Last night I went to my first ever Robert Burns' Night. Wow! I had an awesome time and I even ate haggis. Yes, you read that right. I took a couple of spoonfuls onto my dinner plate and ate it all. (Those of you who are wondering what haggis is, believe me, you're better off not knowing!) As the bagpipes began, my eyes watered. I so miss Scotland. No, I'm not from there. Well, not in this lifetime anyway. But it is my happy place. The one place on earth where I truly feel comfortable and content. If I could move tomorrow, I'd do it in a heartbeat without looking back. My heart is there, on the moors, in the mists and buried deep in the Highlands.
But I digress.
Back to Burns' Night. It was a dry event, but the only man at my table brought a bottle of scotch in from his car (after getting permission from the people running the show) and gladly shared with the rest of us at the table. After we watched the pipers swigging down beers, we figured it was acceptable to bring your own in. The whole event was very inspiring and made me wish again I was living in Scotland.
The only bad part of the night? They played some Confederate song and raised the Confederate flag. Now, I'm not against people being proud of their heritage, but what does the Confederate flag have to do with a Scottish poet named Robert Burns? Anyway, I couldn't get up and sing and salute that flag. I'm a northern girl at heart and always will be.
When I got home, I continued writing for my local RWA challenge, which I also have done today, and the story is taking a nice shape. It's hard though, because I'm so used to blood, guts, gunfights and other suspense elements. Focusing on the relationship between the two characters and on their personalities in this contemporary is a hard lesson for me to learn, but I truly think that this lesson will be so valuable to my overall writing. I'm even playing around with pseudonyms that I can use for my contemporaries and I can use my own name for my suspenses when I get back to them. For now, I'm quite happy exploring Scotland and the love that's growing between my hero and heroine.
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