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It's after 10 pm and no time like bedtime for writing about why I haven't been writing (and then publishing without an edit).  Quick! before I decide (again) that I have nothing to say!!

I haven't written because I am in that season where words are inadequate.  They are pale next to the vividness of life, simplistic next to the complexity of relationships, absurdly compact next to the voluminous waves of my thought life.

I haven't written because so many other people are writing so well, that I cringe at the thought of littering the internet with my drivel.

I haven't written because I was disappointed that so few of you successfully made the transition from the "buretachi" blog to this one.  I changed it in the first place because I thought "buretachi" was so cumbersome and inexplicable.  Turns out change itself was more insurmountable than partially made-up Japanese nomenclature.  But still, I felt let down.

I haven't written because facebook has stolen all my time.  And Amazon's lovely "Look Inside!" feature, which has lured me into many a self-helpful book (from relationships to essential oils).

And essential oils.  I'm so sorry to be so {insert negative descriptive word that means "doing what everyone else is doing" - pedestrian??  bourgeois??} but there it is.  Essential oils are fascinating little buggers.  The income I have made over the years selling my pottery is fast disappearing into the pockets of those who sell these enticingly aromatic little bottles of essence.  I am reading everything I can get my hands on (literally, via the amazing public library system, and virtually, via the amazing internet!) and I. Do. Love. Learning!!

And I haven't written because I haven't had anything sufficiently profound to tell you.  Just, you know, doing laundry and confronting children about character issues (and then seeing just where they might have inherited the aforementioned character issue....) and cooking suppers and reading stories and checking math and grammar and penmanship and weeding the flowerbeds (sometimes, when I'm not sneezing) and wondering when Jesus will come back and take us all home where we so desperately long to be, whether we realize it or not at any given moment.

[I just love a good run-on sentence, don't you?]

So, that's why I haven't written.

But the thing is, my blog is where I see what my dear friends have been writing on their blogs, and I started missing them, and so I came here to check my list, and felt a little forlorn when I saw the date on my last post .... and so here I am, boringly imperfect and unprofound.

And getting sleepy.  My Farmer has actually preceded me up to bed, so I'd better sign off.  I put yardsale pillow shams {but what do you call them after you put the pillows into the shams....?!!} on our bed for the first time and I'm afraid he'll sleep on them.....

how to make tomato sauce (the easy way)

1) respond with an unequivocal "maybe" when your husband asks if he should bring home extra tomatoes from work to make into sauce.  add that he is welcome to make the sauce, should inspiration strike, but that your own personal interest in the project is extremely limited.

2) watch your husband carry in a large plastic tub of organic tomatoes from work that would otherwise have "gone to waste".

3) watch afore-mentioned husband wash and quarter tomatoes; offer tips as necessary.

4) prepare supper while tomatoes cook in large stockpot on the stove.  mention to husband the possibility of tomatoes scorching.

5) when supper is over and husband starts to look for the strainer gizmo, point him in the right direction, then go out to the hammock to read while he assembles it.

6) come back inside in time to watch Spice ladle the last of the cooked tomatoes into the strainer's hopper as husband tilts the strainer so that it doesn't spill onto the floor, Everything Nice pokes at the garbage end helpfully with the masher thing, and Sugar entertains Lil' Snip in the livingroom by crashing him onto the sofa with her.

7) wow the family by pouring the resulting tomato juice into two dutch ovens without spilling any of it.

8) volunteer to (wo-)man the sauce as it cooks down so that husband is free to clean up the strainer gizmo.

9) stir the sauce while reading personality books and watching husband in peripheral vision.

10) agree with husband that making sauce is a lot more involved than it appears.

11) get husband to take over stirring before your arm falls off and you expire from boredom on the pretext of making room in the refrigerator for the (hopefully single, eventually) pan of sauce.

12) thank husband for stirring, acknowledge his astute comment about the dullness inherent in the task of stirring, and set dutch ovens of sauce on trivets to cool on the table.

13) read more personality books.

14) announce that you're going to bed, then discover the two dutch ovens of sauce still cooling on the table.

15) pour sauce into a single dutch oven and place on trivet in the refrigerator.

16) wash out the other dutch oven before the ring of tomato "paste" hardens into tomato candy.

17) get ready for bed.

18) just before you get into bed, get the brilliant idea to write the whole sauce-making process down for the benefit of (wo-)mankind everywhere.

19) go to bed, windows open to admit cool post-hurricane autumnal breezes & the songs of crickets . . . .

20) make the mistake of sharing your brilliant post with husband, thereby giving him the opportunity (which he cannot pass up, due to his phlegmatic personality) to remark, "yeah, you weren't much help."

21) remind husband of step 1), add his compliments to your post and go back to bed.

[22) let husband read post to check for any inadvertent husband-bashing.  be pleased when he laughs.]

a note of outrage to a favorite author

No, no, no, NO!  You cannot, in good conscience, end a mystery novel like that, Mr. Smith!

You mention resolution, and then fail to provide it.  You leave unexplained myriad titillating incidences:  why did the sight of Graeme in the pub make Ian feel suddenly ill?  Was Graeme following Isabel, and if so, why? Had Ian really seen Euan during his recovery?  And, whether or not he had, why did his meeting Euan in the end not affect him as his seeing Graeme had?

What about Grace's new friend? Was their romance in fact interrupted by the medium's inventions? And what about Tomasso? Was his family's business really shoes? What had his interest been in Isabel, and what was Cat's role in it? Why did he return so suddenly to Italy? And the waiter at the fish restaurant in Leith – why did he start so at Isabel's comment on honesty and kindness? Had there been a significant look between him and Tomasso, or not?

This is incorrigible, Mr. Smith. Either your talents as a writer have slipped, or you are indulging in that most inexplicable of all literary crimes: ghostwriting (which is, unfortunately, not actually in any way illegal).

When a person makes use of another's writing without asking permission or giving credit, we call it plagiarism, and regard it as intellectual theft, and rightly so. But when a person who has made a success of writing, grows lazy (or ambitious?) and employs another to do his writing for him, then sells it under his own name, he calls it ghostwriting, and regards it as a way to sell more books.

I regard that as highway robbery. Or, you could call it selling your soul. Take your pick.

A talented writer will naturally have readers. A well-liked author will have readers who want more of the same, and, seeing his name on a book, will purchase it, anticipating a good read. When an author sells his reputation for royalties, he cheats his readers, robbing both their pocketbooks and their trust.

[pause.  deep breath.] 

Now, I'm not saying Mr. Smith hired someone to write this book.  I hope he didn't.  I really hope he didn't.  I actually liked all but the last few chapters, when the mystery was cozily and unconvincingly wrapped up.  Maybe Mr. Smith just got tired of it by the end, or maybe there were just too many loose ends to wrap up, and he forgot some (or wasn't sure how to wrap them up....).  

*sigh*  

My outrage ends.  Mr. Smith, is, after all, human.  Not to mention that he's an excellent writer, most of the time.  I don't even know how to wrap up this post, so who am I to throw darts at an established, intelligent, entertaining author just because the last few chapters of one of his books is disappointing.......?

Being able to see both sides of the coin has its disadvantages; I'd never make a good critic.  You'll excuse me now while I go open the next book in Mr. Smith's series?