 Uncle Morty’s Halloween Journey by Mortimer R. Wolcott This week the Netherworld is preparing to celebrate the day when the barriers break down and the disembodied, the undead, the restful and the wakeful, can cross back again to see the world of the living. The embodied call it “Halloween.” But I, your Uncle Morty, cross back to the land of the dead. It is the one day I am allowed to visit my gardens, my beautiful shadow home. Alas, I have been unable to complete the décor due to my present assignment among the flesh-covered. I have been banished from my beloved afterlife. Though they might be interesting, the crimes for which I suffer my penance will not be particularly comprehensible to my embodied friends. Suffice it to say that, for me, Halloween is a one-day vacation from the vacuous world of the living. The boundary is already becoming hazy and I can almost see the old homestead now, tall and thin, multi-gabled - diamond windows and diaphanous draperies drifting gently in the moonlight, windows open to the frosts of autumn no doubt, just as I left them last year. My old house awaits its occupant. Perhaps it pines for the one night of the year the blue flame fills the fireplace, just as I do.
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 My Dream Garden by Uncle Morty Your Uncle Morty dreams every day of the garden he will create when this assignment is done, and he is allowed to return to the Netherworlds. Let’s imagine it together, shall we?
 Loose Thoughts by Uncle Morty Here begins the blog of Uncle Morty:
I find that the weather has become less pleasant and I am expected to earn my keep by writing a blog post. (I am pictured at left warming my bones during the brief period of warmth.) After a difficult and somewhat depressing winter - things always go downhill for me after Halloween - I find that I must clear my empty skull of loose thoughts before I can write a proper essay. So before they begin to roll out my empty eye sockets like loose marbles, I have captured these random ideas and placed them here for your perusal. They come in no particular order  Children's Books by Sacred Chickens Staff Julie- I’m not quite as old as Uncle Morty, but I’m digging back into my childhood for recommendations. I am going to recommend Frog and Toad and Winnie the Pooh. All of our readers already know my brain is spring-besotted and flower-obsessed, and both these book series put me in mind of gardens, forests, rain on the roof, tea shared with friends. In fact, I think if you could take a tiny peek into the real estate of my brain, you would find a good portion taken up by the Hundred Acre Wood. It’s bordered by the River where Frog and Toad swim. Toad’s flower garden is there too, the one he agonizes over until the first seedlings sprout.
 Five Favorite Genres by Uncle Morty Your Uncle Morty has been tasked with listing his five favorite genres for a blog post. These genres will be meaningless to the living in all likelihood, however, never let it be said I don’t help out when I’m asked. I do read some of the same genres as the skin-covered, but I tend to stick to books that deal more strictly with my current condition.
 Dealing With Reading Slumps by Sacred Chickens Staff If you're a person who reads regularly, then you know the feeling of getting into a slump. You may be in one right now, especially if you've had a busy Holiday season. Here are some of the ways we get back into reading when we've been slacking!
Julie – If I’m in a slump, it usually because I’m busy and my mind is whirring about other things. I find that this is not the time to attempt the medieval works, Faulkner (I started blogging about why I couldn’t read As I Lay Dying before, but I couldn’t make myself read enough of it to make it work, and if you like the guy…fine…he just can’t find much of a resting place in my brain…I’m willing to blame myself) or Moby Dick for the hundredth time. Page five of MD and I skip to the end. So, if I’m stuck in a rut, unable to concentrate, I go to my comfort zone and hang out with old friends in familiar places. I can dive in, relax for a few minutes and then return to whatever soul sucking mess I have going on in the real world. I stick to old favorites, sometimes going all the way back to children’s literature. The Mary Russell series is favorite, Jane Austen, and Poe if I’m feeling up to being an adult. But sometimes, I just pick up Alice in Wonderland, or Winnie-the-Pooh or The Princess and the Goblin. In crazy times, I tend to go for a setting where I’m happy, Regency England, the Hundred Acre Wood, or even the creepy bridal suite in Ligeia. But as the Wise Man said in Labyrinth, “Sometimes the way forward is the way back.” There’s no shame in a wise retreat.  New Year's Resolutions by Sacred Chickens Staff Uncle Morty and the rest of the Sacred Chickens team would like to share their reading resolutions for 2019. We hope you're making your own literary resolutions and Happy New Year!
Your Uncle Morty has no specific books in mind. However, he does plan to read a good number of biographies in the coming year to help him contemplate his upcoming project: Mortimer After, A Deathography. So if you have any memoirs or biographies to recommend, please feel free to make suggestions here or on the FaceBook page.  On Writing by Uncle Morty Uncle Morty seems to have a lot of times on his hands since he departed the land of the living, and he spends much of that time writing (especially when asked nicely). So, over the years he's figured out a few tips and tricks about writing along the way, and he'd like to share them with us!
By the way, your Uncle Morty can always use original material. The living around here are always pestering the dying nightlights out of him to work on their silly blog. As such, he has created a writing exercise. Feel free to share your results with us. We may publish them so your Uncle Morty can actually RIP once in a while. This exercise can be used with your own work too. Use it to enhance dialogue. (When you get to Step 2 you’ll see how that works.)  Merry Christmas! from the Sacred Chickens Staff Because it is Christmas Day, the Team at Sacred Chickens is taking the day off, as we hope you all are have been able to do, to enjoy time with friends and family. However, we just wanted to post a little something to wish you all a Happy Holidays and a Merry Christmas! We hope you saw our post yesterday and are reading your favorite Christmas books right now! |
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