IWSG-Insecure Writer's Support Group for June 2014

 

Anna Nordeman

 

Thanks to Alex J Cavanaugh for starting Insecure Writer's Support Group.

This is my fourteenth post for IWSG.

My daughter, Elisabet, on her tenth birthday, May 12th.

I could not participate in IWSG in May. For my June edition of IWSG I would like to mention a few milestones. First, my daughter, Elisabet, turned ten years old on May 12th.

She had a quiet party at my former husband's house, her father. Elisabet loves fashion, jewellery, clothing and make-up. I want her to feel pretty and be able to use a little make-up, because it's fun. But at the same time I am trying to make her limit herself to that which can be washed off. I want her to value her natural beauty and not spoil it.

Elisabet making funny faces by her cake

  

 














After three years, I am starting to recover emotionally from my divorce. But I still don't have much time to start dating and meet eligible men. Frankly, the idea of meeting new, strange men scares me. Most of my time is spent solving problems - big and small. I also have my children to think about. They still need my help.

Elisabet blowing out her birthday candles

My cats have been a huge problem for me especially this latest year. But I am finally seeing an end to it. I have found homes for all of my cats except for one, Mathilda, who was missing a whole month.

Mathilda, together with her daughter, Rosetta, was sold to a family in the neighbouring town of Linköping (where I go to the university), but the buyer soon regretted her purchase and asked to return them. Of course, I would take them back, for the sake of the cats. But before I could fetch them, the cats jumped out of a bedroom window and ran away. This happened at six am on Saturday April 26th. If I hadn't felt so ill from a sinus infection, I would have taken the train directly to help look for them. But I was in no shape to do anything. So I just hoped for the best (which I don't usually do).

Rosetta and her mother, Mathilda.

After two days, Rosetta returned to this family, alone. Her mother, Mathilda was nowhere to be found. I took the train and then the bus to retrieve Rosetta and found a permanent home for her with a family living in the smaller town of Söderköping. I was finally cat-less and could start working on cleaning my home and ridding it from cat hair.

I had resigned myself to the idea that I would probably never see Mathilda again. She ran away in the suburb of a strange city, from people she never had time to get to know. What were her chances of survival? An indoor cat, lost in an area of apartment buildings without trees? Spring had just started to blossom, making it difficult to see a cat hiding in the bushes. 

Mathilda with her normal weight.

 












Trying to think like a cat, my guess was that she would look for an area that was greener, more wooded. I looked at the map and saw a park area near the apartments. Could I find her there?

Mathilda's disappearance was reported to the police as well as to the local animal shelters. But what turned out to be the best course of action was the flyers that I printed from my computer. The woman who had originally bought the cats was very helpful and went around posting them everywhere in the area, on doors to apartment buildings, stores, public bulletin boards and anywhere that it was allowed. 

It took some time, but thanks to our posters, people started recognising Mathilda from my photos. On May 24th I received a phone call from a family who lived just two or three streets away from where she had escaped. But they owned their own house with a garden. Mathilda was seen on their neighbour's back porch. There were trees and bushes and thick undergrowth that a cat might like to hide in, and perhaps catch a mouse or two.

I took a transport carrier and cat-snacks with me on the train and bus. They had telephoned at about five o'clock in the afternoon and were going away, so I would never meet them. I needed to find Mathilda quickly if I was going to get home before the last bus and train. (I did not return to home until ten o'clock that evening.) They said that if I could not get her into the carrier, that I could just leave it there on their patio and they would try to catch her for me and call me when they had her inside their house. But I never had to do that. 

I sat on a low stone wall in their back garden and called out her name. That was all I had to do. I heard a thin little mewling from behind their shed. Suddenly Mathilda appeared on the stone wall. I stayed where I was, kept calling softly to her and offered her snacks. I grabbed her as soon as she came close enough to me and I continued to feed her treats. 

Mathilda on the upper bunk at home on Thursday June 5th, 2014

I held her in my arms and could hear her purr. I don't know if she recognised me then. She may have just been just happy to meet a friendly human being who offered her food. But she made no protest at going into the carrier that I had cushioned with an unwashed blanket that she and the other cats had slept on. Maybe she recognised the scents and felt at home on it.

Mathilda was very thin, I could feel every bone in her spine and her ribs. She looked like a smaller cat, as if she had shrunk from hunger.

I cannot describe my happiness at the moment of finding her. She was thin, but seemed alright. She was just very hungry and lonely. She slept beside me in my bed every night the first week. She just ate and slept. When I first got her home she wandered anxiously through the rooms of the flat, as if she were looking for her daughter, Rosetta. Maybe she was.

There is a possibility that Mathilda will be able to meet Rosetta, again. The family in Söderköping who adopted Rosetta, are planning to take a trip and need a cat-hotel for her for two or three weeks. I hope the two cats will be happy to see each other again. But you never know with cats. 


Rosetta stayed a week with the man who adopted her father, Lars. 

Rosetta sitting between her father and uncle.

My son, Erik, and Rosetta's father, Lars.

Rosetta made herself at home on this lovely farm, but Lars was afraid of her and hid under the bed whenever she was around. Maybe they would have become reacquainted if she had stayed longer than a week. As you can see in this photo above, they were great friends before they parted ways.

Elisabeth drawing a portrait of Rosetta at Christmas.

Eventually, I will have to find a permanent home for Mathilda. But for now, I just don't have the heart to send her away to a new family before she has had a chance to recover from her month of being lost and alone. I am hoping to find a special family for her, a home from which she will have no desire to leave.

Mathilda lounging on my bed on Thursday June 5th, 2014.

My apologies for not writing about writing and publishing. I have a secret writing project right now, that I don't want to talk about yet. And then there is the fact that writing demands self-discipline and regular working-hours like office hours. I'll let you know when I have found that kind of a routine. It is one of my goals right now. I know it is essential if I am going to get any serious writing done.


Yours faithfully,
Anna

P.S.
For those who would like to see my list of how-to-write-books, please go here. 
[If you would like to read my other earlier posts for IWSG, go back to my first post in March 2013 here, in April 2013 here, in May 2013 here, in June here, in July 2013 here, in August 2013  here,  in September 2013  here,  in October 2013 here, in November 2013 here, in December 2013 here, and for January 2014 here, and February 2014 here and March 2014 here, and April 2014 here.]

First Commenter:

Lin

of 

Duck and Wheel with String

WEP Challenge for May - Failure - or is it?

Welcome to WEP's Blogfest for May [=Write-Edit-Publish, formerly 'Romantic Friday Writers'] Challenge for 21-14 May 2014 - 'Failure - or is it?':

Good Luck in Bad

'Tur i oturen' is a Swedish expression, which literally means, 'Good luck in bad luck'. It's what you say when things go wrong, but by some miracle, you have fared well, considering what could have happened.

I had reason to say this on Monday May 5th, when I tripped and fell on the pavement, at the tram stop on the high street, on my face.

I was out shopping with the children, Elisabet, soon ten, and Erik, twelve. They needed new clothes and we got caught in the make-up department of Hennes & Mauritz, buying lipstick and nail polish for ourselves and as gifts. 

Instead of doing what we usually do when shopping, that is, taking the baby-carriage to transport all of our new treasures home, I just thought I could carry it all and take the tram home. (I don't own a car.) I had six huge shopping bags (the kind with handles or hand-holes) with children's clothes, three in each hand, plus holding Elisabet's hand. Erik rode his bicycle home, but we took his things with us. 

Elisabet and I left the shopping mall, stood on the high street and saw the tram roll into place. 

'Will we get on before it leaves the stop?' 

Elisabet and I ran across the street behind the tram and saw the doors open and people getting on and then the doors closing. Panting, we were just outside of the door, but before I could get close enough to press the open-button, I tripped and fell. I saw the square concrete blocks of the ground coming up at me - fast. It hurt badly when I hit it. Did I brace my fall? I could not remember. I had so much to carry and Elisabet did not see what had happened. 

I just lay still. I used the bags of clothing as a pillow and just remained lying there on the ground, while kindly passers-by asked me if I was alright. I wasn't sure. The driver of the tram called emergency services and did not continue his route until the ambulance had arrived. I got up and sat on the waiting-bench and started to feel my face with my hands. 

According to the paramedic, I landed well, considering that I hit a concrete floor. I hit one side of my chin, which was bleeding and swollen. Half of my face was numb. (That feeling you get at the dentist's when you get local anesthesia.) My lips were bleeding. I probably looked like a prize-fighter or a battered-wife.

The paramedics checked me over and asked if I wanted to be taken to the hospital. I looked at Elisabet and decided to not put her through the long wait at the emergency room. 'Check me out now, and take me home, if you can.'

'You are really lucky.' I was told. My teeth were in tact. I had fallen on the fattiest part of my face. I could have broken my jar or fractured some other part of my face or pushed my nose in. My jaw could have been pulled out of joint. I had no trouble opening my mouth, even though there was some internal bleeding there. 

I sprained my right thumb, which means that maybe I did brake the fall a little. (I have had to hold a pen between my index and long finger in order to write, immediately and a few days after the accident.)

The ambulance drove me to the tram stop where we would have got off to get home. They are allowed to drive where other vehicles are not. Only police and the fire brigade can do that as well.

Elisabet and I thanked the ambulance driver and paramedic and called them Angels. Thank goodness they are there when you need them. I was going to be alright. 'Call us if you get a headache or start vomiting.' But I did not have a concussion either.

Elisabet went home to her father, two blocks away. I took some pain-killer and went to bed. Later, before I went out to do errands again, I put foundation make-up on the blackish blue bruise on my chin.  But it could not hide the swelling. I wore dark red lip stick to hide the scabs on my lips. I don't normally wear make-up at all. It seemed ironic that we had just left the make-up department before the accident.

At home in bed, I thought of everything bad that could have happened, but didn't: like biting off my tongue or breaking my teeth or having them fall out later on because of root-damage mot nerve-damage. (I know someone, who was in an auto-accident and had to get false teeth because of this.) Not even the scrape-sore under my chin will leave a permanent scar.

I was so lucky.

Now what does this have to do with writing and getting published? I am working on a secret writing-project and I am so superstitious that I can't say anything about it yet. I am still working 'with the door closed', as Stephen King has described it. It may flop. But I am going to see it through. It might work. Maybe I'll get lucky again.

[This is NOT a fictional text. This is what actually happened to me, as if I tore out a page from my diary.]

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Word count according to WordCalc: 876

 
Best wishes,
Anna










First Commenter:
Sally
of 
Sally's Scribbles

 

IWSG-Insecure Writer's Support Group for April 2014

 

Anna Nordeman

 

Thanks to Alex J Cavanaugh for starting Insecure Writer's Support Group.

This is my thirteenth post for IWSG.

Elsa, the cat, and my daughter, Elisabet

 







For my April edition of IWSG I would like to a few words about an adventure series for children, from about 8 to 12 years of age, called Warriors, by Erin Hunter. It is about four groups of ferrel cats that live in a forest, far away from humans or the 'twolegs', as the cats call them.





I was on a trans-Atlantic air-trip, when I first saw one of these books in the hands of a ten year old girl from the Netherlands. She sat and read and read so intently that I just had to ask her what she was reading.

As soon as I returned home, I ordered a copy of the first book Into the Wild, and read it very quickly. It was a real page-turner and I would dare to say, a cross-over book. You can be an adult and still enjoy reading them. (I've read the first six books)

The main character is a ginger tomcat, named 'Rusty' who looks a lot like my former cat, Lars:

Elisabet holding Lars or Sigge

But Rusty runs away from home and joins a band of wild cats who live together in a colony they call 'ThunderClan'. Rusty starts off as an apprentice warrior cat and after proving himself worthy as clan-member, he is accepted and rises in their ranks ...  I don't want to give away what happens but it is an interesting point of view.

If any of you have read any of these books, let me know. I enjoyed reading them.

----

I bought a stuffed toy cat today, to give to my daughter on her tenth birthday on May 12th. It is a consolation present because of her cat-fur-allergy. By then all of our cats should have moved to new homes. My deadline is the end of April.

And to everyone who is going to participate in April's big event - Happy A-to-Z-ing! I'm sorry, but I just don't have the time (or energy) to do the A to Z in April. But I'll try to visit!

Yours faithfully,
Anna

P.S.
For those who would like to see my list of how-to-write-books, please go here. 
[If you would like to read my other earlier posts for IWSG, go back to my first post in March 2013 here, in April 2013 here, in May 2013 here, in June here, in July 2013 here, in August 2013  here,  in September 2013  here,  in October 2013 here, in November 2013 here, in December 2013 here, and for January 2014 here, and February 2014 here and March 2014 here.]

First Commenter:
The Armchair Squid