Zee End!

Done. Complete. Finito.

Although this wasn't done by April 30, as originally intended, I am happy to have followed through and gotten through the alphabet.

The next challenge, NanoWriMo, starts tomorrow.

Onward.

Yep

I'm excited about NanoWriMo. Launch in two days.

This does so  count as a proper post.

:)

X: A Fascinating Letter

Dictionaries are amazing. I remember thinking I was pretty odd for including one on my Christmas wish list when I was somewhere around age 12. And the first time I sat down to edit something professionally -- at a magazine during the pre-internet days -- I reached for the dictionary sitting on the corner of my desk multiple times to be able to do that article a semblance of true editorial justice.

Today, when I edit, I'm still somewhat old school in that I often use an admittedly clunky hard-backed dictionary. I like the feel of the book in hand, and having all that information ready at the turn of a page or two, or a thousand.

In an expression of adaptability, however, I've also been known to use my fingertips to log on to an online dictionary for a quick check of something. Especially lovely is the option of clicking to hear a word pronounced correctly out loud.

Anyhoo, in seeking inspiration for this post, I sought out the tattered red Merriam-Webster in my possession and opened to the section beginning with the large "X." This letter appears to have the shortest section dedicated to it in the tome -- one page plus perhaps one-sixth of another. And a good number of the words seem to have a scientific or mechanical association, such as having to do with the body, the universe, a plant species, a machine or something of that nature.

Fascinating, I tell ya.

Wondrous Fall

If y'all have noticed -- and some of you have, because you've mentioned it via question or statement -- I'm not quite done with the alphabetical-blog-post thing.

Clearly I'm still working on it. And the once-monthly or every-other-month post isn't going to cut it, because I have just a few days left of October to wrap that up before taking on another challenge. Needless to say, I'm motivated. And, in my opinion, very little motivates or inspires a writer quite like a deadline does.

I'll get to that in a minute. Back to the "W" post.

Fall really is wondrous in Maine. In fact, I've been enjoying the seasonally low temps and sunshine so much that I didn't take too many photos of the colorful leaves while they graced the numerous trees that envelop us in this beautiful place.

Sorry.

I did manage to take a few last week. We were so far along in the leaf-dropping by that point, though, that I had to point the camera toward the sky to get a shot of more than one color in one spot, along with some fullness to the branches.

Green, red and a hint of yellow in the background

Straight yellow

Clifford among the ground-level leaves -- with the
now droopy Hostas trailing behind

I noticed for the first time this year that when leaves fall, they sound like interrupted raindrops. It's another of those wondrous things.

In other happenings, last night a friend and I took in the sight of nearly 10,000 carved, lit pumpkins at the Pumpkin Festival at LL Bean in Freeport to benefit Camp Sunshine.

A tower of bright pumpkins

Top o' the boot to ya

Pumpkin house

A pumpkin carver after my own heart :)

Pumpkins lined the sidewalks and the entryways to the
LL Bean grounds

So, the exciting thing coming up in November: NaNoWriMo.

Huh?

That's National Novel Writing Month. The challenge is to write a 50,000-word work of fiction in 30 days. It doesn't have to be good; it just needs to get done. For those of us who love to write but also belabor, overanalyze, procrastinate, etc., it's a fabulous way to just get the thoughts out and down. The work then, of course, is to rewrite and polish, and rewrite and polish ...

You get the point.

I've signed up for NaNoWriMo in years past and gotten a few days in before falling out of the daily writing habit and keeping up with the word count.

We'll see how it goes this year. I'll keep you posted.