Hi ho, MMMLogerinos!

Weather: Rainy, cool and gray.

Empty Rooms
The movers did indeed remove the Son of MMMMM's stuff yesterday--all that he'd take. He just doesn't seem to want his first bike and all those boxes of saved toys and stuffed animals. Guess we're going to have to continue to haul those mementoes of his childhood around until he has children. In any case, now we have two empty rooms. Seems that empty nest thing just keeps on happening to MMMMMM, making her wanting to fly the nest herself.

Tattoos
I have contact with lots of interesting folks with a wide variety of skill sets, many of which are greatly developed psychic skills. Recently, a very receptive and adept energy worker emailed: "Tattoos are an interesting phenomena. According to a rock guitarist friend, tattoos and piercings are like cockroaches; for every one you see there an hundred you don't see! (Revulsion). Case in point, a pointy chinned, round eyed green Roswellian face peering out from the arm of a previously considered dull man. I clicked into "otherworld" for a second and opened to his electromagnetics and WOW! He's been there, although he may not realize how thoroughly. Said he is fascinated with Roswell, etc., and his teenage kids think it's a hoot he came home with not only a tattoo, but a space alien face."

Body decoration is an interesting phenomenon that's been with us for millennia. This life I've chosen to avoid tattoos, scarification and piercings, with the exception of getting a hole in each earlobe that I thought was gonna kill me. I've chosen instead to decorate myself with Miss Clairol since I was in high school. My hair has been every color of blond there is. For the last many longs I've settled on getting my hair "striped" by a very talented, though smartassy--just my kind of jerk--stylist and colorist. Jane does a great job and is always entertaining (that's the smartassy part.) As far as I'm able to observe she doesn't have any tattoos . . . but the kidnapped by aliens thing wouldn't surprise me. And she'd say the same about me.

Production Tips
Our favorite MMMLog contributor John Dark has been cruising through the Articles on my site and emailed about the Production Secrets of the Prolific Pros article:

"About outlining: I've been doing something that may not make much sense to other people but works for me. I backward outline a lot of the time. I start out with a general idea of where everything is going to end then outline the start of the story. I'll work past the point I've outlined until I get to a tough part and then go back and write as an outline what I've already done. When I do this it sets in front of me the structure of what I've done. That way I can see a little of what a reader would see from outside the story. As you well know sometimes you can get lost in the details and not see the greater picture. I don't want to have a reader suddenly saying to himself, "These last few chapters don't make any sense. This stuff just shouldn't have happened." I have read books like that. Don't know if that makes sense but it works for me.

"I particularly liked the way the article ended encouraging everyone to enjoy the process of writing and especially life. I'm on my third novel. The first one took two years for the first draft. The second one took one year for the first draft. The third one that I'm still working on I set a goal of six months and am already going two months longer than that. There are reasons that I won't go into but the bottom line is motivation is hard when you don't have a deadline. So, I will take your advice and ease up on myself. In three months this first draft should be done.Then, I'll write something that's fun to do. Thanks for the article. It was fun to read, I learned some things and got some good advice. Especially not to let the cat do hot laps around the dryer. That's gotta hurt."

A Fan of Another Writer . . .emails MMMMMMM
There is another writer out there, an Oprah pick--bless her, that shares my name, except for the Rucker part. In any case, she wrote a well-reviewed book. And when she did, I got all of her web traffic on my site because she didn't have a website. And she apparently still doesn't. So after about five years, I still occasionally get her fan mail. A couple of days ago, a lovely reader wrote a "gushing"--her word--fan email to that writer. I wrote the woman back, thanked her for the email and explained that I'm not that writer, but I do have one or two books of my own she might consider. The woman wrote back:

Well, if it's any consolation I thoroughly enjoyed your logs/blog!

Jo.

Some days you're the windshield....
Some days you're the bug.....


Ciao, ciao, MMMMMMMMMMMelinda