Happy Autumn! Back to Work on the Store!

September 22, 2014 / jrmilson / 2 Comments

Wishing everyone a beautiful first official day of Autumn as we say goodbye to summer today. Apples, pumpkins, cider and apple butter, hayrides, changing leaves on the hills, fall baking, cookies and so much more await as we lead up to the holiday season that seems to run from Halloween to the Super Bowl now. The fall season brings a refreshing and invigorating freshness and revitalizing crispness to the air. Comfortably warm days and welcome, blissfully cool nights.

Autumn Hills Foliage, Missouri Ozarks

A busy week ahead with much to do here. I took a little break from my online store over the summer, concentrating heavily on writing projects and developing new designs and patterns, but back to it in earnest now. Writing is fun, the store pays for the groceries.

Five new bears were finished last week, along with a dozen antiqued Mini American Flags for bear and doll displays. The first in a new line of Handmade Wooden Mini Bear and Doll Chairs were finished as well. Rocking Chairs in different styles, and a “surprise” design of my own. Hope you like them!

Several new Sea Glass and Healing Stone Pendants have been wrapped and are ready, also. I was fortunate enough to find some beautiful, rare red beach glass pieces over the summer, and have the first few finished. Watch for them all to be listed into the store by the end of the week, with more new bears and other creations to follow.

Charles Wysocki Art, Making Flags

Work continues on the Poetry Project with Charles Dickens still taking up residence in my mind, in addition to working with Little Red Bear to finish his first collection of short story adventures for release after the holidays. Busy times.

Separately, Rusty the Fairydiddle, the Blog Assistant here, left for an out of town assignment a few weeks ago and I have not heard from him lately. If anyone has seen him or knows of his whereabouts, please give a holler. As you probably know, he will be the Red Squirrel carrying a notepad, among other things. He was headed in the direction of Florida. I will let you know if and when I hear something myself. Starting to get a little worried.

As always, thanks for reading and following along and have a great day! Happy Autumn! – Jim (and Red!)

Norman Rockwell- “Grandpa and Me: Raking Leaves”, Four Seasons Calendar, 1948

Advance Warning on a New Writing Project!

September 16, 2014 / jrmilson / 2 Comments

A story character entered my brain a few years ago, and then went to the back and took a Rip Van Winkle nap. He awoke quite unexpectedly last night right as I was beginning to make dinner, demanding that I start writing about him– right now! But instead of a little story, he is adamant about being featured in a poem. Ugh!

I began working on it last night until the wee hours, and have been writing on the new project almost non-stop since I woke up this morning, finishing cold oatmeal while continuing to work away at it. This one may take a while.

I don’t usually talk about my writing process because I am admittedly only an amateur at it and far from qualified to give advice, but in a nutshell here it is. Given my old woodcarving and sculpture background, I use the same process starting with a new dictionary, like a block of wood, and then hack and carve at it, removing odd words and everything that isn’t a story. So poems are even harder, finding and saving rhymes amongst the shreds and slivers. Boy do the bits and pages fly when I get going! I only imagine that’s how properly trained writers go about it as well. Do all the bards search thru shards, burning time to find a rhyme?

Searching for a Rhyme

I have to stop now for a while to rest my mallet arm, and then resharpen my tools for more writing work tonight. I feel like Charles Dickens has taken up residence in my brain along with the story character. Is there an aspirin for that?

Much too early to go into what it’s about because this is going to take a while and we’re only getting started. So please be patient as the character, Mr. Dickens and I get things sorted out. I suppose if Mark Twain pops in for a visit we would have enough folks for a few hands of poker in odd moments. The next image is a hint. It involves– a lamp. Whoa. Hope I haven’t said too much.

So, trying to be responsible. Giving advance warning. Looks like there may be poetry coming down the road. Might want to take your loved ones to higher ground and seek shelter.

Lamp in the Fog

Rusty’s Very First News Feature- The Gray Fox Interview

July 16, 2014 / jrmilson / Leave a comment

We are proud to publish Rusty’s first interview in the new Blog feature series today- “Rusty Behind the Scenes!”

As you may recall, Rusty the Red Squirrel, or “Rusty the Fairydiddle” as he has become known here, was recently hired as a Blog Assistant to provide special behind the scenes access for you while Little Red Bear and I finish his collection of short story adventures for release in the coming months. This is the first in a series of news articles, features and interviews Rusty will be doing. If you missed it, more information about Rusty himself is available a few posts below, when he was first introduced.

Rusty sat down for a chat the other day with one of the Gray Foxes from the “Ozarks Ostrich Crisis” story. Not sure everything went quite according to Rusty’s plan though. Having been raised in England, some of his assumptions about the backwoods critters here in the Ozarks Mountains may have been a little off. Here is a link to the full length interview text→ “The Gray Fox Interview” Hope you enjoy it.

Gray Fox

Rusty is hard at work now preparing for his next interview which, in all likelihood, may go a little more smoothly for him—“Buzz the Honeybee”. Watch for it soon.

Over 100 and Over the Moon!

June 29, 2014June 29, 2014 / jrmilson / 2 Comments

DANCE PARTY!! Announcing →→→→ My Facebook Author Page has over 100 LIKES and followers now– 102 to be precise!! Huzzah and Hooray!! We made it over 100 folks! And my new Blog here is up to 30 followers already! Little Red Bear is over the moon with it all.

A Big Bear Hug and Thank You to all reading and following along! And if you haven’t yet, there are links on the right hand side to join the party → My Author Facebook Page, the Blog here, and Twitter. It’s never too late and the door’s always open to new friends.

Watch for a major news announcement here shortly. (Hint- the newly created Blog Assistant Position has been filled!) And more new posts in the coming days.

Oh happy day→ we made it over 100!! Let the dancing begin!!

Hop-Ta-Doody-Day!!

Bear Dance Party!

Dance Party!

Dancing Bears Hokey Pokey

To “Bee” or Not to “Be”?

May 8, 2014 / jrmilson / Leave a comment

The first collection in the “Adventures of Little Red Bear” series of short stories is moving right along. From the beginning, I have thought six stories would be a good number for the first collection. Half a dozen. It’s a good number. Red and I have finished with four of his first adventures, are nearing completion on the fifth story, and have had the sixth and final story for the first collection planned for awhile now and are ready to get busy on it.

But that’s the problem. Story ideas usually come to me somewhere around 5am. I wake up from sleeping and BAMM! A new story idea is writing itself in my mind, or new story characters are chattering away in my head. But the ideas don’t always arrive with the morning sun. Sometimes they come out of nowhere, like yesterday afternoon. Without thinking about it, a new story idea popped into my head that would make a very nice ending story for the first collection, too. It involves this guy.

Honey Bee Carrying Pollen Back to the Hive

So now, what to do? Hold it over for the next story collection? It’s one of those that is almost writing itself, wanting to be told. Hold what was previously planned for the final adventure over, and go with the new one? Red and I already have more than enough adventures planned for the second collection of stories, so holding either one over creates a cascading domino effect of which adventure gets pushed out of the second collection then? Or, include both and expand the first collection to seven stories? Good grief.

I love it when new ideas and story characters come to mind, although sometimes it can be problematic. But like we always say, there’s always room for one more. Guess Little Red Bear and I need to sit down later over some biscuits and honey and figure this out.