Claire

It’s Christmas in some parts of the world, Christmas Eve in my neck of the woods. I hope everyone has a joyful holiday season.

Me, I still need to do a little work-work (gotta check those bank accounts for fraud–ugh), wrap presents, bake (oh darn, I hate that…not) and clean up. Then there’s my workout to do, my CreateSpace book to work on, my new Facebook to futz around with, tons of goofing off on Absolute Write and a novella to beta read.

About baking
Yesterday I made a “fresh orange” cake from the massive quantities of oranges, tangerines, grapefruits, and pomelos (and a few other mystery fruits) that my husband’s aunt in CA sent from their farm (thank-you Mary Lou!!). I’d have posted a picture except hubby took 2/3 of it to work today and the last bits on the serving plate looked quite broken down and battle-weary. He also took all the peanut butter Hershey’s kiss cookies I made too. Just as well. I don’t need all those sweets around and I need an excuse to make new stuff. My spritz gun butter cookies are long gone; my kids devoured those within 24 hours. But we can’t send Santa away without a treat from the Gillian household now, can we?

NaNoWriMo novel update
I spent a little time over at the NaNo site yesterday looking at pictures of the CreateSpace proofs people have already ordered and received back. Ruh-roh, Shaggy. I just realized that I have a lot more work to do. Dummy me didn’t realize that I needed to provide the copyright page, the “about the author” page, the pretty chapter headings and all the other “stuff” in a book that you usually ignore. This is in addition to setting the font and line spacing, page numbering, etc. how I wish the finished product to appear. The manuscript has been in courier 12 font, double-spaced since the beginning but that’s NOT how I’d want it to appear in an actual book. Oy! I guess I thought a brownie would take care of all this somewhere along the line never realizing that the brownie would be me or nobody. Continue reading →

The theme for Sunday’s Flash Fiction was “the race”. I made a loose connection to that theme with this flash that is actually a continuation of a prior flash called “Above“. This is kind of my nod to Michael Crichton (RIP) who, in my opinion, did a brilliant job building suspense in his novels.

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The twinkling sky captured our collective attention as the remainder of the fifty immigrants emerged from Sub-Earth District 7. When our final party member emerged, we all listened as the hatch below slammed shut and locked. We were now inhabitants of Above, a place no one in generations had either seen or visited. There was no turning back, not even to the swift death that a dagger wielded by the District 7 homeland security would deliver.

We surveyed the area, listening for sounds of life, but other than the rustling of the foliage in the breeze, heard nothing. We saw nothing living either. Other than the twinkling high above our heads and the flashlights and torches that all of us carried, we saw no sources of light.

“We should make camp here until the first light of dawn,” Captain Oliver said.

We called him Captain for short. He was the only person from the military in our party though his service had ended some fifteen years prior. Like an old toothless dog, however, he still knew how to bark and bark loudly. Most of the immigrants nodded at his suggestion and were grateful for his leadership.

“Don’t you think that we should perhaps find shelter from the sun first?” my brother asked. My brother, Willem, opinionated as always and with more guts than brains, had a good point.

“Willem’s right,” Jolinda, his wife, said. “If we’re out in the open when the sun rises, our protective gear may not be sufficient. We should have a home base of sorts, that’s shielded from its rays.”

The Captain snorted and said, “That’s what a camp is, people, if we build it correctly. The tents will shelter us. Let’s get started.”

A few grumbles followed but the group acquiesced. In short order, we had pitched twenty-five tents, each holding two immigrants.

“I need volunteers for a scouting party,” Captain announced to the group after we’d rested for a scant fifteen minutes.

I checked my watch. Seven o’clock. That gave us approximately eleven hours until dawn, assuming we didn’t sleep. I raised my hand to volunteer as did Willem. Continue reading →