is still time
To dream…

Drift

I etch my words upon the shore.
While time ticking- tock flies past
Lines scrawled, scratched into the sand
All knowing a fleeting thing won’t last

The tide tumbles in on curling waves
With a rumbling crash and hissing foam
Salt watery hands take my words
And slip, crawl down back to home

Out to sea and the churning black
A million messages float and swirl
Speak out, speak out, where no one hears
In voiceless cacophony unfurl

And here on this beach, with the sun dipped low
This slate of sand is wiped clean
I start again each day to write
This echo, this story, this dream.

Someday I'll carve my words to stone
Deep and dark to stay
But for now I’ll etch along the sand
And watch as they’re washed away

A Thanksgiving Stand

It’s November 9th.

45 days before Christmas - that’s over a month people.

And yet, I’m almost positive that I just overheard the faint strains of Jingle Bells as I was strolling through the aisles of Target.

What’s that all about?

Okay, sure, I’m a fan of the holiday season as much as anyone. In fact I’m pretty much in love with the holiday season. Carol singing, gift buying, the spicy sweet smell of gingerbread, Charlie Brown’s pathetic little tree, warm fires crackling in the hearth, families reunited with laughter and food – these all have the ability to turn me into a wide-eyed little girl again, all giddy with the prospect of presents and my mom’s homemade mashed potatoes.

But I think we’re forgetting something here. Before the Jingle Bells, before the last minute shopping frenzy, before the stockings are hung by the chimney with care…

That’s right. Thanksgiving - the forgotten middle child of the holiday season. Consistently overshadowed by perfect, overachieving sister Christmas and zany, quirky little brother Halloween.

Because sure, it’s nice to sit around and watch football and stuff ourselves silly with food but let’s face it, we’re Americans – it’s not much of a deviation from our normal lives. So we may find ourselves thinking – what’s the big deal?

On Thanksgiving you can’t dress up like SpongeBob and ring your neighbor’s doorbell to ask for candy - or you can - but you can pretty much guarantee that your neighbor’s going to be giving you some funny looks for while.

There’s no exchanging of gifts – no Thanksgiving Carols – no great big jolly man in a big red suit with a sack full of toys.

Thanksgiving, and the whole month of November really, just continues to pass by quietly, in its unobtrusive pumpkin pie sweet kind of way as children all over the world start the countdown to the holidays that really matter.

Well, this year I’m taking a stand for Thanksgiving.

For the Pilgrims. For cranberry farmers and football lovers and airport personnel and tryptophan lovers across the country.

This year let’s remember Thanksgiving. For more than just the great sales and the long lines that it’s evil twin “Black Friday” brings in her wake.

Let’s take the time to turn off the cell phones, sit down with our families and just enjoy the presence of human company, of laughter around the dinner table, of the clang and clatter of forks and knives and fancy china.

I know you’ve got it in you – there’s a reason that millions of Americans will be taking to the roads and skies over the next few weeks. The greeting card companies and department stores may have forgotten but we haven’t. Inside every one of us there lies a need to be surrounded by friends and family, to watch Uncle Ted and Aunt Lillian fight over the last of the yams and to eat more turkey than humanly possible or necessary.

So forget for a moment about the stresses and trials of life. Take a deep breath. Relax. Enjoy your day off. Cheer for your team. Watch a parade. Eat. Eat. Eat.

And don’t forget to give some thanks for all we have been blessed with.

Happy Thanksgiving to All.

until never and again

fists clenched (hold on, hold on, please).
crescent indentations of red
etched into the palms of my hands
but still
it slips, slips, slips

pulls away from me until my fingers grasp at empty air.
it is weightless, I am weightless, floating, helpless
nothing left
to do

but fall…

through all this strangeness,
chaos controlled by months and days and years,
through a shimmering wave of gossamer weave -

when you’re gone and you’re here and you were never really,
anything more than a flicker in the distance
of possibility

but

you smile, and I fall

sinking into you but I’m only falling
into whispered sighs and the want, aching want, so wanting that it needs.
the press of your body against mine, the frantic undress of your lips, fingertips,
arms wrapped around, over, between, everywhere

my skin is alive,
it jumps, electric

pulsing, pulsing, pulsing…

Oh.

your tongue tastes like vodka and half-truths and I drink it in,
thirsty, desperate…. until…
drunk off nothingness

i am empty

gone

fingers cannot unclench, they do not know how.
holding so, anchored, sane
a tightly wound coil that is ready to spring

At….
….any….
….moment…

… falling, weightless. Everything into nothing.
Alone with my memories and this fall, this constant fall,
this rushing wind in my ears, this

drip, drip, drip like a leaky faucet.
tap, tap, tap at my brain

a drum beat.

bum-bum, bum-bum, bum-bum, bum-bum

I lose my fucking mind.

(stop)

please, please
pick out the little pieces of my brain, my heart, my soul
that contain you, every inch of skin you’ve touched,
lips, throat, inner thigh.
the moments that contain you, wherein you exist
so wholly, so you

take them. they’re yours
they murder me,
leave me slain, bleeding, an empty corpse…

…twisted and tangled in confusion
nothing is as it seems (seemed)
and everything is everything

weightless and heavy. light and dark. lost and found. love and nothing

you and me…
you and…
you…

(wait)

you are me and I am you and everything all rolled into one shapeless formless mess of bones and hair and skin and veins everything all that I have ever met and known and thought or considered you are part of this uncontainable universe that is ever changing pushing outward swallowing whole everything that lives and breaths and loves and dies and…

me

you are a moment,
incandescent happenstance

(end)

you smile, I return

…let it slip away

a long ribbon waves back to earth
I stand and watch (destroyed, glad) as
a single balloon floats away toward the clouds,
stretching up and away and gone.