Catching Up

It has been a month since I've posted on this blog. It isn't dead, just on haitus. I've been busy for the month of November with NaNoWriMo, a novel-writing process that takes you from your first word to a 50,000 novel in one month. It is the reason this particular blog exists, as I started it last year as I was working on Without A Net. This novel is still in process and I'll be getting back to work on it shortly.

I have received word that the theme for 2008's Circus Flora is Sherwood Forest and the Robin Hood tale. As fun as the Marrakesh show was, it didn't feature my favorite performer quite the way I would have liked, so I'm going to hope that the Sherwood Forest theme uses Nino to better advantage.

Also, the second Zoppe Family Newsletter is up and ready for reading at www.zoppe.net. They have added quite a few videos to youtube lately; a simple search should bring them up. One that I really appreciated seeing was someone's amateur filming of a massive storm that came through and tried to take down their show near Chicago this summer. It is pretty scary film but shows just how resilient the troupe is, and how quickly they could put things to right. Since I am using a storm as a major plot point in Without a Net, it is great to see how the real thing is handled.

Klown and I did not get to go to Colorado together and I had to go alone. The illness of a close family member made it impossible for us to make the trip as planned. This messed up a lot of things for us, and I did not get to see the Ringling "no ring" show. Klown did, and said it really wasn't that great, but he did get to spend several days hanging around with the Ringling clowns at their clown alley. A friend of Klown's, Larry, has been trying to get back on with Ringling and lucked into a contract to join the show in Michigan and then at winter quarters, where they will begin rehearsing for shows that will begin in January. I got to meet Larry, he stayed over at our house right around the time I got back from Colorado, and I'm glad he's getting another chance with Ringling. Of course, it made Klown long for wanting to go with the show as well. This is a yearly thing for Klown, every time Ringling is in town, and I just sit back and let him have at the fantasy, at least for the few days that the circus is in town.

That's all the updates I have at the moment; I hope to get back to regular posting in this blog within the next few weeks.