Author’s Note: Adding to the Fun

While tooling around online, I came across someone who unabashedly used the word “funnest” in a sentence. The Internet is a wonderful place, and I spend a lot of time there, but it isn’t necessarily a haven for grammar purity.

The usage irked me, and the sneaking suspicion that it’s slowly becoming standard irked me even more. A quick search led me (naturally) to both Grammar Girl and the Grammarist. The short version of both is that I was right to be irked: those of us who would rather rake our nails across a chalkboard than to use “funner” or “funnest” are likely on the losing end of linguistic history. There’s nothing fun about that.
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Author’s Note: Let’s Try This Again

This week marks a hopeful return to regular posting at Catsignal. At minimum, there will be a new haiku and a new Quotable each Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively. I hope also to post weekly about something happening in the writing world, an interesting piece someone else has written, or something I’ve been thinking about concerning writing. I hope you’ll join me again.

Author’s Note: Catsignal Turns 10

Catsignal is not the happy, boisterous 10-year-old I had once envisioned it would be. The earlier days of weekly stories are long gone. The occasional haiku and even more occasional essay are about all that happen around here anymore. If ever I find the cognitive power to change that, I will. At present, chronic fatigue syndrome keeps me sleepy and brain-fogged.

On this anniversary, it seems more reasonable to look back rather than ahead. So, for those who might like to revisit the old days – or if you’re new here and wonder where to begin – here is a short list of some of my favorite stories, in chronological order.

Papal Bull

In Sure and Certain Hope

The Master of Rusbridge Manor

Folding Money

Fallen Gods

Katydid

Red Riding Hood and the Wolves

Time in a Bottle

One Low Payment

Bobblehead

Birth Order

The Devil You Know

The Last Reunion of the Capper Gang

Exposed

Angels We Have Heard While High

Personal Ad

Hansel and His Visit to the Enchanted Part of the Forest

Precarious Balance

One year later…

Hello, again.

I never thought I’d let Catsignal go so long without a single post. I love what I’ve done here. I love writing things and sharing them with you. But my chronic fatigue syndrome and migraines have kept me mentally and physically benched. And on that front, it has been a long, bad year.

I have, however, finally written another story. It’s one I had started a couple of years ago and never quite knew where to take it past a certain point. I have solved that problem, and the story – “Precarious Balance” – follows this note.

This by no means signals a return to regular posting. But it does, at least, tell me that I can still do this. I can still create. I can still put one word after another in what some may find an entertaining fashion. Even if I have to work on it piecemeal on the rare days when I am awake enough to concentrate, I can still do this. And that means the world to me.

I hope you enjoy the story. I also hope you don’t give up on Catsignal. I haven’t.

Author’s Note: Now Comes September

Yeah, so I took August off…

The first week, I simply couldn’t do anything. Even though I had some haiku written and plenty of quotations available, it was too much effort to open the back end of my blog and post two things. After that, I just decided to take the month off, promising myself I’d get back to at least the usual minimal posting in September.

So here I am again. And let’s hear it for muscle memory that let me remember my password to get into this place.

Thank you – so very much – for checking back to see if I’m still here. I have a great desire to write a story, a desire I haven’t felt for a long time, thanks to the CFS. I hope I can translate that desire into something worth reading before too long. Meantime, a haiku based on looking out the back door. (Plus! a new background and new text area color to try to brighten things up. What do you think?)

Author’s Note: Once More Unto Tinywords

I got a nice piece of news recently: this haiku has been accepted for the next publication of Tinywords. Tinywords 15.1 will begin to appear online, one haiku at a time, in early February.

This is my second time in Tinywords, which is now edited by Kathe L. Palka and Peter Newton; d.f. tweney founded Tinywords and continues to publish it.

So, again, yay me!