Florida Mermaid Musings

For those of you are wondering why I have not posted on my blog in over a month, the answer is NaNoWriMo. November is National Novel Writing Month, a/k/a NaNoWriMo. Most of you have probably never heard of it, some of you are intimately and painfully familiar with it. In 1999 some crazy writer challenged twenty friends to write a 50,000-word novel in the month of November. Ten years and thousands of novels later there are over 100,000 participants in NaNoWriMo from all over the world. Last year over 20,000 writers made the deadline and gave birth to the first draft of a novel. Maybe a bad novel, but still a novel. 2009 was my first year as a participant, and I am proud to say I crawled over the finish line this morning with 51,459 words. Now I am feeling a little lost and disoriented, like a bear emerging from the cave after a long winter hibernation. I am still stunned in disbelief that I actually did it. I actually wrote a first draft of a novel! I will let it lie for a few weeks, th...

I was fortunate enough to be chosen to read my Halloween story at the Writers of One Flight Up Flights of Fantasy event in Mount Dora. Being a fledgeling writer, it was a nerve-wracking experience. Once I sat in the chair and faced the microphone, all worries faded away and I simply began to read. I am lost to the magic of writing and am looking forward with great excitement to the next contest, the next reading, the next short story, the first, second and third novels. My heartfelt thanks to the Writers at One Flight Up. Here is my story: CARE FOR A SCARE? BY LISA RAST I sat on the front porch with my arms wrapped around a big orange bowl filled with candy. It was that magical time between day and night when the sun and moon waved howdy to each other as one checked out and one checked in. October is my favorite time of year and I live for Halloween. The days may still be warm but the mugginess is creeping ...

Artists and writers use the term "blocked" when they hit a brick wall with their creativity. And hitting a brick wall is exactly what it feels like; you might be merrily writing away, your characters coming to life, the plot thickening, and boom! For no apparent reason everything stops dead in its tracks. I have been struggling, trying to wrench from my creativity a novel. I began with a short story that really needed to expand and grow. I was so excited in the beginning, setting scenes and getting to know my characters. Then one day I didn't know what the next scene was. My characters stood frozen in place, exceedingly patient, waiting for me to breathe life into them. I grew panicked, tried to write, struck too many false notes, and decided to set the work aside. Since then I have been paralyzed with fear. From time to time I will click over to my "writing" file and read what I have already written, half hoping the characters woke up and went on withou...

Being a middle-aged woman sucks. I am inundated with beautiful people on television and magazines who mock my fat thighs and poochy belly. Every ad seems to be for an expensive face cream guaranteed to make wrinkles disappear or a medieval torture device that claims to give me a "ripped" body in six weeks. (What they don't tell you is you actually have to use the machine to get results - hanging clothes on it doesn't count.) My Facebook friends happily post they're off to yoga, or off to spinning, or off to play tennis. Personally, I think they're off their rocker. I have friends who are getting "weight loss" shots from doctors, going to boot camp at the ungodly hour of 5 a.m., or twisting themselves into Pilates pretzels twice a day. They've given up alcohol, chocolate, and coffee. What is WRONG with these people?! Are they truly happy wasting hours a day sweating from physical exertion just to have a firmer butt? Do they really enjoy ...

I recently read a deposition of an illegal alien from Mexico. While working as a laborer here he met a teenage girl, the daughter of another illegal alien, and got her pregnant. The teenager received her prenatal care from a government health clinic, paid for by the taxpayers. She complained of pain toward the end of her pregnancy and the clinic sent her to a hospital by ambulance. There were complications and she died during childbirth. The baby survived but with severe mental and physical deficiencies. The child cannot walk or speak and is fed through a feeding tube. The illegal alien who is the father of the baby and the illegal alien who is the mother of the teenager sued the hospital and received a six figure sum in settlement. The two illegal aliens are now suing the United States of America because they feel the teenage girl did not receive adequate prenatal care from the government health clinic. Every day a nurse and an occupational therapist paid for by our tax doll...

I am not an outdoorsy person. I haven't been for many years. My idea of a hike is lugging my bags from the parking lot to a hotel lobby. This weekend I did something totally out of character and took a friend kayaking for her fiftieth birthday. A wonderful thing happened. Journeying through the Dora Canal I found myself relaxing more and more with every stroke of the paddle. The great blue herons standing among the cypress trees, the alligators gliding through the water, the fecund smell of marsh, the long beards of moss reaching down to touch the water, all brought a flood of childhood memories rushing back to me. When I was a little girl almost every weekend my family would load up the camper and head into the nearby Ocala National Forest for a weekend of "roughing it." Back then I loved exploring the many hunting trails in the forest and was never once frightened of being alone or getting lost in the vast forest. I came across a bobcat once and fancied petting ...

On my recent trip to St. Augustine I attended the 13th Annual Gamble Rogers Festival at the St. Johns County Fairgrounds. Gamble Rogers was a legendary singer/songwriter/storyteller who inspired folk singers and storytellers across the country. In 1991 he died a tragic death attempting to rescue a drowning man in the surf. Many mourned his passing, and every year his followers and devotees gather to honor his memory. I could not think of any place on earth I'd rather be than the fairgrounds on a gorgeous Sunday morning. I arrived early; the grass was still wet with dew. Pickers and storytellers were drinking their morning coffee, vendors were setting up tents to sell handmade jewelry and musical instruments, and the smell of funnel cakes mixed with the sweet aroma of freshly cut grass. Folding chairs were set up to face the stage in the Baby Grand Theater, a nod to one of the fictional locales in Rogers' Oklawaha County. (The Baby Grand Theater was a cracked concrete sla...