I have a book that I was planning to review for you today, but I'm afraid I won't do it justice, yet. So instead of giving you a review, I'm just going to talk to you a little bit. Fall is in the air. Finally. I have been looking forward to the cooler weather for weeks and it finally arrived. I always look forward to fall, and every fall I find myself anxious and unsettled. I don't know why, but it happens every year just the same. I remember being so restless one fall when I was in college that I walked through my hometown every night, feeling haunted as the dry leaves scattered before me. All my ghosts walk with me in the fall. I always feel a little disconnected when the leaves change.
So, with me being scattered I'm going to talk about what I want to talk about. I am reading a
really great book that I can't wait to share, but I want to brew on it a bit. I'm also writing. Alison 4 is well underway. I'm about 30,000 words in and see the arc taking shape. Off the Dark Ledge is still out to readers, which makes me worry that maybe it's not any good. I understand how much energy it takes to read an unedited work, so I appreciate everybody who volunteered. I was hoping to have it out by November, but it's looking doubtful. I'll be in Illinois for Thansksiving and will be doing my 2nd Annual Meet and Greet at Pensees Book Store on the Charleston Square and was hoping to have copies of The Ledge to share. Maybe two books a year is too ambitious.
We've had some birthdays, the Daddy, the Son (turned 21), and Bel, my little moonbeam, turns eight this week to catch up with her sister, Livi Sunshine, for six months. She was very excited about her birthday this year and I'm really beginning to see shades of who they will be in three years, five year, ten years. The biggest question, though, is how does time move so fast. I was hit with that earlier this week, when I was searching through old photos for a facebook game, and found a picture I had set up and taken of myself when I was in my early 20's. I was living in California then, trying to figure out how to make it into Hollywood, even as I was probably beginning to understand that I was never going to be that girl. How many times was I presented with an opportunity that felt too much like a laying down of my moral code? Not as often as many, but enough to know it was there and that maybe I wasn't cut out for the life I thought I wanted. That picture was taken in the last apartment I lived in before I rebounded back to the house that built me and licked my wounds. That change had come in the fall, too.
How many lives do we live before we settle into the one that fits? I was such a chameleon when I was young, shapeshifting to fit whatever I thought I needed to be. Do other people do that or was I just somehow less grounded? Was I always on stage back then? Acting the part I thought the audience wanted. There are moments inmy memory that I see some action I did or some speech I gave I know it was staged, choreographed. Now? I do still step on stage at times, when I'm in an enviromnment that feels overwhelming, but not as a regular thing.
Well, that's about all I've got today. I'm going to try my mposts at a few different times over the next few weeks, trying to find the best exposure. Promoting books is hard work, and a little disheartening sometimes. Maybe that'sjust my ghosts whispering in my ear. Hope you all are less distracted and anxious than me, enjoy the cooling temperatures. Say hi to your ghosts as they walk past and don't eat all the chocolate.