Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
Floofbris (catfinition) – a feline’s exaggerated sense of what it can do because it’s a cat.
In use: “The big dog approached the tiny cat and gave a loud bark. Full of floofbris, the little gray cat put up its tail, hissed, and hopped forward and sideways toward the dog. Startled by the little feline’s advance, the dog jumped back, its eyes wide.”
I thought Bush’s Sixteen Stone was an excellent album. Coming out in 1995, it was one of the albums kept in my car to deal with the SF Bay Area Peninsula traffic jams. It ended up as a source for songs that I stream in my head while walking around, too, as it happened today.
Motor on with “Glycerine”.
My mother-in-law passed away in February of this year. I dreamed that I was visiting her last night.
It was a tranquil dream. She and her husband had bought some land and put a house on it in the early 1970s. That was where I visited her last night. My wife was there, too, along with her sisters and their husbands, and the grandchildren.
My mother-in-law and I were both about thirty years younger than now in the dream. While everyone was gabbing and laughing in one room, she was alone in the kitchen. I went down the hall to get some coffee. She called me over to the kitchen island where the stove top was.
Papers were in her hand. I recognized checks, dollar bills, and checks. She handed one check to me, saying as she did, “I want you to have this for everything you’ve done for us over the years.”
I hadn’t done anything for them of note through the years, so I was protesting that it wasn’t necessary. She insisted, continuing, “I’m giving everyone something.” She pressed a check toward me. The amount in her writing in blue ink, was eight hundred twenty three thousand dollars.
I was shocked. “You can’t give this to me,” I said. She insisted again. Going around the kitchen island, I said, “Give me a hug.”
Then I remembered, she had passed away, and I knew, this was a dream.
As that recognition sank in, my wife entered our sunny bedroom. “Hi,” she said. She was carrying a plate and a fork. “I brought you apple pie for breakfast.”
Still abed, I said, “Oh, boy, breakfast in bed, and it’s pie. Apple pie in bed.” Laughing, I sat up and reached for the pie, and realized, I was still dreaming.
Then I awoke.
Eva said: “Just start. Anywhere.” I agree.
photo by Anton Vakulenko
Someone said this to me the other night at an event I attended for people who have consulting businesses. This guy is a consultant with a compelling personal story, and he’s been told numerous times that he should write a memoir.
Earlier in the evening, I told a group of people my own professional journey from one career as an executive in the cosmetics industry to a novelist and consultant and I noticed his rapt attention. I told them that when I wrote my first novel, I wasn’t a writer. And that I wasn’t even sure what I wrote was a novel. It was that statement that resonated with this guy.
“I can’t write my story because I’m not a writer,” he later said to me.
What is it about us writers? We need permission. We need somebody with writerly authority to tap the sword on…
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Floofligence (catfinition) – the ability to learn or understand cats, often listed as floofligence quotient, which is also sometimes shortened to floof-q, or F.Q.
In use: “Thanks to being raised in a household where cats of all ages were fostered and socialized, his floof-q was among the highest that other people had ever witnessed, giving him a unique ability to empathize with cats and earning him the nickname, the Floof Whisperer.”
Ah, sweet comfort. I’m back in the writing groove again.
Thinking about it as I made coffee this morning, I recognized how fiction writing every day helps me be more mindful. To understand characters’ motivation and behavior, I look to myself and other people that I know. I think about what I’ve done and what drives me, along with my inherent contradictions, and search for understanding of what I do, and why. And I do the same with other people, and the characters that I encounter in novels, short stories, movies, and television shows. All that is so that I can create richer characters and tell better stories.
Going through that thinking exercise as the darkness swept through me this week, I saw how my daily writing provides me structure and goals. Those structures and goals give my life meaning. So when I flail through the darkness and don’t want to write, my structure comes apart.
It isn’t just about feeding and satisfying the muses, telling stories, or pursuing goals of writing novels and becoming published. My writing is a tangible part of who I am. When I can’t write, I feel incomplete and adrift. I feel like I’m not me.
Time to write like crazy, at least one more time.
Floofacity (catfinition) – the quality or state of being feline.
In use: “Flash and Ashley ruled with such implacable floofacity, people’s worship of cats as deities was easily understood.”
I’m right-handed. I’ve established a routine of doing physical activities with the opposite hand. I was initially just checking it out to see how well I could do things with my left hand.
I started with the usual stuff of signing my name, throwing and catching a ball, and eating. Then it became a challenge in motor dexterity and balance. As I’ve aged, I’m staggered to see how my habits and routines had trained and limited my body and its movement. Because of that, I expanded my opposite routines to shaving, dressing, and brushing my teeth. It surprised me how hard it was to dress doing things as though I’m left-handed. Putting on my boxer shorts was especially challenge.
Today I added one that I’ve never done before: I reversed how I wear my belt. Let me tell you, thinking through how to put the belt through the loops was funny as hell because it wasn’t easy.
What about you? Do you ever practice doing things with the opposite hand?
Michael Seidel, writer 