Yes...I am still here. I'm just behaving as a good little writer should, and editing my manuscript like a madwoman. I've also fallen into another book:



I haven't finished it yet...but, I have to tell you that Margaret Atwood might be God. How she moves her way through the theme--ties the elements together--weaves such beauty out of her words. She truly does think of everything. I picked up the book because it was hers, and because the Universe handed it to me on a silver platter. Here, the re-telling of the Greek myth of Odysseus from the perspective of the modest, demure, faithful wife, Penelope. Ever wondered what she really was up to the years he was away? Well...the myth of Penelope, interestingly enough, is a form of one of the hidden backbones in my own book. It applies to one character only...but, I've learned how to knit while writing this book because I needed to know how the character in question of mine would describe her very Penelope-esque weaving. I wasn't about to buy a loom...the knitting seemed that it would give me something to go on when describing the weight and heft of the wool. It hasn't disappointed yet...though when I'm a little old lady, still with needles in my hand, I will have to explain that I started off "in character" from my first novel.

This myth, along with that of Penelope's hanged maids, is dove-tailing with the current film for my class--"Raise the Red Lantern"--which was about Chinese mistresses during the Confucian period, and had a hanged maid or two all its own. Echoes then, in all of the material I'm currently dealing with. To say nothing of what these things all say about women and sisterhood...fortunately, I have a sister of my own and do not have to rely on sources such as these or I may be misinformed. My sister is a powerful, beautiful, vibrant woman. Today is her birthday...I wish her light and love. This woman has taught me about how to live...how to weave together threads of my own into something every bit as luminescent as Penelope's finest cloth...