Well, I decided to freshen things up around here.
My Inside Voices is nearing its one-year anniversary (my actual inside voices have been chatting it up for 31 odd years — but I didn’t unleash them onto the interwebs until last August).
Anyway, there’s fewer goldfish and less purple, but more art by Lily. She’s been watercoloring up a storm, so I borrowed one of her latest efforts for my header art. This particular piece was called “Giraffe,” and is the second or third in a series of giraffe portraits* she’s made since visiting Claws ‘N’ Paws Animal Park last weekend (a place worthy of a story — if for the name alone). Now, I’m not saying she’s the next Georgia O’Keeffe or anything, but my girl knows how to use some color. (This ends the obnoxious, humble-bragging parent portion of the post).
Since last August when I decided to blog about writing and not writing, I’ve probably written an additional 8,000 words to my novel — which is a paltry number compared with how many words I’ve written here (as Brad points out to me periodically). To which I reply, at the end of a long day blogging is like a bowl of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream and the prospect of novel-writing is like a plate of broccoli. It’s not that I don’t like the broccoli. I actually enjoy it quite a lot. But it’s just not my go-to nighttime fare and it’s a little bit pungent, if you know what I mean. I suppose I’ll just have to dress up the broccoli in ice cream’s clothing or something. It probably already exists. Yup. Yup, there it is — Broccoli Ice Cream and it’s a kid’s song, too. Thank you Google. Helping wannabe novelists procrastinate since 1998.
Where were we? Oh yes, squirrels. An unintentional side project of My Inside Voices has been documenting the squirrel statuary my neighbors dress up and accessorize. A side project I’m also a bit behind in (although less behind in, comparatively, then that dumb novel). Here’s the latest on our bushy-tailed friends.
They continue to have a fun-filled summer, visiting the beach:
And apparently attending a luau — to which the wooden dear was also invited:
And that’s all I have for tonight. A little makeover. Excuses. Some squirrels. Oh, yes, and renewing my vows of novel completion. That is to say, here it is, in writing (uh-gain) that by next August, I hope to have an additional 8,000 words to my novel (but hopefully closer, to, like, 30,000 words. Or, just done. Done would be good, too.)
*Yesterday during dinner Lily was told Brad and I that she, too, had a long neck like a giraffe, but, alack she did not have the same purple prehensile tongue. Hers is just pink. And it definitely doesn’t eat leaves. Or much of anything green and plantlike for that matter.