12 Days of Christmas Challenge. Please Join me!

Oh my, my last post was October 25th, with its held-in-flight maple leaf, and that is what my life has been like since that date until now.  Yesterday at 2:08 p.m. I entered grades for 126 students.  I read and read and read for five days and four nights.  Let the bells ring!  The Fall 2014 semester is complete and I am satisfied.


This morning, once again I'm  up before dawn.  Hard to break habits; I keep very strange hours.  It puzzles everyone who receives emails from me in the wee hours of morning. I prefer to work in these hours when I am alone with my thoughts, my full attention on whatever is in front of me.  I do sleep, and I can fall asleep in a second.  That is before my head hits the pillow, I'm gone . . . And when I wake, I'm ready. 

So here I am, thinking about how I'm going to spend every delicious free moment of this holiday season. 

Of course, I'm going to have a lot of fun.  After all, I bought cocktail napkins: "KEEP CALM & JINGLE ON."  Good motto, I think.

I have plans to make my traditional Christmas fudge and Santa Beards and Pecan Turtles.

This is our holiday card from Red Rooster Farm.  Homegrown Cherry Bomb peppers placed in an accidental arrangement on our porch glass table and dusted with the first snow of the season.  I saw the image when I was gazing out the picture window facing the orchard.  Oh, quick, take a picture of this, I said to the one who listens to me ( acting as art director). Viola!  We hope you have a Hot Holiday!  Photo by Peter Tonery.


 So, you may be wondering what the 12 Days of Christmas Challenge is.  Beginning today, I am going to write every morning, with purpose.  Any genre, form  X 12 Days = New Work to launch me into the New Year.  Please join me. I will post my progress  in daily reports. 

The reason why I need to do this is to get back to the rhythm I had established over the summer.  I created a month long  CNF lyric essay challenge.  I promised  to write the baker's dozen and did, and to my delight 12 of the 13 essays have been accepted for publication.  The 13th essay has not been submitted. I don't know why I'm holding onto it, but I am.  Maybe it will be released in time.

Also, in a catch-up (not ketchup) conversation with Sarah Cedeno, I've decided to get back to my novella, which has been patiently waiting for me to return.  Sarah has had the recent experience of accomplishing this form, and I loved listening to her yesterday at the SUNY Brockport English Dept Holiday  Get Together. So, Sarah, if you ever read this, you have given me  the nudge in the right direction. So my plan is to dust off those pages and re-emerge into the lives of my characters who do as they please.