to taste a peach

mind to page

2012-01-24T18:13:00.001-05:00

pencil to paper, fingers to keys, and font to screen

I was having a great time reading Fountain of Swans. I hadn't worked on the draft directly in years. It was fun reading it like a reader, rather than like someone struggling to write it. Sure I noticed things like missing details, merely suggested sections, and areas of suckitude, but I was also totally caught up in the story; excited to be on this ride, this journey. There were scenes I had forgotten, and the words I used to frame ideas surprised me (that doesn't happen with Echo. I've worked on it for so many years, that when I change something the original words reverberate back to me. I don't get caught up when I read it, I get stressed out.). It all went along nicely until I hit page 88, which is where the story suddenly ended, even though it wasn't at its end. Like a reader who bought a book that was missing its ending I was flabbergasted. What the....where is my ending?
I knew the ending, I knew I had written all this stuff down.. somewhere...oh goodness..all that information...all those ideas..they can't be lost....they have to be somewhere. Where? Oh the mental meltdown as I searched through my computer note pages- the information wasn't there. Ugh. Upstairs to the lair of everything, scooping up piles of notebooks, knowing there are forty of them I might be forced to slosh through. First ten nothing, and obviously not the right sources. Searching high and low, oh not long ago, it was all in piles on the floor according to what it went with, but then I thought I should clean the floor- so now where was everything?
Ah finally I found the right ten notebooks, flipped through them, found a couple of pages in one...then in the official FoS notebook (duh) finally the lost information was found-but of course it was written in my less coherent than chicken scratch style (OMG what if I have found it but can't read it, so it is still lost to me). But wait- every page has a big check in the side margins- which is what I do when I type a page up. So that means at some point it was on my computer. Okay found my back-up discs. Had to beg son to help me- my notes tried to lock me out saying I needed a password- but then finally my own words were opened back up to me. Hello old friends.
Now among many other things, I have found a drunk swan, and a boy with a club foot. But I am still missing some french monks, and a staircase hidden behind a mirror which leads to a secret room under the castle. I don't know if I should keep searching for them, or try to re-imagine them, or just let them go. Do I need them, do I want them, is something missing without them? I don't know yet.
Right now I am busy inserting my found information in the correct locations, and then reading through the parts to make sure they work together. A lot more work than reading as a bystander, a lot more writing too.
So far I am enjoying it though. And the best part is I am playing hopscotch, jumping back and forth between FoS and Echo. At times my inability to stay completely focused and see one thing through has upset me- but right now I'll let it be- for this is how I feel safest- hiding from one in the other. And as long as I am seeking shelter from stress over one, in words and pages of the other, then I am writing. And both are moving forward.
My not feeling well before- has led me to realize that this matters to me. These stories I want to finish. What if I don't have tomorrow? What if I am still here but unable physically to write? I don't want this left undone. I want Koji to exist in the world with or without me (and the other characters and stories whisper, "me too."). I have surrendered the idea of making any sort of living off of my stories, but I haven't surrendered the idea of having them mean something to someone. Someone other than me. Whenever I fall, tomorrow, fifty, sixty years from now, I want them to be in a place, to have a chance to go on, without me.
Besides my son, my husband, and the patch of earth I try to bring forth flowers in, I believe this, these stories, are my work, what I am to do. A thousand flowers set in my heart waiting to bloom.
And maybe they never will bloom. Both my gardening abilities and writing abilities are subject to failure- but this is how I have decided to perceive my life: trying to coax a thousand flowers to bloom.

2012-01-10T13:48:00.001-05:00

I've decided to attempt a rewrite of Echo using third person. For some crazy reason I thought this would come naturally. By the second sentence where I had to replace I, I became angst ridden. Now having completed one paragraph I'm distraught. So, I'm going to modify my initial strategy, from complete rewrite, to simply going through a copy of the manuscript and changing it to third person. And then later going back through it and seeing if I can make it better. I really wanted to approach it with a different spirit. Koji is the narrator, and I wondered what it would be like instead to have a fairly limited omniscient narrator; one close to his shoulder, who carries some affection for him. A blanket of thought spread out around him for his paws to walk upon. I wont get that from merely making I, he. Maybe I will give it another day or so. Lean into it, re-imagine. Maybe I will have to just do a simple edit form of rewrite first, and then it will be easier for another tone to unfold. Or maybe he still just wants to tell the story himself. I don't know. I worry that this struggle is just a waste of time, and that I should focus instead on making the story stronger as it is. But I wont know until I try, and fail, and try some more. And I do feel the need to know this answer. It would solve some problems. Yeah, I'll do just the basic edit and see how it feels, then I'll know if I should spend the time and energy re-imagining/rewriting.

2012-01-05T12:00:00.001-05:00

                                            orchids- Longwood Gardens

    Regret. A word for big mistakes, and small oversights. I thought I was careful. My blunder, financial. When the doctor told me I should get an echocardiogram, I let them make the appointment. They named several nearby facilities, all having basically the same words in their names, just in different orders. I picked one on a road I am familiar with.

    I asked how much it would cost. The lady who made the appointment called my insurance company for me and tried to get this information. Fifteen minutes later, she gave up. I was told it shouldn't be too much and most insurance covers it.

    Of course I didn't let it go at that. I went home and looked up my insurance info online. I had to add info and set up a password. I made sure the place I was going for the testing was covered by my insurance (in-network). And I found out that my insurance covers 80% of procedures-AFTER I reach my $1,400 deductible. But I still didn't know how much this procedure would cost me, so I called the facility and asked them. They didn't know how much it would cost and gave me the number for billing. Billing told me they couldn't give me a number- I told them my deductible and said I'm going to be paying for this out of pocket I need to know how much it is going to be. They said the number is so inflated they wont tell me because it isn't the number I would ever pay anyway. And then told me there are payment plans that can be set up to make it easier to pay.

    I didn't find any of that reassuring, so I called my insurance company. It took a while to weave through all the junk where I talked to a machine and said this or that and pushed this or that button, and several times it didn't like what I said, and made me repeat and pick something else, but eventually it connected me with an actual person. The person I reached quickly repeated all the info I had found online, 80%coverage after $1,400 deductible, and while I was in the middle of asking a question hung up on me.

   Alrighty-So I got to start the whole dialing and talking to a machine process all over again and tried to think of a different category for my question in hopes of getting to talk to a different person this time. Ah..a much better person, one who listens and then responds. She was very helpful, reassured me that echo bills come across her desk all the time, and no they aren't in the thousands but in the hundreds of dollars. And that there was a surplus of several hundred in our account (because we hardly ever use any of our health benifits) so it is possible that they would apply that to it, and I could end up paying nothing. She also helped me find the cost estimator on their website. And there I was able to see that my test would cost $200 dollars. Whew did I heave a sigh of relief. Okay I had all the info, it would be reasonable to have this test done.

So imagine our shock when we got the bill. $3,219.68. After insurance adjustment-$1,290.64 due. What?????!!!!! I still can't believe it. I mean this was a 15 minute test, just ran the ultrasound thing over my chest area. We thought it must be a mistake. We had to wait several days because of New Years holiday to find out what was going on. My husband called our insurance ( he got to do the long talking to the machine process) but eventually I got on to ask the questions myself. I mentioned the cost estimator- she said it's an estimator not exact- I said, I get that but um $3,000 extra is more than a little off. I may have screamed that part. (I kept getting worked up and then having to bring myself back down again.) She said well it wasn't just a basic echo, it was 2d complete, and was recorded. (I didn't ask for it to be recorded, it didn't say anything special on the form, it was recorded so it could be looked at later because no doctor was there for it.). Okay I said so how much more does that sort of echo cost. She looked it up and then said, Oh. I said how much more- about $34 she said. I asked her why I was being charged so much. I told her I couldn't pay this much, I never would have had the test done if I had known it could cost this much. She said our insurance was applying some surplus account money to the charge so it should end up costing us about $700, she didn't know why I was being charged so much but that it has to be paid- the insurance company has an agreement with the facility to pay a certain amount for a procedure- it is all about the code for that procedure, maybe this was a special code. I should call the facility and double check that the right code was put in.

I call the facility. Again they switch me to billing department. Matter of fact tone, she scoffs at me. Like how could I ever be surprised over such a thing. I had my test done at a trauma center, of course it would cost me more than it would anywhere else. I said over a thousand dollars more? She said, "Oh yes. We don't do echos here for less than $2,000 and that is for a standard echo and you had a 2D complete and it was recorded" (lucky me.) Thinking of the future I asked her if this would also be true for an MRI. Yes, at least $1,000 more at a trauma center. She said I could call and ask the amount of one if I decided to have one (she said it like it was an easy and obvious thing to call and get a price. I felt like screaming that is what I tried to do for the echo! And no one would tell me _ _ _ _!) I then asked her if she had the adjusted bill saying we owe $700 now instead of $1,200+, she said no, it shows here you owe us the full amount. She told me I could set up a payment plan, and that I had 90 days to pay then it goes to a collection agency, and she hung up.

    Ugh. I felt so sick. I still can not believe this. I am desperately hoping (we are calling our insurance company back today) that it is at least the modified 700 number, the 1,290 number I can't even wrap my head around.

    Oh, and the fact that I tried so hard to find out how much this procedure would cost ahead of time, because I knew we couldn't afford much. And that I still messed up. I still made some stupid error that resulted in this cost. If I had known our local hospital was a trauma center and that, that made some sort of a difference I would have gone somewhere else. I didn't choose it specifically (I didn't even know the facility was within the hospital when the appointment was made.) it was just that it was on a street that I knew, thus was easy to find. I knew the hospital was on that road, but so are many medical and dental facilities.

    If only- one teeny tiny decision- here instead of there, and this would have been $34, or perhaps even free. And despite my efforts, it is my fault. I feel like I am robbing my family.

   But then I have to step back, remove myself from that space, from that heavy distraught feeling. I have to let it go. It hangs there, it doesn't dissipate, but I stand outside rather than within it. It is done, this has happened, the situation is, what can I do now? Not make this mistake again. Not go to the writer's conference this year. Try to squeeze this money out of other areas of my life. Feeling distraught and sick over it, that wont help at all.

Upside?
          -My heart is fine, normal. So if it wants to skip some beats, or thunder along for several seconds here and there no big. And both the perpetual exhaustion, and chest pain with exercise, are gone now. Because I am fine, I more regret the expenditure as it was all unnecessary, but ultimately if the test had been shown justified- abnormal results, um that would not be in any way comforting.
          -Possibly an upside- I now know beyond a shadow of a doubt that stress and anxiety do not make me feel any dizzier. It comes and goes whenever it feels like it, and to whatever degree, regardless of my state of mind.
         -Gee if I do get worse, I have now met my deductible- our year stops sometime in June- so I will have 80% coverage if I get an MRI, and I now know not to have one at the hospital. So that knocks at least $1,000 off the price right there. I don't intend to have one though. I'd have to be sure something was really terribly wrong (not just off) before I would get such a test. And I have every intention of being terrifically well instead.
        - I still couldn't resist putting pretty orchids at the top of this post. A.k.a, this is a sucky thing, I feel I have been treated ill. Allowed myself to be tricked, used. I have been a fool. We have worked hard to cut back on all our spending, yet I have offered up our resources unnecessarily. Stupid, stupid, stupid. But this isn't an insurmountable thing. Everything, anything, could so easily be much worse. Live and learn, I get more chances, today is a new day; and like Anne of Green Gables would say, it doesn't have any mistakes in it (yet). And I don't take simple things like movement, my ability to walk, or dance (when I can dance without feeling sick) for granted anymore. It is a fine and remarkable thing to be able to move about the world.

I apologize for the randomness through which I approached tense, swinging back and forth between present and past tense without regard. Ah to be freely reckless with something :) . Oh and I suppose I should apologize as well, vaguely, for the myriad of grammar-ish mistakes I am aware of but not going to take any time to attempt to fix. Really, as I am sure anyone could agree, been here writing this far too long already. I am not however inclined today to apologize for all the grammar-ish mistakes that I have made but am completely unaware of. No. I want to take a moment, and a few deep breaths, and not hold myself accountable, for being stupid, and unaware. A space to feel okay and free to not know, and not feel consequence. I do try to know better but I often don't. And rather than apologize to you, I am going to forgive myself for it.

2011-12-02T08:05:00.001-05:00

    I can not believe how angry I am over a TV show. I had trouble sleeping last night, and when I woke up this morning I had this nagging unhappy feeling. I was like, what is this? So I mentally went through the negatives of yesterday, hmm..doctor still suggesting I might need blood pressure medication and wants me to get an MRI I can't afford (not pleasant, but I'm employing strategies to try and avoid both, so I don't think that's it)....cat threw-up on the floor (yeah well what's new)...and then my mind arrived at the X Factor, the elimination of Drew (yep that's it), the cause of the feeling.

    I had already found the show to be annoying (not in the beginning weeks but once we arrived at the judge enhanced stage performances), I don't like the overkill production, and I haven't enjoyed the judges banter, not their direct comments and not their back and forth with each other. But I kept watching the show anyway, because I liked the contestants. And I still do, like all of them, that is something the show got right- giving every contestant a back story- letting us get a sense of each one of them, so that we would care. And of course I have had my favorites: Josh, Melanie, and Drew. I fully expected them to be the final three. And though I am embarrassed to admit it, yes I voted.

    Drew, she was my favorite. I don't understand why the judges didn't save her. Or at least send it to a deadlock so the person with the lowest votes would go home. I would be sad if it turned out she had the lowest viewer votes and was sent home, but if I knew that then at least I would still be able to watch the show. I would be sad but think oh I guess people didn't realize they needed to vote for her, or maybe everyone else doesn't enjoy that unique tone to her voice as much as I do. And that would be that. But that isn't what happened. Of course Simon tried to save her, but the other three just tossed this shimmering sparkly girl aside. Ugh, I am so angry with the judges, and with the show, that I can't tolerate the idea of watching it anymore. I would like to support some of the other contestants, but whenever I think of the show I just feel sick. I can't stand the idea of watching and listening to those judges anymore.

Personal prescription: eat more watermelon, less salt; do those weird eye and head exercises to improve balance and combat dizziness; don't watch the X-Factor.

(not sure what to do about the darn cat, I suppose I do have to keep feeding him.)

2011-11-03T14:10:00.000-04:00

This is what I have decided about NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, I'm not doing it, but not totally not doing it. I've committed myself to 10,000 words by Nov. 30th. That is a lot less than the 50,000 NaNo goal, but I think it is right for me. I wont feel like I am just skipping it, and I'll make some progress on a new project, but I'll also have time to work on editing Echo, and to look after my family and household, and to try and avoid getting dizzy, and to be dizzy.
I'm at 3,412. I do cheat though. I use previous notes and questions I ask myself, and count them in my wordcount. As in- I wonder if Sardinia would be a good location? What sort of jobs are they looking for? It should start in Spring or Fall at twilight. I hear insects buzzing, feel warm night air, a slight breeze; under his skin he is on fire.- And, I tend to use and, and then, a lot. Which doesn't bother me at all, except that I wish I could write better. Be a stronger writer not so much in the rough draft but at some point.

2011-10-31T21:21:00.000-04:00

Happy Halloween

I still can't believe the snow. I'm glad the kids in our area trick or treated on Friday.
Last weekend was filled with planting bulbs. This weekend I was dashing about outside with my son digging up and bringing inside his tropical and desert plants. The kitchen and garage are now greenly stuffed.

     NaNoWriMo is whispering to me. But I need to be strong and tell it, "Not this year dear, I have a headache." The trouble with NaNo is, it turns November into a marathon of researching and writing. And when December first strikes I'm exhausted and my house is a mess. And instead of feeling any sort of festiveness, I feel the holidays ever encroaching like a dark beast waiting around the corner. My slow motion get away attempts only leading to the inevitable basement scene. Or is that not where characters tend to meet their demise?
   This year I'd like to not start out already behind. I want to feel Thanksgiving, not manage it around my word count for the day. I want to hum Christmas carols and think of putting up lights as joyful, not as another chore on a long list of things to do. I wonder if that's possible.

    It would be great though to work on some story ideas I have, to develop Dark Park/ Stone Song, Wisteria Manor, Hidden Candles, Whale and Penguin, or Shield of Innocence, into full fledged outlines. It would be great to turn an idea into a story. I like listing the titles, it kindles within, I like knowing they are there waiting, that maybe they can become something. And there is no push forward like NaNoWriMo.

    However I still haven't been able to take what I have done for past NaNos and turn them into finished stories. I just finished my read through of Echo today (took me 6 months, because I didn't read it during the summer). And though I littered the margins with notes to myself I haven't actually done the work of improving it yet. And the attempt will be a long and confusing process. I will need to do a lot more reading about editing, and a lot of careful reading of the works of others to help me learn.

    Come spring do I want four stories in rough draft form or do I want to have two stories in rough draft and one story done, fully finished. Of course the answer would be to have one story completely done. But the thing is, that I don't know how to do that, so three months, six months, a year or two more, who knows how long that could take me (forever..never?). The rough draft thing, I know that when I set it as a priority over everything else in my life that I can accomplish one of those in a month. And that does bring me a sense of accomplishment, even though I am not sure if I am truly moving forward.

    The final element in my decision making process, is the one that annoys me the most. These past two weeks I've had trouble with dizziness. Reading and work such as writing, painting, and sculpting usually make it worse. I've abandoned a painting, and a sculpture project for the time being. God I miss dancing around in the mornings while I brush my teeth. I never realized what a bouncy person I am. Oh to do a little hip dip, a bit of sway, to rock my head back and forth, to bound up the stairs singing, and not feel like the world was moving twice as fast in the opposite direction, to not incur the wrath of nausea at the slightest provocation.

    Strangely I've still been able to do yard work and wash dishes and the like. Sometimes I feel plenty bad afterward. But I'm pleased that I've been able to do my regular stuff by making some adjustments, like not moving my head much (keeping my face facing the same way as my body), not moving side ways, moving slowly, etc. I haven't been exercising though. Walking can quickly turn into a bad experience. Whether it be in the kitchen or outside, if the dizzy stuff strikes it feels like I am moving over an undulating landscape. But maybe I shouldn't even bother considering this in my decision, hopefully this will stay in October. Like I said I've been doing better. Better enough to convince myself today not to think of writing on the computer as a risky thing to do. Oh and I've decided that I have good balance since I haven't fallen, so that is something, not as good as not being dizzy, but some kind of consolation.

I think I've convinced myself not to do NaNo though I do feel the pull, and I will certainly visit their website tomorrow. But more importantly I've whined a bit about being dizzy, which might seem a bad thing, but usually when I complain about a thing like that here, it goes away.

2011-08-14T15:01:00.000-04:00

    Trying to psych myself up for weeding in the rain. Apparently I am not to plant in the rain, as it will ruin the soil structure. I don't like to weed. The fact that there are plants to be planted is the only reason weeding has entered my mind. My neighbor has cast of some hostas from her beds, and kindly given them to me. Dug up from her yard of order and beauty and dumped into mine; they sit huddled together along my deck, and await their uncertain futures.
    I guess after I weed, I can set the hostas on top of the soil where they will be planted, maybe that will make us feel better. Or maybe they will think they have been given to a crazy lady who doesn't know their roots are supposed to be in the ground. And they will hear no reassuring whisperings from the plants at the top and bottom of the bank concerning my gardening...sporadic and erratic..would be words of choice. Aah well I'm sure the plants around front would say nicer things about me.
    My hope is that these hostas will help me pull this slopey shady space together.
Well I guess it is time to stop staring into the backyard and working the area with my eyes, and get out there and begin working the space with my hands.

Family Portrait

2011-07-20T14:49:00.000-04:00

I am a butterfly hunter, prt 2

2011-06-21T19:32:00.001-04:00

- me now, a year later
Uneven progress this past year, as I tried to learn, but often felt too stupid to, so questioned the point of trying, the value in any of it, why write? and thus regularly ended up in the bog of why bother.

    Sometimes I look at this story through the lens of what others might think of it. And it falls apart, and I fall apart. I say it is saccharine schlock and poorly written schlock. And I am hounded and faithless for a while. Then suddenly the clamoring voices quiet, scattered away by some unknown force. And I sense again the faint music. Like it has come and sought me out. And I lean closer to the echo, to hear it stripped away from my cumbersome words. Free from my pen as I fumble toward it. To know what it is meant to be. And I am taken again. Wings flutter, and I follow, lamenting only my inability to transmute purely. That the conduit has a soft heart but awkward hands (maybe mine's an awkward mind). Perhaps this one, this first one, this hardest one, is just for me. Maybe I have to struggle to learn to write, to rise to my best ability, to become better, to tell this story for no one else, but me. And that, that is enough.
It has to be.

Enough because I need to fully know the story, or it wouldn't have come, and stayed and waited so long, asking again and again, year in, year out, know me. And I wont be free till I have given it my best. And not today's best either, one that involves becoming more, a best beyond what I know how to do today. It asks, it requires, more.

   I have no interest in further questioning the act, that would be a waste of time. I have arrived at the answer (again and again). It is who I am, it has meaning to me. I am a butterfly hunter (and a dishwasher, and a mom, etc.,). So having validated the dream, the urge to pursue if only for an audience of one, as enough to warrant time and effort. I must now surrender all my excuses. As I'm also naturally a dreamer (a day dreamy dreamer), and to just be a dreamer is no longer enough. There must always be action, muddy boots, and callused hands. My arms should hurt from swinging the net. I must keep close enough to warrant a swing. My eyes trained to seek and pick out her wings from amongst the dense foliage. I need a map, to track, to record. I hope to avoid much pointless wandering. This is the year of strategy.

This is the year I ask, what am I willing to give?
Not what do I want, I know that.
But what am I willing to do to get there.
And because it has been so hard to gather energy and muster forward, when I felt that even if I did manage to make it good, no one would be interested in publishing it (that I would reach a wall), I have decided on e-publishing as and end goal. I have needed an end goal. To know I was headed somewhere. It is a different dream. Not one of physically holding a book in my hands, my name on it, my story. To see it in a bookstore, to see it in a library. To have others believe in it, and promote it. Goodbye to the hope of making it big.
No. Now I just want to go through and edit it (re-write, rewrite, rewrite.), and make it the best that I can. I want to finish it. And to send it out apart from me. I don't expect her to fly far. I hope that she will be seen by a handful of people. If by no one, that would make me sad, but a few people, who I can imagine she would hold some value for, that would make me happy.
So now that the end is no longer a wall of no, but a window, I have no excuse not to go.
Not to do everything I can to get there.

Since this year's writing conference I have mostly been focusing on strategy. On developing one, and I have already turned my first idea on its head. I had focused on trying to learn grammar this past year, since I know I am weak in this area. I felt if I could build competency in this, I would build confidence, and be able to truly move forward.
Nope. It hasn't happened.
I've improved slightly, but mostly I have felt more doubt and stumbled more. Insecurity causing incapacitation.
So for progress's sake, grammar will wait. Instead I am focusing on content, on story, on story telling. There is much to learn in this area, and I understand what I read about it. The ideas don't confuse me and elude my grasp.
Though often my first response to an idea is, that idea is stupid, artificial, I wont be doing that. But I give it time to sink in, time for stubbornness to meet sway. In fact now I know this is part of my learning process. First I read it, second totally discount it, third decide to apply it ever so slightly. Like a tentative tip of tongue tasting something expected to be bitter. And then finally discover, that it has value, but that I will work it in in ways and proportions that make sense to me.
So I am not afraid in this (as afraid). I know I will make progress. And after I have done all I can with learning how to make the story stronger, more compelling, (and for God's sake for me to stop taking the conflict and tension out of the story, when I am supposed to be making it more acute) then I will turn my focus on grammar. Actually I am hoping, perhaps foolishly so, that some of those sorts of mistakes will be naturally worked out. That as the story becomes stronger, some of the grammatical problems will get knocked out of it in the process.
    So that's this year's plan. Make it more interesting, increase the tension, feel the characters, make it with words, visually alive. I read over the story while waiting to pick up my son at school. And there is one benefit in having waited so long, it does feel new to me. And I am able to see things more clearly. I'm not afraid of my own little red pen, strike it out! This doesn't work, that doesn't work. And it doesn't hurt me to say it, to do it, it feels empowering, because I know. There isn't the lost confusion (at the moment) of- is this better? is that? ugh I don't know. So whenever I know things need to be reworked, and why, and have a clue as to how, I am happy. Really happy.
    Wish me good work. My mood will be highly variable, so I'll have to hold to something deeper than that.

( don't know what the problem is, I have tried to publish this with photos, starting two months ago, never ever works for some reason, so I'm trying without photos. My son wont help me as he is busy baking a cake.) Hah! Giving up was the ticket. :) (well that and then trying again after publish.) Son is busy gloating feeling assured his cake will be better than the last one I made, years ago, we called it the cow patty, and gave it as a gift to the trash can, which was unable to refuse the refuse. Since I can't bake I've been called to wash the dishes.)

I am a Butterfly Hunter

2011-04-20T12:03:00.000-04:00

set out in search of lost, of unknown, butterflies...

Back from this years writing conference, internally I am a jumble, as usual. Here is part of a post I wrote last year at this time (after the writer's conference) but never posted. It is about how I can't imagine anyone ever agreeing to publish anything I write, as there wouldn't be a market for it. And how much harder that makes all the struggles I continually encounter with trying to learn the craft of writing, and of hoping for the art of it.
why write?
so here is that post-

     What is on my mind at the moment is the kind of stories that I write. I feel out of sync with the world. Seems everyone else is talking about and writing: glamor, gossip, griping action, lust, molestation, incest, abuse, drugs, rape, war, bullying, affairs, murder, intrigue, espionage, explosions, all that good stuff, that isn't stuff that I write about. And for the most part isn't stuff that I like reading about. My work is softer, more sentimental. It doesn't bang, it whispers. I know there are a lot of other kinds of stories out there too, and that even in the stories with that harder stuff those things mostly aren't the point of the stories, they just happen in them. But when they talk about the market and the intended audience, and who your reader would be, it doesn't seem like there would be anyone for me. For my stories. (My stuff isn't all dancing bunnies in sunshine. Or I would focus on writing for young children. There is a foe in death, loss is a villain for me. But my world is pastel.)

So I am trying to work this through, thinking okay, I am going to spend the rest of my life struggling to learn how to sing this little song, this little song I am always overhearing. And my joy will have to lie solely in getting it right; finding the tune, the cadence, and being able to carry it; in resonating with it, but not in ever sharing the song with someone else. Because there isn't anyone else who will ever be interested in hearing it. That's a major bummer. Because while writing is a personal journey, mostly a solitary action, there is a pull to connect with others through the page. A story journey wants to be traveled by more than one. You feel it longing to be known. That is what it asks of you, to be revealed.

    Perhaps I will spend my whole life obsessed with capturing this elusive butterfly, extraordinarily beautiful to me; that beckons me to traverse rough terrain into unknown kingdoms, where I often get lost. When I started tracking it (almost 12 years ago), I didn't know how long it would take; I knew it would take time and effort, but as I've followed it deeper into the jungle I've come to realize it could take years more, decades; that I might die without ever having captured it. But still I've held steady to my hope of netting it, of that moment of attaining, of fully seeing and knowing it exists; when it has been made real because it always was real. In my hands, in me. Possessing it, having it possess me; fluttering wings against my chest.
    It is not the cost of pursuit that mangles me now. Because I had always considered it a worthy endeavor. What twists and tears at my resolve, is that the accomplishment, the wondrous moment I have imagined, dreamed of, gilded with magic, the capture of that exotic butterfly, will be meaningless to anyone but me. My prize, my magical ethereal manifestation, if ever attained, will just be a shoulder shrug, and a, "I don't get it." "Why did she bother." to other people. "Who the heck cares about that butterfly. It's not interesting, and certainly not pretty. It is different I suppose..but so what? There is nothing worthwhile in that"

    So that is the space that I've fallen into, the one where I lose all faith, feel the pursuit is stupid and pointless. Why bother? No one would care, even if I managed to do this thing, no one would be interested. But the thing is no matter how disheartening thinking that way can be, ultimately it always shifts, as I remember: I am a butterfly hunter. That is what I do. Not because others are sending me out on a mission. Not because anyone other than me has an interest in my capturing any butterfly, let alone this one. I follow butterflies because it is the way my soul was weaved. And I chase this particular butterfly, because it is the one that I've seen in my dreams; it is the one that sings to me in whispers, close enough that I can almost hear. The vibration of which I can feel humming within, like a little piece of it, a torn fragment of wing, echoes the same song from inside me. So to sit motionless in a pit, net cast aside, body sunken into the mud, would just be stupid.

end of prt. 1

2011-03-29T16:39:00.000-04:00

I went to a writers conference Friday and Thursday. I would like to do a post, but my laptop computer keeps shutting off (something wrong with the cord connecting it to the outlet I assume), and I don't want to loss what I am working on midway through.

I'm not however too concerned over the possibility of losing any of the content of this posting to say I hope I can post soon post :) And I even managed to get in a photo! I think as long as the cord remains at just the right angle....perfectly still....

2011-03-15T09:40:00.001-04:00

My thoughts and prayers are with Japan and her people.

2011-03-05T13:36:00.000-05:00

    The white birds are back! It looked like hundreds, light glinting off their wing, shimmering against a blue sky as they flew in wide circles. Gliding in a peaceful spiral down to land in the field opposite the street I live on. Just birds I know, snow geese, or perhaps the whistling swan, nothing exotic, and nothing unusual about seeing them here. But I had written a flock of white birds into my story years ago, before I knew there were any around here, before I had ever seen them. So for me, the sight of them is as if a page from my story has come to life, has come to visit me. It electrifies my soul. It gives me inspiration and courage. A whisper with a thousand wings behind it, 'keep going.' So yes, just birds landing in a field. Ordinary... but also magic, like the birds in the story where ordinary, but the moment contained magic. And I'll take my encouragement and joy where I can. Though I do feel silly for how excited and happy the sight of them makes it, I don't resist or hesitate, I dive right in.

    In a week or two they will be gone; their migration taking them northward. Even if I were to strip them of their symbolic meaning for me, they would still carry the herald of Spring with them.

    I'm so grateful for March. I recall those colorful cutouts my elementary teachers put on their classroom walls. I loved the lion and the lamb, and the teachers saying, "March comes in like I lion and goes out like a lamb." This was soon followed on the walls by a parade of tulips, daffodils, yellow chicks, and bunnies.
    March still has cold days, and often brings snow, but there will be some warmer days when you can smell spring in the air. One of peonies is pushing its red tips through the hard dirt. Some of my tulips and daffys are stretching their long green fingertips up through the dirt testing the air to see if it time to come out. I don't know if they are excited to be above ground, to feel the sunlight. But I am excited to see them. I am never in the mood for planting in late fall, but come early spring, I am so glad that I spent hours kneeling in the dirt, digging holes to tuck in little rock and onion shaped things.

This month also brought with it an end to our being sick. After two weeks it is finally unusual for one of us to break into a series of hacking coughs. We missed Valentine's day. The three of us were together, but on the sofa, under blankets. Instead of cards, flowers, and sharing a box of chocolate, we had cough drops, boxes of tissues, and a small plastic bucket lined with a grocery store bag, for used tissues, and in case anyone needed to throw-up. My son used it for that several times. We also kept a pump dispenser of hand sanitizer on the end table. Ah fun times.

   I am overtaken with impatience for Spring, for flowers, dirty hands, and buckets of dirt. But this is important time. I need to work on improving my writing. And also my house cleaning was a bit neglected while we were sick. So it isn't time for rushing outdoors with a shovel. No, that time really isn't until May. Now I need to transplant piles of clothing to more suitable locations, water the kitchen floor, divide paragraphs, and weed out unruly sentences.

2011-02-11T18:21:00.000-05:00

For Jean, I miss you Nana.

I wasn't yet born when these photos where taken. I knew her as my grandmother. I knew of the pain and sadness that had touched her life, but I also knew the joy of the spirit that dwells in these photos, vast, timeless, wonderful.

This video doesn't quite match what I am trying to express, I've never seen this movie. But I love this version of this song. Whenever I hear it, my eyes well, and I think of my Nana. I assume it is a romantic song about couples and such, and I have never had a tumultuous relationship like that of Verlaine's and Rimbaud. But somehow she claims it, whispering, "Think of me, what I have meant to you, what I mean to you." And the sentiment spills over into thoughts of all those I love, with gratitude that I have known them. Thankful for every day, for every moment I get to have, and that I can carry with me, remembering. Always.

Thank you. I couldn't have asked for anything more, except more time.

You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go

I’ve seen love go by my door
It’s never been this close before
Never been so easy or so slow
Been shooting in the dark too long
When somethin’s not right it’s wrong
Yer gonna make me lonesome when you go

Dragon clouds so high above
I’ve only known careless love
It’s always hit me from below
This time around it’s more correct
Right on target, so direct
Yer gonna make me lonesome when you go

Purple clover, Queen Anne’s Lace
Crimson hair across your face
You could make me cry if you don’t know
Can’t remember what I was thinkin’ of
You might be spoilin’ me too much, love
Yer gonna make me lonesome when you go

Flowers on the hillside, bloomin’ crazy
Crickets talkin’ back and forth in rhyme
Blue river runnin’ slow and lazy
I could stay with you forever and never realize the time

Situations have ended sad
Relationships have all been bad
Mine’ve been like Verlaine’s and Rimbaud
But there’s no way I can compare
All those scenes to this affair
Yer gonna make me lonesome when you go

Yer gonna make me wonder what I’m doin’
Stayin’ far behind without you
Yer gonna make me wonder what I’m sayin’
Yer gonna make me give myself a good talkin’ to

I’ll look for you in old Honolulu
San Francisco, Ashtabula
Yer gonna have to leave me now, I know
But I’ll see you in the sky above
In the tall grass, in the ones I love
Yer gonna make me lonesome when you go

A Bob Dylan song. My favorite version is Madeleine Peyroux's cover.

2011-02-07T17:42:00.000-05:00

    I have inadvertently joined a critique group, and I am terrified. I keep asking myself, how did this happen? How did I get myself into this? I went to a Saturday morning writers group meeting to hear about self-publishing (electronic). And I happened to mention to the person next to me that I needed to improve my writing, she mentioned a meeting after the meeting for people interested in critique groups. So I thought I would attend and just see what was available. Purely window shopping. But the person running the meeting was quite determined to match everyone up. I considered fleeing (still am considering fleeing), but didn't; as it would seem an impolite response. I hoped the fact that no one matched up well with me, would save me in the end, no match by genre or time availability. But he decided that the last three standing equaled a group. And the two were appallingly agreeable in bending to my early day schedule though I tried to convince them not to be.
    I got so anxious thinking about it for the past two weeks, that I told myself I didn't have to do it, I just wouldn't go. There is my general social anxiety, which would make this stressful under even the most positive circumstances. Then there is the fact that it is just three of us, not at all enough people to hide among. And add to that, that they are both male, which places me much farther outside of my element. And then of course there is the writing, the exposure of it's weakness, to be open, vulnerable in my inabilities. I don't want to do that. It doesn't sound at all like something I would sign up for. Especially considering how hard struck I was at my conference critique last year. I am still recovering. And my writing, I have decided it is not better enough to endure that again. I am not ready, I know I'm not ready, and I see no point in repeating that experience currently. (Good enough would be better than better enough in that sentence, but I am surprisingly stubborn, and resistant to such insights.)
    But in the end it is me with the damn page, asking myself, what do you want? What do you hope to accomplish? How do you expect to get there from here? And alone, doesn't seem like a complete answer. I know I need help, other eyes, other opinions. If these two people are willing to help me, how can I not ask myself to show up. If I believe in myself, in my stories at all, I shouldn't run and hide from the opportunity to improve.
    So here I am, trying to tie myself down, and rewrite the worst parts of the first chapter before I send it to them. They've sent theirs'. I am amazed at how hard it is for me. It shouldn't be. I feel sick, I feel sad, I feel uncomfortable, I feel stupid. I'm not at all hungry, but I keep thinking, I need to take a break and eat something (if I do that every time, go from fight or flight, to feed, I'm going to get really enormous). But clearly instead of that I took a break and wrote this post. Now I just need to pry myself loose from here, a frightened cat determinedly dug into the mesh of this blog with its claws, and get back to work. Yes, back to fighting tigers, and swallowing alligators, locked in a fierce struggle with pen and paper. I feel silly, that I should find it so hard...
go go go go go...off you go

2011-01-15T18:17:00.000-05:00

   Feel much better. I did look up dream interpretation of such things and nothing seemed to apply. Mostly now I am having scramble, jumble, tossed dreams, meaning this that and the other thing, and no attempt possible at a meaning, which is fine with me.
    The dream I had the night after the nightmare a little shimmery blue fish turned into a baseball playing, poetry reciting boy. This transformation happened when I stopped at a strip mall to get him a bowl of water (having assumed the fish I found in my car, walking around with his fins, needed water), and it turned out the owner of the shop was his mom. He had been reincarnated. He remained a boy in the dream (at the exact age he had been when he died) and was returned to his mom to live the life together they would have had. Plus...
   I liked that dream a lot. I think beyond the icky-ness of my experiencing the nightmares themselves, what really bothered me, was what they said about me. What sort of person dreams about those things? Is that in me? Is that me? It made me feel dark. But that fear, that concern is lessening, I am thinking about it in other ways. The dreams were never about the act, the dreams occur later on, they were about the aftermath, about sadness, confusion, responsibility, fear, in two of them complicity through silence because of family loyalties. So anyway, I think I was getting too stuck on the details of them, and worrying what they meant, letting them haunt me. The fish dream was a lovely contrast. And I did not find myself drawn to pick it apart and try to figure out what it was telling me, or said about me. It was just a nice dream, just like those others, were just bad dreams.

just a self-help, dejunking post

2011-01-11T20:50:00.000-05:00

   I'm so tired of having nightmares. I've averaged about one a week, for 6 weeks now. Murder.   TV perhaps, I don't watch CSI, but I do watch the Mentalist, but not before I go to bed. I watch it at 8 am or 9 int he morning, when I work out. And during this time period, most of my shows hadn't been on. Twice the last thing I had watched was King of the Hill with my son.
Real life of course, the news, but recent tragedies, are just that recent. And don't correlate. And though I do take notice and mourn such senseless losses, I haven't been paying close attention because of the dreams. I feel bad about that, like the least I could do is...well anyway,

    If if keeps happening I'm going to need a strategy. I'm already intending to get a notebook, special for it, seems wrong to put such stuff in one of my cutesy notebooks. On paper maybe I can work out the psychology of it, or whatever. And I think the mere act of getting the notebook and setting it beside my bed, will keep the nightmares from coming back. So that the purchase will be pointless and I will feel silly for having bought it for such a purpose.

   Last night I was a man in his 20's, a family friend also a male in his twenties, had just killed someone. A blond woman also in her 20's, she was attractive, real sweet, and kind to him. He happened to be mentally disabled. It wasn't exactly intentional, he liked her and didn't want her dead, but this wasn't the first time it had happened. Not even this week. I think the other one was some older guy, I didn't know much about him, just that there was another one (around). And I was telling him (the murderer) about being careful and not (loving people too hard), and he got really angry and started beating on me. So...so I told him I would help him, help him hide what had happened. The dream shifts, and there I am shovel in hand, standing in a field surrounded by trees, digging a hole, or rather a burial plot, two of them side by side. And then he appeared at the other hole and started digging.

And I woke up.
5:40 A.M. for a second I was disappointed to be awake, my alarm doesn't go off until 6, but it was much better to leave that dream.

No thank you to more of that.

    I'm trying to think of it as maybe representing other stuff, I can I guess, say loving people too hard, could be a heads up to me, to not make my son feel smothered by being overprotective. But if that was the point of this dream, my subconscious is going about it all the wrong way, as dreaming about such things, tends to make me more sentimental with my family, and more protective.
And I can't manage to apply anything at all to the other dreams. When I get the notebook I'll write down the feelings generated, maybe it is less literal, and more about that.
?

And hopefully, and prayerfully, that was the last one.

Done!

2010-11-28T18:13:00.000-05:00

Just over 52,000 now. Which should cover all my information (research) words that didn't make themselves into story words, but stayed on the page because I will need them there when I work on it in the future. I wont work on before next summer at the earliest though. I am just happy to be done.

Done that is with the NaNoWriMo challenge. Not nearly done with the story, not research wise, not editing wise, but I do now have a complete structure. A roughly sewn first draft.

2010-11-27T16:44:00.000-05:00

50, 982.
Ugh.
Not that all the words count. there are variations on a scene, and some info details- in it, which need to be smooshed together, and written up in a nice way. But that sure isn't happening today.
Ugh.
I am glad at the progress that I have made, but i have not enjoyed it. I was up till 12 last night just trying to get it done because I am so sick of not having anytime, and always working on this thing. And the holiday did not feel holiday-ish. I have missed out on a lot of time with my family lately.
I haven't even eaten today yet (okay I had an apple), because i thought that with just 1,600 words to go, I would be done much sooner than 4:30. Oh well, done for now.

Hmm, don't know if I will try to tidy it up over next several days, or focus on tidying up my house instead, (got a bit neglected)(understatement)(dishes always got done though)

I can't imagine I will do this again next year. Glad I did it, but...
time for me to focus now on quantity and learning how to edit, and instead of seeing if I can achieve a certain word out put per-day.
I do have to admit though, that it really does help me to work through blocks, and to come up with stuff that my normal procrastinating and hesitant self would not.
So it helps me learn how to make things
Now i just need to learn how to make things good.
Not tonight though, or tomorrow.
I need family time, and honestly some TV time too.

2010-11-08T20:52:00.000-05:00

I don't know where my NaNoWriMo icon stuff went.
I reached 13,629 words today. But I don't think I'll make it past 25,000 (if I make it that far). I think there is too much research that needs to be done on this one, and doing the necessary research and making my writing quota for the day, is more time than I have in a day.

2010-11-01T19:22:00.001-04:00

1,728 my NaNo word count for today. Can't get widget to work.

saying goodbye to the time of magical creatures

2010-10-31T19:00:00.000-04:00

saying goodbye
to the magic that kissed thy brow
to your rosy cheeked spirit calling out in delight
How I long to see again, wonder in your eyes.
My fair reason filled boy
wont you carry any wonder with you into manhood?
Oh if I could but pack your suitcase, the incredible things you would take with you.
And that is what I thought I was doing all these years. (filling you up, with carved pumpkins, sparkly trees, painted eggs, bits of fairy wings, and robin's egg shells, of Christmas, of candles, of twinkly lights, and of glowing clouds at sunset.)
Yes I know growing up does mean the setting down of certain childish things
I wouldn't have you standing in a field awaiting the great pumpkin,
or knocking out your grown-up teeth in hopes of cash under your pillow
but you don't need to leave it all behind,
hold onto the magic, the spirit, that flows behind it at the source.
At fourteen you won't express it, but I hope it is alive
in childhood's memory
its wings folded, tucked inside your heart.
so that if (when) you need them
they will awake and flutter within
strong enough to carry you through.

(to lift a heavy heart through hard times.)
for sometimes what seems silly and frivolous, glitter on construction paper,
strands of lights strung round a tree, is merely a trinket, a tangible tie to something much greater, something vast deep and strong. Something you should keep with you, your whole life long.

2010-10-21T14:02:00.000-04:00

This is going to be a long haul. I don't know why it should feel like such a hard thing to do. I just starting reading over Echo, yep 2 1/2 pages in, and already I've bolted to come here and whine about it. I will say this though, I read my initial first page of chapter one, and then the one I rewrote last March, and the March one is better (and I even know why and how it is better!). So the good news is that while I am terrified to read over my work and attempt to "fix" it, I do have proof already by page one, that I am capable of reading over it and making improvements.

a bit like cleaning one's house top to bottom, reorganizing the contents of drawers and closets, choosing what to keep and what to toss, and deciding where everything goes, and how you want each room to look, and to feel...so many many decisions, and I have never been good at that. Oh look here I have procrastinated myself out of time (surprise surprise). Not good. I must get my son from school and take him to the Ortho. Well at least I'll take a book.

2010-10-19T14:12:00.000-04:00

     I've finished reading, A Dash of Style. But I do still need to do the exercises that are present at the end of each chapter. I have found it helpful. It has given me new ways to think about the writing, about how I express myself. And I see I have much work to do. But thank God also that I have a map, some way of guiding myself through it.

    Just as I am hiding from doing the exercises so too am I hiding from doing the editing. A task that has long daunted me, and makes me quiver with uncertainty and dread. But now I know what I am looking for, what I am going to try to change. And finally I have realized that I can't go through it page by page making it "right". I'm going to instead look at it for each thing separately. First I'll go through for content, for story, then I will improve how that breaks down into chapters, and paragraphs. I will go through it once for action verbs. Once for the lengths of sentences. Going on like that. Because when I have gone through trying to fix it sentence by sentence, I never knew what was right or wrong and it all just fell apart. Instead I will go through strengthening one thing at a time. And only worrying about one thing at a time.

Sin and Syntax, is next on my reading list. Mostly I am concerned with sentence structure.
    Currently I am reading, Harry Potter's Bookshelf the great books behind the Hogwarts adventures, by John Granger. And I am really enjoying it. I feel like I am learning plenty of stuff that will help me in my own writing, but reading it isn't work it's pleasure.

    So far in my readings for my writing in the past year I've learned how really important it is to make your characters sympathetic. I know that sounds obvious, but that doesn't mean that one automatically writes in the best way for it. I have learned that in my tendency to be bright (as in cheerful not intelligent) that I miss opportunities to have readers care about my characters. I don't sit down, and dwell in the uncomfortable emotions, my tendency is instead to glide above. And I need to let some pain show through.

   I like having the over-all structure, the story down, but nothing set, nothing fully done, because the books I'm reading tell things that offer me the opportunity to look at the story in a new way. My tone, my atmosphere is light. But I've realized with Fountain of Swans how it could be Gothic instead. How the elements are already there, and it is interesting to look at the same story through this other lens and see if it might be better. When I was considering changing it to first person (still haven't decided) I was upset because then something that happens to the character will be a mystery for us just like it is for her. And for some reason I felt like that couldn't be so. But now from doing this reading, I realize that it would heighten the sympathy and the tension in the story if the reader shares the characters feelings, in not knowing why this thing is happening. Then the mystery to be solved can be one reader and character share.

   Now I don't know if I will or will not do that (make it Gothic, make it a mystery), as I have said I haven't been working directly on my writing (because I am a wimp) but I love the fact that I am engaged in thinking about the stories in new ways.

    Well October is nearly over. I know my focus should be on editing Echo. I do feel like a failure for failing to do so. But I am seriously considering signing up for NaNoWriMo again. Why? Because it fosters daily practice. It promotes bum glue. It helps me to tap into the energy of many moving forward together. My goal isn't to finish. But Fresh Oranges has long been neglected, and I could hash out parts of that story. The deal with myself being three hours a day, either I write Oranges, or I edit Echo. The only way to escape doing one being doing the other.

2010-09-21T19:16:00.000-04:00

I don't know why it is so hard for me to write here now. Time is of course an issue but....more than that, I think it is emotional. I was very brave (for me) at the Writer's Conference last March, I raised my hand, and I stood my ground. I also revealed more than I had intended, via a spontaneous writing assignment, and had my other submitted work more harshly ridiculed than I had expected. All of which has resulted in my being more insecure about my writing, and generally feeling more vulnerable and exposed, which doesn't lend itself well to blogging.
I am like a me of the past. One who has a restless unsettled feeling at night, not of things undone, but of being haunted by foolish things said or written. Things I know that the people I wrote or said them to are not bothering with thinking about. But still how easily I can torture myself over it. I am only 100% safe in things I say to my husband and my son, anything else said to anyone else can be used to make me nervous.
Actually that is partly now why I am going to strive harder to write here more regularly, and to work on my novel (though I am scared to do so). Because I need not to torture myself over little nothingnessess of thoughts shared. If I am going to make myself uneasy well it should be over bigger mistakes. Stuff more worthy of the stress I attach to it.
It is so pitiful to stress so over the mundane, to feel my legs shaking as I attempt to walk down the steep steps of my son's high school, because I raised my hand to ask a question at parent night. A simple question: if they preferred to have papers printed rather than emailed? They need to be printed. Why on earth such an exchange should lead to my shaking, I don't know. I kept my thoughts about it rational, but minutes later my legs wobbled freely in accordance with something outside my conscious thoughts. I do hope I can stop being flustered for no reason; I've allowed myself to become all tilted and windblown in the absence of any storm. It is time I right myself. And on the occasion when I do find myself all tousled and tossed about, at least let it be from having actually braved to walk through a storm.

Now that Summer is over

2010-09-21T17:49:00.001-04:00

this is the song I play when I wake up each morning

2010-08-01T14:35:00.000-04:00

    Summer is going by so quickly. I want to settle in and savor every moment of August, but fall keeps nipping at my heels. There is one month, before I am the mother of a high schooler. I am always losing time. Always wishing I could hoard it, storing it up, to spend how and when I choose. To decide myself the times that seem to extend on forever, and those that go by in a flash.
    I spent so much time planting this year: new plantings, transplanting, dividing up my plants and putting them in areas previously the domain of weeds. The digging of holes by the hundreds. Well at least until mid July when tired of it all, I took a pack of zinnia seeds and just wind tossed them over a section of dirt. Perhaps I will see one or two of them. I have very little good to say about matting and mulch, weeds grow in it, and it is a pain to cut through as your plants expand and need more space, and when I need to make new spaces for other plants.
    It is raining now.   It was so dry here our grass was brown and felt like straw. I have never been so happy to see rain as I have been since July 10th. It was raining that day as we were leaving for vacation, my mother thought I might be upset about the lousy weather. I was thrilled. It takes me two hours to water the plants around back, and two for out front. So if God waters the plants twice a week, that saves me 8 hours of standing out in the yard with a hose.
    I have been surprised that my eye is changing (what I consider to be visually pleasing). Which is the reason for all the rearranging of flower beds. Since I have spent little time working directly on my writing, I am hoping this is a sign that things are changing and shifting somewhere deep down within. That art, to whatever degree it resides in me, is growing, being refined. I think my mind, my plantings and my writing, have been more chaotic, a toss up or in, of whatever interests me, too much, and with disorganization, favored over the possibility of leaving anything out. But this year, the plantings looked messy to me. They lacked impact. Too many different things. I wanted rows of a kind. I wanted the impact of groupings of one color. I noticed where my scale was off; where things needed to be bigger or smaller. I looked upon the same beds I saw last year and took them in differently.
    I don't even feel like my flower garden happened this year, with so many things being moved, and plunged into transplant shock. I've been gardening this year for next. I like that about it though, flower gardening is like dreaming, and it involves faith. I bought four purple salvias for a dollar each two days ago. Inexpensive because they look a minute or two shy of dead. But I look at them with hope and possibility, I will plant them, and tend to them. I expect nothing of them this year, except that that which lies below the soil stay alive now, and sleep nicely dormant over winter, and then happily burst forth like new in Spring. Gardeners dreaming, gardeners faith.
    I do hope when I read my writing, my stories, that there too, I will now see where things look messy. How I need to change things to create impact, rather than throwing everything that occurs to me in. There is so much writing work to be done that it scares me. I only take the smallest steps forward. Which is sort of stupid as at this rate it will take forever, and just drag the most uncomfortable parts out. But at least I am taking some steps. And because of the reading about writing I have been doing, I am noticing more when I pleasure read. I notice choices being made, when this or that is done for impact. And now I realize I was never a careful reader. I don't write well with commas, semi-colons, periods, etc., because I don't take the time to truly read them as written.
    So, it has not been the big writing summer it was supposed to be, and yes I am disappointed in myself....but..

2010-05-06T20:20:00.001-04:00

    Brian (the husband) weed-whacked my poppies and several other perennials on the side of the house. True it wasn't a well established bed, and certainly is less so now. I may have, possibly, called him at work screaming and yelling, and then slipped into violent tears. Prompting him later to say that he had been concerned that I might actually be losing my mind. But gardening is partly dreaming of the future. I planted these from seed three years ago. The first year I saw nothing. The second I saw some plants but nothing bloomed (save for one hollyhock, the only hollyhock out of a whole packet of seeds.) So this year, was going to be THE ONE, the year they bloomed. But then he mindlessly came along and whacked them down to their ankles! Yes, yes, yes, only plants, but I spent three years dreaming into them. And now my hopes for them must be pinned on next year.
    At least by now he knows to stay away from my other beds. My salmon poppy tucked beside the stone steps is finally safe. He got that one two years running, which is why I can't believe that he so unwittingly massacred these. By now he should know, leave the fuzzy leaved things that look like weeds alone. He kept saying, but there weren't any flowers. Yes, and now there wont be.
    Bygones. I do have other plants. That is what May is for in my mind, planting. And Brian can't complain about my buying ones to replace those he chopped.

     The good news of late is that the boy, about to turn 14, has finally decided to take up bike riding. I really never thought I would see the day when he would ride down the street. And now we all get to go on family bike rides together.
    The bad news of late, is my writing progress. There has been none. I am reading A Dash of Style about punctuation, and that is going well. Though I am not attempting to employ any of it yet, it makes sense to me. But the rest of the grammar world is still a foreign language which leaves me feeling confused and stupid. I feel like there is no point in working on my draft to try and make it better when I lack the basic grammatical competence necessary to do so. So I don't know. In a week or two I will be done with planting. And I will have to force myself to sit in a chair, and keep trying different ways to learn. I hate feeling this stuck. I hate feeling this unable to communicate. I hate second guessing every sentence I write, to anyone about anything. But that is where I am.
    It will be okay that I was stuck here for a while, as long as I find my way through. I could and should end up in a better place because of it. But I am scared. Scared that I can't learn, and that I will become so frustrated and full of doubt that I wont be able to write at all. And because I am afraid of that happening, it's hard to push myself forward to a time when I could reach that conclusion. I'm going to have to keep a pep talk in my pocket all June. I'm not the sort to keep trying when I fail. I am the sort to slink quietly away. But I am still dreaming, in gardening and in writing. Dreaming of the future, of how it could be. Those poppies wont bloom this year, like me they've been whacked down to their ankles. But we are all still alive, and we have woven within us a code that wants us to bloom. Something that wants us to strive, to go on, to reach forward to a time of blooming. And no matter how many years it takes those poppies on the side of the house, or me, of trying, of watering, and weeding, being fertilized, then wilting in the hot sun, then rebounding to be chewed on by insects, no matter how many times we get weed-whacked, and go dormant then start to grow again, I am choosing to believe it is in all of our destinies (eventually) to bloom.

(there, pep talk number two of the thirty thousand I will need.)

(oh and I am deleting any comments left in other languages, as I have no idea what they might be saying.) (oh, unless that other language is English grammar speak.)

2010-04-01T10:00:00.000-04:00

Spring

So much work to be done, everywhere I look. Mulch to be removed from the bases of roses, pruning to do. Perennials that need to be freed from last year's dead growth, so they can eagerly grow again. And all the plants need to be fed. I love Spring. Everywhere I look I see something amazing happening, to me the tips of tulip leaves poking through the ground will never be less than magic. Every day something else is pulling itself into being, making itself known, waking from dormancy to life. The closed and withheld, opened and expressed. What was under the ground unfurls into a life in the sun wind rain.

There is a lot of cleaning to do too. Spaces want to be aired out and unencumbered by was left over from winter, or some other earlier manifestation of being. The rooms want to be reborn, want to be able to grow something new.

Last weekend I was at a three day writer's conference. There is still some collateral damage from attending. That said I do believe the over effect of the impact will be good. It just didn't feel that way when I crashed. I went hoping to feel inspired, hoping to pull more energy into my work, and to carry that motivation with me through times of doubt. Instead my own ineptness was glaringly presented. I didn't like looking at it, and I still don't. How far, how far I still have to go. I know I must have made some progress because I started so long ago, and I remember the beginning, and I know I am no longer standing at it. But I feel like my goal is centuries in front of me. I might need to be reincarnated and have a whole other life to get there from here.

My own attitude can be a problem at times, I get annoyed with what I should do. Though first most definitely I know, I need to fully learn it. But even once I have, I like to write in other ways. I don't want there to be commas in between the sun, wind, rain. I don't want to put an and in it either, the sun, wind, and rain. I want them to sit together as one entity.

There were of course inspiring moments and positive things to take away from the conference, and I will talk about those, just not today. Today I am going to sit with, um that which I must figure out how to go around, or go through, so as I can come out the other side. The one is grammar, evil villain once again. Yes I know it is a tool, yes my friend, helps me to express myself, gift of words. If I was evil then words should be my henchmen, sent out to help me achieve my goals. But instead grammar feels like my foe, like something in the way of my saying what I mean to. And my inability to grasp and use it, results in a mangled mess.

Yes it was unfortunate to be told how badly I was doing it. She calmly lit a match and set the page and me, on fire. I still feel the heat of it, the burn, the scorch, the ash. How obviously I think that I can write but that I can't. And she was indignant, there was the assumption of laziness, and of not caring about craft, which cut the flames deeper. I have tried to learn, I do care; so I was left with only the recourse of feeling stupid, and unable to learn. It was horrible living there, like death. Or no, because there wasn't yet nothingness, it was extreme pain, and knowing that nothingness was the only release that awaited. But there will be no nothingness. No death. There will instead be more pain, as I must endure and go on and try and try and try again, one way, and then another, until I figure it out. Stupid plague of inadequacies I will be sweating it out my entire life. But I will survive and I will become stronger, and I will learn. If it takes me halfway to forever, I will learn. No matter how small each step, there will be steps, and I will take them.

The other comment that really got to me, was the one I had not expected. Unemotional. My writing, unemotional. Hhmm...that is very bad. I mean that much I thought I had. My craft I knew sucked, but I thought the passion for the story under it, would be felt. I thought it would be more of an, if only she could master these other skills, how incredible this story could be. In the moment, in that moment, it made it all seem pointless, having no merit or value at all. Why bother, clearly I should give up.

But, it is Spring. And I just can't manage to do anything, but be resolved to being better. Be resolved to transformation, new life, new birth, and opening, unfurling, releasing into a life of sun wind rain. No matter that for me it wont take mere weeks, like the transformation of the Spring world. How amazing it is, how quickly it goes from barren to lush beauty. It does so by design. Everything, the blueprint tucked inside, it just needs the right conditions outside to release it. Something divine in such science, in such magic. I must remember the same divine design lives in me. And I do believe is what calls me to be a butterfly hunter (aka an artist, a writer), that is another post for another day.

There is so much work to be done. I need to improve and learn so much. And it is Spring, and I am smiling.

2010-02-20T21:42:00.000-05:00

I'm supposed to be working on page one of Echo, which is due for submission next Thursday for the conference I'm going to in March, for the purpose of tearing it apart, and rebuilding it better. I started there, but have strayed, and am working on Fountain of Swans instead, or rather researching flowers so as to fill in details, which appear as ____ in Swans. I really need a book which tells what flowers existed (where common, and in what form) in which countries, during particular centuries.
In my defense, sort of, the reason I switched over to research is, that as I was working on Swans, I had the great desire to fill in people's names, but I couldn't remember Spain's real name off the top of my head, and if I get up to find the notebook I wrote it in, I know I will instead go watch the movie I rented, and not be working at all. Oh but that doesn't explain, why Swans instead of Echo, that, oh that is because I don't know what the heck I am doing. I don't know how to fix it. (and anyway, the first page of Swans is also due for the conference for the same purpose, only difference is I wont need to submit that page till the end of March.

I was called by some local ladies for a critique group, but though my time availability seemed to mesh with theirs, they haven't called me back. Perhaps it was because I said my work is probably YA, perhaps it was because I sounded like an idiot on the phone. ? Probably both. :) Oh well, still working on it, just moving forward very slowly. Feeling a little twinge of energy trying to uncurl from sleep and burst forth, it keeps saying, "spring?.....isn't it almost Spring?" I keep telling it no not quite yet, I point out the enormous amounts of snow all over the yard, and the lovely windchill. But the voice is naive and wistful, soft and earnest as a small child's, and will not be dissuaded, not persuaded.

Which reminds me, I know not to use alliteration, (or rhyme), I've been soundly told, it isn't part of "good" writing, not if you want to be taken seriously. That's really just too bad (probably mostly for me, and my own ambitions), for being informed, doesn't seem enough to change me. No, the sister of the voice that insists that it is indeed almost Spring, wraps her hands around such sentences, clenches her fists tight and wont let go. She says that is what she loves best, that is why she is here to begin with, and that it will not be a matter of pulling them away from her kicking and screaming, for she is the one who will conquer in the end and take no prisoners, if I don't let her be. So, so far, I'm letting her be. And letting the alliteration be. And she smiles at me and shakes her head yes.

And that is an issue that I am dealing with in my attempt to edit my writing, it likes to be (what to my mind is) poetic. I don't hold to true sentence all the time, I break off, I fragment, I go by feel, by those voices, and I don't want to surrender that. But I also don't want my work/me verbally massacred at the writing conference. (which is set up so that no one knows whose work is whose, so that they can freely verbally massacre our work, to more fully be able to help us.)

looking ahead

2010-02-19T14:20:00.001-05:00

I don't usually share dreams, I mean the kind that take place at night, but this one still lingers. I was to board a caboose. Why? I don't know. There were no cars in front of it, just the caboose. (sounds like me.) And there were no windows except for the the ones that looked forward in the direction the train/caboose was facing. I went inside, surprised to see that from the inside there appeared to be a row of windows on each side, and in the back. I took my seat (lone passenger.) and as it moved through the snowy landscape, past trees, homes and farms, I watched the images moving on the windows, and noticed something odd about them, that what was happening on the right was a mirror image of what was happening on the left. It made me feel slightly dizzy as I quickly looked back and forth trying to understand. And I did, the windows in the front were true windows, all the rest were mirrors, though they didn't reflect me or the interior, they only reflected the forward view. They did so from side to side, and also what I thought was a back window, looking to where I had been, that too was merely an opposite reflection of where I was going.

I hope this means that even when I feel like I'm making zero progress, (like now) that I am still moving forward, that it is all in essence, forward.

2010-02-06T20:32:00.000-05:00

wow did I miss a whole month? No January posts. It was a stressful month familywise, with the 13 year old not being keen on doing his schoolwork, and not turning it in even when he did.

But that is all in the past now, I'll take the Anne of Green Gables attitude, February is a new month, fresh, with no mistakes in it yet.

I turned 40 this past week, and though I had been thinking about it for the past 6 months, trying to prepare myself, it still feels odd, and not quite right, not really true. 34 sounds good, more possible.

I've got to wrestle the camera away from my husband and son, and start doing the picture and post thing again.

2009-12-20T20:08:00.006-05:00

busy, busy, busy, busy with my usual Christmas cleaning, and preparations.

But even so part of me is floating...

by bittersweetdrean on youtube (or is it threadofate), from the movie and soundtrack, A Little Princess
(by the bye, I have no idea how to do this, I asked the 13 year old if he could, and tada.)

2009-11-30T16:17:00.001-05:00

54,476
I'm still not done, and spent much of the last two days just typing up notes I found in different notebooks, trying to productively procrastinate, since I was sort of stuck since I couldn't find Dusky's/ Alesandro's back story. Anyway, 13 pages and 8,443 words later, some that will be helpful to story, stuff I forget to add, as well as plenty of stuff that wont be helpful because I went so far off in a different direction that I'm surprised to find out, originally I had imagined it differently. The good news is though, that while taking down these notes, I was of course also thinking, and I started a few lines about Alessandro, and those lines led to other lines that went on and on for over 2,000 words, and flowed out to form his back story. SO I AM NO LONGER STUCK!!!! (and I believe I effectively explained why his final decision was the one it was, without having made him a total cad. Which was tricky he had to have behaved badly without having actually been bad.)
Okay so I still don't know 100% of all the pieces to the story yet, but I know most of it, certainly enough to keep me moving forward. The only thing is, I wanted to finish the whole thing up today, and yeah, that just isn't going to happen. I'm getting cross-eyed. I am a bit worried though that now that NaNoWriMo is over, that I wont come back tomorrow and finish. I have to keep going, have to keep going, have to keep going, till I reach...The End.
(and then after that, I have to go back, and do all the proper research, so stuff is...right.)

2009-11-29T18:05:00.000-05:00

52,060
I would expect to be in a good mood. I've gotten much farther than I ever thought I would.
But....I'm still not done, and having trouble here at the end. So I am actually pensive, hesitant and petulant. I've got 9 notebooks scattered around me, and none of them have Dusky's back story in them.
I did find some lines concerning him keeping his human memories, and of his feathers becoming darker, but I knew all that, the only other thing is a mention of his hat, apparently very fond of his hat (that I had forgotten). This is not helpful. I really need to know this bit, I remember writing it, it had to do with the women in his life, and it is imporant, because within it was the rationale for the decison he ultimately makes. Which is something I really really really need to know. And when I search my mind for the info, the cupboard is bare.
Search and research is no doubt the answer, look here, there, and everywhere, till I find it, again, or create something else of him/for him. But over the last two days what I have discovered is how much time research takes, and that while it is definitely important (required), that it wipes me out (physically and emotionally, tired, headache, cranky. Feel like I've spent hours walking up and down the aisles of a huge warehouse, searching in endless boxes, for scrapes of paper hoping one will have written on it, just the piece of information that I need.) before I ever get to the page. So long term insight for me, I suppose this means, writing days, and researching days, are to be different days.

2009-11-28T17:26:00.004-05:00

Well my word count is still holding steady at 49,966 clinging to the edge of spilling over into 50,000.
I've been working on the story but not on my word count. I had written down some notes pertaining to the end of it, sometime during this past year, and it took me a while to find the notebook they were in. And now I am on my third page of typing these notes up, and as I flip through the notebook looks like I have at least three more to go. These notes will prove helpful in my finishing the story, (but I would like to hit 50,000 before using any of them, so as not to have gotten my total word count by anything other than the work I did/created within this month), and I am finding that since I have been writing so freely, moving in whatever direction presented itself, there are definitely changes, and I will need to rework any ideas that I use from the notebook, so that they work with the story I actually ended up writing, instead of with the one I thought I was going to write.

well I guess I am done writing for today, though I haven't progressed the story. I did over 4,000 of typing those notes, and still have two pages to go, but the heat from the lap top, and my writing cat (cat who insists on laying on my left arm while I try to type, even has his right paw on that part I scroll with) are making me feel nauseous. (plus he is twitching having some sort of dream, which feels weird. He was here yesterday as well, not twitching but snoring. Oh and when he was awake he spent some time licking my left hand while I was trying to type, which wouldn't have been so bad, if it hadn't been like repeatedly having sand paper dragged forcefully across the back of my hand, ouch!)

ugh, ugh, ugh, I just went through and skimmed my notes, figuring I would skip ahead to the info on Dusky, which is what I was looking for all along, that character's back story, well it isn't in this notebook, which means it could be in any notebook in the house, on some page tucked in among all the others filled with notes, and research for other stories, I don't think this one has it's own notebook yet, Ugh!

2009-11-27T18:15:00.000-05:00

again i will say weird writing today, at 49, 893 I am just shy of the 50,000 mark, but I intentionally stopped short, I want to make sure I keep going till I hit the end of the story, so I want to leave full incentive for tomorrow's writing. Today's writing was off because I got waylaid a bit with research on violets and cats in 17th c France. And because I know what happens when I hit my next mark (10 year period reached) but I basically had a year, 6 months of yesterday's writing, and 6 months of today's, when I had no idea what would happen, and physically nothing much does. Quiet, so quiet. So I went through the year quickly with just a butterfly wisp of a landing here and there at each season. And even so, I wasn't expecting the little bit that did happen to happen, so I am feeling unsure about what I wrote. But then again I am sensing that which I added needs to be there for that which happens next, to happen the way it does. (still the men in this story have been ad-libbing quite a bit, not just behind my back, but boldly facing me, while I try to explain to them that isn't the way I feel the story goes right here, they don't mind me, they do just as they please, and leave me to jot down their actions. Whose story do I think this is anyway? I have been bumped from director to witness. I guess they resented my thinking of them as minor charactors so have flung themselves more fully on the stage.

2009-11-25T21:21:00.000-05:00

46,481
ugh, feel strange, just finished scene(s) I didn't know would be there, which I guess is sort of the point of NaNoWriMo, but I havn't been enjoying the surprises I've written. Usually I know where the story is going, and generally what is going to happen, but when i don't know what happens in a space, and then something I hadn't expected happens, rather than feeling, "wow that was cool the story has a life of its own." I'm feeling this time through like, I don't know what I am doing, or if I should be doing it. Is this scene a real scene, something that really does, should be happening, or is it, just the desperate reachings of a NaNoWriMo-er searching for words, any words? Well, of course, I don't know, and I wont know till NaNo is over, and I have time to go back over it. But what really is concerning me, is the tone of the thing, I hate sad stuff, and while the story is certainly romantic, what the heck is up with all the sad stuff happening? Freakin depressing fairytale.

2009-11-22T00:02:00.001-05:00

37,808
didn't quite make up my word count, from yesterday. I didn't write at all yesterday, by the time I had time, it was 8pm, and I was having trouble staying awake.
Still I am pleased with the progress that I did make today, I am just finishing up now, which is way too late, but I was procrastinating getting into a scene which I didn't want to write. Even after I started writing today, I found plenty of words to stall with to keep me out of the scene, but I did eventually get there, and have written most of it.
Oh, and typing of which, I have decided that I best not make 50,000 my goal, but instead make getting to the end of the story my goal, otherwise, I might just throw all kinds of irrelevant scenes at the screen in order to keep myself from having to write the hard stuff, (whatever is painful, a.k.a sad, or makes me uncomfortable).
ugh, the research book I was reading yesterday (while my car was getting worked on), was sooo boring. Usually when I do research, I find it interesting, and inspiring, and these little light bulb sparks go off in my brain of ideas I can use, so many, like my mind is a field of fireflies. But so far here...um one little firefly and I can't think of that much I can do with one little firefly.

P.S
You know what I love, I love that progress bar thingy they have at NaNoWriMo, I have one too, but their's is more official, and makes me feel more accomplished when I put my numbers in, and hit update. It's like magic.

ut oh, husband just went up to bed and swore, seems washing all the bed linens is only appreciated by othes if you then, remake the bed. Guess I best put the sheets on the bed!

2009-11-19T20:39:00.000-05:00

34,939
8:30 pm on thursday. Just barely made my word count. It has been a busy day with nothing happening at its usual time. I am glad though that I went to the far away library to get a book for research so hopefully I will find the time to read some of it tomorrow.

2009-11-18T20:27:00.000-05:00

33,000
yesterday's writing made me uncomfortable, today's made me cry. Surprising really, I knew yesterday or the day before that the pet would die, while main character was away, but today for some stupid reason i actually wrote the scene in, and my main character(Lily) was very upset, and I had the fun of finding myself crying over what upset her. Well at least in doing so I found out for sure whether it was a cat or small dog, I was open to either, but her words where all for the loss of a cat, so that's that. Actually when she was talking about him, i saw him, some orange colored, tiger patterned being, not what I would have chosen. But now I doubt that I can change him. Hmm, I wonder if I will at least get to name him, she failed to mention his name.

2009-11-17T19:55:00.000-05:00

31,286. When I started I only expected to greet 30,000 by the end of this month, so to have met that number already, I already consider the venture a success. That said, today my words created a scene I am not at all sure I will keep in the story. I was not comfortable when I wrote them, and I didn't do the scene well, but I knew I needed to write it, to get it out there, so I can look it over later and decide. I had intentionally skipped over it yesterday. It's an "intimate" scene, and I'm just not sure I want that sort of thing in my stories. I mean an allusion to, okey dokey, a kiss, an embrace, a fade to darkness, but this was a little too um...you know. My other two stories are more young on the young adult scale, and so have none of that, this one is more teenage girl-ish. I'm just not sure. But whatever, this is NaNoWriMo, so I wont be spending any time tomorrow reading over it and fretting, instead, I'll move on, in a mad dash to the next scene, on and on, till I reach the end. Then and only then, will I go back, and in any real way, wonder about what the heck I've written.

2009-11-15T00:48:00.002-05:00

24,748 so tired, a long way past my bedtime. My days have been too hectic for me lately, so that I've ended up having to exercise or write, at times when I normally would have been in bed. Hopefully, that wont be the case tomorrow, or the next, or... And now I am so tired, that it seems like so much effort to get ready for bed, almost too much of an effort. I hate that, when I am so tired, that I end up getting less sleep because it seems like so much work to get up, and straighten things up, and go brush and floss, and take out my contacts and wash my face, and...
oh well, best get started with it already.
goodnight

2009-11-13T19:46:00.001-05:00

funny about yesterday's mention of missing sleep, last night was one of the weirdest attempts at trying to sleep ever. I didn't exercise yet today, so I have to go do that now, otherwise I would tell my story of sleepless woe.
22,957 but that includes things like lines that go..maybe she will do such and such after such and such in the future or maybe she...(only of course the words written are filled in, not such and such). Which means I have questions, and different things I am considering adding but undecided on in it. Yep I have that stuff, typed in there right on the page, alongside the story, and I count it toward my word count.

2009-11-12T20:18:00.000-05:00

21,000 much harder working with hubby around, and running erands, and troubles with son's school work. Didn't get to write yesterday, but tried to do that writing the day before, because I hoped to go to the local writer's meeting at Borders. I made it. And I am really glad that I went. But I am tired, missing out on sleep, and yesterday's workout never happened.

2009-11-10T19:57:00.000-05:00

19,262 is word count on laptop, but some of it is more notes than writing, details listed, not truly changed and worked in. I'm not sure if I will have time to write tomorrow so I tried to do some of that today. But it didn't flow well. I needed to do some research and was having trouble finding it, and then the boy and the man that I live with kept interupting me to share really important stuff like, "hey did you know those snow blowers that I like cost $400 something." me "yeah, that's great, super." Why was he telling me that? I guess because he wants one but can't see parting with the money. But why yell it to me from in the next room when he knows I'm trying to write. And my complaining about it, didn't deter him from other loud comments about TV, or just general observations about...nothing. And I do mean loud, as I had my ipod on to try and drown out any distracting sounds. And when he finally relocated out of ear shot, the boy arrived. So I did get some words in, and ones that do matter, but I wasn't able to feel into the story and really write. I'm finding that researching while writing does help fill in details, but it definitely effects flow, and emotional energy.

2009-11-09T19:27:00.000-05:00

16,785 for NaNo. Husband has off this week. And that is definitely making it harder to get my words down.

2009-11-07T18:51:00.003-05:00

12,276.
My 13 year old son helped me work on my html on the right, so I could bring my NaNo project Fountain of Swans up to the top and record my progress. He laughed at me when I complained about my inability to make breaks between lines. I said, "I keep hiting return and making spaces, but nothing changes!" He quickly typed in the correct code, with a sideways shake of his head. I swear I could read his mind, "Ugh, parents, they are so stupid, couldn't survive without me. What can you do." Whatever, I'll take the condescension as long as he fixes my blog.
13,205
done for the night, actually I thought I was done before, and am surprised I kept going. It feels odd to stop now, as I am in a place that makes me sad ( if I keep going will I write myself past/out of this emotion, or merely be walking deeper into it?). I was not expecting this, some background character has stepped forward and made me care about him, by making the main character care about him, which I don't think will change what happens in the story, but does effect how I feel about it. It is getting late though, and perhaps it is best to let things set with me over night, and come back to them tomorrow. Actually I wish I could set this feeling down until tomorrow, rather then keep it with me.

2009-11-06T19:28:00.000-05:00

10,204
not sure about the scenes I'm writing, I write whatever dialogue appears no matter how bad, and I am as always unsure about how to handle the passage of time, and there are gaps, and no discriptive details for setting(s). But, still, I am pleased that I keep going. Going where, with what, I don't know, but hey I am doing, I am going, so there, there is that. I have that, whatever that is. And I am happy about it.

2009-11-05T19:59:00.000-05:00

7,850 Spent too much time at ortho with son, and then errands, wish I had written more. Done for today now, it is almost 8pm on Thursday (aka I am going to watch TV). I did manage to write notes, and pieces in my notebook while at ortho, so at least I have more stuff to add tomorrow.

2009-11-04T16:39:00.001-05:00

5,800 not doing a lot but definitely doing. And the words are new, so far I haven't used any from a previous try at Swans.
8:30 at 6,524
I wont work any more tonight, my mind needs time to turn off so I can sleep.

2009-11-03T20:44:00.000-05:00

4,779, Day 3 of NaNo, behind if I am going for the 50,000 goal, but I am going instead for 1,000 a day, so I feel fine with where I am. Writing this is a lot different than the year before last when I did Echo. This is much more just writing down whatever, sometimes just stating what will happen next, rather than discribing it, not even trying to. If I don't know, I vaguely suggest it, then move on. My words are not at all well chosen, they are more merely thrown down. Whatever comes, down it goes. Nothing finished, nothing precious about it. At best it will be an underpainting, maybe even just a primer. There is dialogue in it, and all that, but with Echo, I knew more ahead of time, there was research and preparation, this time I still don't know my character's voices, who they are. It feels so strange to just keep plowing forward without worrying about all the unknowns, or about getting it right. I am writing badly, but freely, and today I must say even easily. Because nothing I wrote needed to be qualified. When going for quantity rather than quality so far, it is easier to move things along. And knowing I will have to rewrite it, and rework it all later, I'm finding appealing rather than making me feel like writing it this way lacks value. Writing this way means it is okay to get it wrong, okay to guess. Later I will still have tons of questions I need to answer, I will still struggle over sentences, and the best way to say something, but while I am doing all that I will have some structure, a lot more than I had before this. And I will have answered some of my questions. So even if I stop NaNoWriMo tomorrow, I will have made some useful progress, moved myself farther along this story path. And knowing that, I see no reason why I should stop tomorrow.

2009-11-02T18:41:00.000-05:00

I didn't write anything yet today. I did do some research which has resulted in my being even more confused about the time the story takes place then I was before. Yeah! Oh but I have narrowed it down to 1450-1850, like that's helpful. I really need to do more research, but I also feel the pull to work on the word count, to force myself to write something, and to figure out the details later. But I really do need to narrow it down to no more than a 100 year span. Or else I don't wont know enough to write anything. Ugh.

2009-11-01T16:32:00.000-05:00

Having trouble with this post

I can't seem to work the type out right. Anyway, started NaNoWriMo today. Not going so well, but whatever, I've started working on it, and that's um...something. 529 words, if it isn't too cold I'm going rollerblading for a few, to wake up my brain a bit. Then I will write some more. So far what I've got isn't anything interesting to read, no good opening paragraphs, more like I'm discovering information and writing it down, like I am introducing me to the characters in a rather straight forward uninspired way, but I must start somewhere and somehow, today, and leave making it better to the future. Or else I shall just spend the month staring a blank computer screen.

Admittedly though I am still not good at editing. Last year I also intended to work on writing A Fountain of Swans but spent the month attempting to edit Echo instead; something that I am still struggling with figuring out how to do right/well. But this year, I figure maybe I can learn more from working on another story; maybe each one will teach me stuff I can then lend to making both of them better. So here I begin a month of trying to write, what is pretty much a fairytale, A Fountain of Swans. I doubt I will finish (meaning 50,000 NaNo mark). I've got plenty of research that needs to be done, but I am commited to spending time every day with my but in a chair, researching, writing, and dreaming my way into this world, and it into mine. Wish me luck, and wings.

2009-10-09T18:12:00.000-04:00

Icky day with Husband*, got lost (couple of times), got stuck in traffic, two hours spent in transit one way. By the time we got there we had no time to actually be anywhere we tried to go. But do to extreme boredom while trapped in car, I did manage to work on my writing a bit. I am trying to make some of the changes suggested by reading How to Write a Damn Good Novel 2. I was pleased to have immediately seen where and how I could apply some of them to what I already had going on. But as I worked on it, I was a bit surprised by my own resistance. I've read my work, there is no drive forward, no suspense; it would seem logical seeing this need, to supply it. But, but....in so doing the tone is different. It was light before, flitting above the surface, mellow and calm. It had a certain kind of poetry to it, soft breeze. If I make these changes (a colder more tumultuous wind, that bandies one about a bit), then the whole mood changes; which part of me realizes is necessary and the rest of me is throwing a fit against. I wrote down the changes, and worked on the scenes, but it is all still on separate pieces of paper. I am hesitant to step fully into a different version of my story. Hesitant to surrender calmer weather, for more storms, in the hopes that someone will turn a page.

(*husband himself is generally not icky)

2009-10-08T09:13:00.000-04:00

In my last post, I forgot to mention that (getting distracted along my way to making a point as usual), later that day, I read an email from the local writer's guild, and for our annual conference, James. N. Frey (not the guy who wrote a million little pieces) will be the keynote speaker. So having just been inspired by him, I am now really looking forward to this conference.

The bad news is I am already behind today with getting my workout done. The good news, the reason is because I was writing, adding more to a scene in Echo. Finally, finally I am writing again. And I don't just mean plunking my butt down in a chair, and staying there till I get nice long strings of words on a page (though that is the most important part); I mean thinking about the story and writing in my head, when I am brushing my teeth, and driving the car. Story has come back to weave in and out of my every day life again. Little whisperings. Perhaps then there really might be a writer someplace inside me. Hopefully I can stay attuned to this, and keep working, and learn new ways of working, so I can bring my life closer to a time, when I can know she is there, and be that writer.

2009-10-05T17:28:00.000-04:00

As usual time is flying by. October, really? I've set this month down for getting back to work, aka editing. I was sitting in my car today, in the public library parking lot, reading an overdue book. I was trying to get as much of it read as I could and drop it in the overnight bin, before the library opened, increasing the amount I owed. I got halfway through, sorta sad really when you consider I hadn't managed to read any of it in the three weeks (or was it 6?) that I had it at home. The reason for my mentioning it at all is, it was James N Frey's, How to Write a Damn Good Novel 2. And I understood it, and it made sense to me, and I actually felt inspired (to fix my mistakes, and develop new skills). Which is quite a feat as nothing else I have read, in trying to learn how to edit, has done that. I think I actually understand the why and how of my lacking suspense, and I feel like I may be able to create it, or at least now I know how to try to. So to me, internally, sitting in a library parking lot today, was a great big deal. The rusty cobwebbed cogs are turning! Go gears go. The whimsical me is all set to go dreaming again. And the worker to forge a path by hacking away the underbrush and overgrowth. October, what I need during thee is to believe.

2009-09-27T12:31:00.001-04:00

My husband saw this photo the other day, that I took on a day trip to the shore, and sadly used it to to check for hair loss on the back of his head. Perhaps I should have told him why I took it. I was walking a few paces behind them (because my right foot hurt), and as I looked forward (wondering who these people were that I was hobbling after and why I was bothering) thought, "that is my whole life right there in front of me, my whole world contained in two people." Now I don't mean I am not about anything else, for of course I am. What I mean is, I felt how deeply important they are to me. I felt there inherent value in my life, and how connected we are. I am a mom and a wife, and in the whole world, these are my people, and I am theirs'. And it was all good, it was better than good. My family, our family, us. There was peace in it, contentment, and a bit of that wispy butterfly...happiness.

And lately I am finding that my happiness is not wispy and sheer, feelings of joy do flutter, they come and go, intense for a moment then fade, I do often feel tired (and look it), and I am still surprised by how often I get stressed out over things that ultimately don't matter, but as I get older I find that underneath these moments of feeling, running through connecting all to each other, is a stability of feeling which I would call at its core happy. I would not describe it as the happiness of giddy laughter, but the happiness of things feeling right. We are still working on the details, as individuals, and as a family, of how we want to be in the world, and how we want to be with each other, but it's good. It's better than good. And I am grateful. Grateful to have these two people to hobble after on a sunny hot August day, these people who can really drive me nuts. My people. My family. Us. I don't want to be part of any other story.

2009-09-20T11:00:00.002-04:00

Check out the Bleeding Espresso link (down quite a bit and over to the right) for a contest which hopes to increase our ovarian cancer awareness (and thus decrease our risks).

I will be reading more about it myself, but can't now as my husband is sitting next to me; he is a nice and rather chatty fellow (who likes to share whatever he is thinking or looking at, like showing me pics of, "rad skateboard designs"), rendering me unable to read or think.

I do know there is some connection with foods that have the letter O

2009-08-27T00:27:00.001-04:00

favicon- my son made me one; and he is insisting that I mention it here, right now, (and show you a larger version of it) before we can go to sleep, so...

Hey look, I have a favicon!
It's a pink bunny in a peachy peach.

and he also encouraged me relentlessly today, until I did, to make some appearance changes to my blog.

2009-08-20T19:10:00.004-04:00

Portrait of a couple

Family portrait

2009-08-16T11:00:00.005-04:00

Rollerblading at twilight. I'm gliding down the street, the trees and houses taking on the glinting light from the setting sun. The warmth of day mingled with the cooling breeze of darkness. Birds, dragonflies and butterflies, my fairy companions, as we occupy the same space at the same time, yet remain in separate worlds. My hair flows back behind me, my checks take on heat and color. I skate along to the music of my ipod, and I realize, I am happy. I feel both old and young in the activity. I am 39 and this is my version of going out on a Saturday night, which doesn't seem quite right, I tell myself surely I should being doing something more exciting, or something more dutiful, but as I search for other options, I realize there isn't somewhere else, or something else I would rather be doing at the moment. My husband is still at work. And my son is inside making his dinner; he refuses to eat what I make, though often employs me as his sous chef, and always as his dishwasher. It would feel different if my son was here with me, more of a legitimate activity, a family activity. But as I have taken up rollerblading, he has taken up learning htlm, and c++ code. Odd to think that as I have been outside doing something akin to play, he has been inside working. But of course I approach the skating as exercise, and he approaches computer code, as entertainment. And on that idea is where I have come to rest. How I view what I am doing effects how I experience it. So why don't I set down the calorie burning thoughts and think about fun instead? Well, because it would feel wrong, it would feel too luxurious to admit the truth, that I am playing. With everything that needs to be done, and all the things everywhere that have come undone, here I am, and like a child I am playing. And so that is the question of it. Work or play? On the one hand the answer is nothing of consequence, for the activity, the time it takes, what happens, is the same either way, but on the other, the way it feels, it is everything. Do I hold onto laps, and calories, and notions of cardiovascular fitness to legitimize my rollerblading, or do I toss that merrily aside and embrace freely, brazenly, playing.

by the bye,
writing. realizing the problem with the whole actual sentence thing. Feedback I got from cousin on Echo about how I try to push some nonsentences as sentences which of course makes no sense to her. So I did put IS and ARE in some sentences here to make them um...sentences, but for some reason they just didn't sound right to me, though I knew they were right. (The warmth of day is mingled with the cooling breeze of darkness. Birds, dragonflies, and butterflies, are my fairy companions, as we occupy the same space, at the same time, yet belong to separate worlds.) Yes, I suppose is and are should be there. But somehow they seem like pebbles, in the way of my skating wheels, something I would trip and fall over. Why? Of no interest to you I am sure, but I have to work this one out. Tune my ear.

2009-07-25T11:46:00.004-04:00

I've never had a summer of so little sleeping ( well except of course for when my son was a baby). I don't know what's wrong. Nothing exciting is happening, nothing stressful. But for some reason I am fighting to sleep. I am always tired, so each night I feel grateful as I climb the stairs, and plop myself into bed. But I am also wary and weary, anticipating the struggle, that stands in place of the longed for serenity of sleep.

I'm exercising so it isn't the lack of being physically tired. And now I keep thinking I'm running out of days, too soon it will be September and I will have less time and more stress, taking away sleep. (which of course isn't helping me relax and go to sleep, "hurry up and sleep now, who knows when you will get this chance again!"

I keep wondering if it is the writing, I mean the lack of it, perhaps creating a subconscious gnawing feeling, like hunger that keeps one awake, the distant uneasy feeling of something left perpetually undone. I don't know if that could be it, that seems too simple, but then as it is so simple why not try it? yet somehow I resist again and again doing it to see if that would make a difference. I know I wander in unease at night. My body seems still, my mind seems still (filled with nothing), but I am perpetually wandering in a place of unease, that lies vast and long, between being awake, and being asleep. I set my daydreams in my mind, as I have always done, to lead me from one state to the next, but I keep losing them along the way, and am lost in nothingness.

An unusual photo to pick. I was looking for one blurry and grey, a blue rain day. But this one called to me instead. The fire somehow being sleep, bright in the darkness, and the one tending the fire, being a gate keeper of sorts, the one who would keep me out, or invite me in. And that is my riddle, what tasks must I do so the guardian of sleep will let me enter. (if I knew how to photo shop, I could be rid of the chair, which detracts, but perhaps then that represents the so far, immovable object)

2009-07-12T16:15:00.002-04:00

just back from a week at the Jersey shore; I'm very grateful that it didn't rain. I had a wonderful time, but I did get a bit stressed over stuff like trying to pack up my family's life, and squish it into my little green beetle. It would be different if things like pillows, blankets, towels, beach towels, tissues, tp, spices, hand soap, etc., didn't need to be packed. And also if I wasn't a woman, and didn't need to pack for rain for shine, for heat, for cold, for sun with a breeze, for beach, for boardwalk, for bike riding. Oh wait, I miss it already, I would gladly make another go of squashing it all back in there if I could have another week.
Read Twilight while there. I had no intention of reading said book, but my sister in law was fourth person to recommend it, and did so the day before I left, and with a flush of enthusiasm for Edward (male lead). I could prattle on now about the things that do not impress me about that book, and maybe later I will, but perhaps I should just be mute, for the point is moot, I am hooked, I am on to New Moon, and know for certain I will not stop till I have read all the books in the series. In fact I wish to be reading one right now. It is just that at the beach one can sit in a chair, feet in the sand, nose in a book for an hour, or three, and it all seems perfectly legitimate, but at home, if I take the same beach chair and set in my backyard, and plop myself down there for a spell, well it just seems indulgent and lazy, and a bit odd. Though I do keep declaring that I am doing laundry at the same time, but there is this nagging feeling that the washing machine and dryer are actually doing the majority of the work while I'm not really doing anything. And I can't help but notice all the weeds that took to my yard vibrantly while I was away. But still it is Sunday, a designated day off. I could be on vacation for one more day; I could take the linens from the dryer and toss them on my bed, and shove the clean wet towels into the dryer, and put another dirty pile into the wash, and..and..go outside, with a book and sit in the sunshine, with the lovely breeze, and only notice the flowers in my yard (not the weeds), faintly hearing the birds, and the children of summer, till I drift away, from seeing a page of printed words, to that magic when you no longer see the words, and see only pictures, as you peer into another world.

2009-06-30T16:58:00.005-04:00

Joined facebook, because both a friend and my mom asked me to. Still not really sure what one does there, but assume I will figure it out by and by.
Tired of the whole raining thing.
Looking forward to Harry Potter movie coming out.
Writing? I know I need to do a rewrite; now I've just got to get on with doing it. All I really need is the right frame of mind. I just don't seem able to find one.
I've still been focusing on losing weight instead of writing. I've lost about 10 pounds, which has me thinner than my chubby clothes, but heavier than my thin clothes. To truly wear my thin clothes, I probably need to lose 5 more pounds; I'm just not sure about that actually happening; but I am happy to have made it this far. I feel (and look) more like myself.
I went rollerblading down our street yesterday. It was embarrassing because I know I look old, and at first I was very unsteady (it's been years). But I ended up having a good time, and because I felt foolish, the activity brought forth a childlike giddiness. It was good to have a nice laugh at myself.

2009-06-15T11:46:00.005-04:00

The start of summer. Not officially, but the start of summer vacation for my son, which makes it the start of our summer schedule, or lack there of, depending. For the past week I've been thinking that I need to create a summer schedule, but I also don't like the idea as it seems anti-summer to do so. Summer, ideally, lazy unstructured days focused around sunshine and fun, days by the pool, trips to the beach, barefoot in soft green grass, sitting under a shady canopy from trees, smelling the flowers; outings of mini-golf and amusement parks for Bob and Cheese. But I might not get things done without one, or I might spend all my time worrying about, stressing over trying to get this or that done, and not know when to relax. So..
I'm trying to work out my summer schedule. So far all I have is Sunday off (yep thought of that all by myself I did. :) ) no exercising, yard work,trying to learn how to sew, writing or editing, on Sundays. Now all I have to do is figure out how many days and what times of the day I'm going to do all of that stuff. Writing of which, I'm supposed to be exercising right now, 6 days a week before 12 in the afternoon, is my idea for that one. I have let too many days get away from me lately, and I am miserable when I am working- out at 9 or 10pm. Oh well, I guess I best do that now, I haven't figured out when my blogging time will be, but clearly it can't be before my working out time; because that just wont work out. :)
I know I wont be back today though, as I must, I must, finally finish my planting.

2009-06-03T18:29:00.001-04:00

2009-06-01T18:27:00.003-04:00

I'm still around. Just can't seem to find time. First exercising and son playing with 8 year old triplets from next door. Then exercising and planting (oh and weeding, have some kind of itchy red poison on arms; it is easy to stop the itchy feeling though, all you do is scratch till it is displaced by pain). Spent time cleaning for home appraisal with intention of getting better mortgage loan rate. Two weeks left of school (keeping after my son to do, and then actually turn in his homework, is strangely a full time job). I haven't been blogging, blog visiting, reading, writing, editing, or researching. My intention is that, that will all change any gosh darn day now.

2009-04-11T10:21:00.003-04:00

Me in an apron.
It's a funny thing getting older, I've discovered I like aprons. Primarily because I am a mess and they keep me from ruining my clothes, but also some of them are kind of cute, and there is something about putting one on, something ritual, routine, and yet costome-y about it, my domestic cape, that is warm and encouraging, while I am certainly no super mom, no super cook, still I find a charm in wearing one, which is quite the opposite of the effect I would have expected.

There is of course more going on in my life then wearing an arpon, but this is it for the time I have at the moment. I hope to be back Monday to discuss the writing conference. Happy almost Easter.

2009-03-24T17:47:00.009-04:00

easily replaced?
I was amazed at how happy the cat was for this stand in. I actually had to chase him off of her twice during the building process; he just couldn't wait to nap on her lap. It is rather a shame though that I can only get a double to take up leisure activities in my place. If only she could replace me by doing stuff like fixing dinner and washing the dishes. The cat did not enjoy her for long though, Cheese insisted that this St. Patrick's day leprechaun prank was creepy, and had me disassemble her. (this year since he knew that I was the pranker, he critiqued my work)
I've been pretty busy lately with Cheese and troubles with school, primarily over his homework, lots of late nights, plenty of fights, and tension, but we are both working on a new attitude. And the school guidance counselor told me how important it is NOT to let such things become the focus of our relationship. So I am trying not to tuck my frustration in my pocket, but to just let it go, while still offering structure and support (and discipline). And it is going much better, perhaps because Cheese has been begging for a husky, and Bob has told him we will only consider it if he starts keeping up with his current responsibilities, aka school. Or because we have all changed our emotional approach to the situation.
Cheese and I have started going to look at puppies (though personally I am not keen on the idea), and we were going for long walks (walk and talks, 5 miles for our feet, and Cheese tells me what is on his mind, including chatting about girls, and making up stories). But we haven't done much of that lately as he has started hanging out with the 8 year old triplets from across the street (two boys and one girl) and that has been a bit of change in our day to day lives. We never know when they will come over, we might not see them for days, possibly a week will go by, or we might see them four days in a row. Their presence brings quite a different energy to our house, unlike anything we are used to. We enjoy them but we do get overwhelmed at times (setting boundaries and enforcing discipline are not my strengths). And now when they aren't here Cheese complains about how quiet the house is. (I have noticed that they distract him from asking for a puppy :))
I really haven't been working on my writing, it seems like I never have any time to...I have started exercising regularly again (which is good), I just need to figure out how to fit everything I need to into my days. I am very nervous about the writing conference this Friday and Saturday, but I am excited about it informing and reinvigorating my writing. Give me those spark plugs baby.

2009-03-03T18:33:00.003-05:00

busy with the day to day, we had water intermittently over the weekend, then none Monday. We now have a new well pump in place, goodbye $2,651 dollars, hello water. (we still can't drink it, but we smell better, and so does the house.
Science fair (part 2)on Sat., orthodontist today, DMV tomorrow.
Still having quite the struggle getting Cheese to do (and hand-in) his homework.
I was getting all sorts of cherry (duh, Cheery) with the warmer days, but my mood has gotten a bit chillier with the snow and frigid weather. I'm also boo-hoo-ing a bit because I can't really afford to go to the Philadelphia flower show, but I have signed myself up for the totally terrifying writing conference that is happening later this month. I will be totally out of my comfort zone, but I think it will be good for my writing. I haven't made any hands on progress with it lately (2 months), but at least I have made some mental progress, as far as being able to see more clearly, and understand that some things need to be changed. I'm learning a bit about my editing style, or absorbing of info style, read how-to book, or hear some practical information regarding editing, throw fit, slam down book, walk away, say, "You don't know what you are talking about. You are an idiot." Have myself a nice little tantrum. Find self thinking about the info for days afterward, till finally most (but certainly not all) of it sinks in, and seems worthwhile and to make good sense. Then I start thinking about how I might apply it to my work. Still working on my follow through strategy as I tend to stall out, pages in hand, pen poised midair. Like Pooh Bear all this straining to think seems to get me nowhere except off to look for pots of honey, and wondering what Piglet and Christopher Robin might be up to, and worrying if there might be a woozel hiding under my bed. Oh never mind honey pots calling me, I see plenty of pots calling to me from my kitchen sink, all of them dirty. Well as my water supply has been restored, so too should cleanliness be. I just tried to do like Mrs. Weasley and have my magical mind make it happen from here, didn't work. Drat.

2009-02-24T09:25:00.006-05:00

I found this on the back of my son's homework.
Family portrait by Cheese.

I was going through his papers and I am sorry to say I easily spotted my frizzy haired self. Cheese told me originally my head was much larger like a giant balloon but he couldn't focus for laughing so much, so he made it smaller.
Obviously I added color to create the series. I like how doing so seems to effect the mood of the family.

2009-02-24T09:07:00.000-05:00

February 13th post that has been hanging around in drafts

I'm feeling more optimistic about editing. I hope this feeling will last through some actual editing.
(that was three days ago, since then.)
I got irritated with the people I know for not enjoying my writing, so I decided to do some simple tweaking of it, so I could show it to other people....I printed it out, and read several pages. I didn't enjoy it at all, no energy, no atmosphere. No wonder my readers aren't excited. This realization caused my mood to plummet. I had the woe is me-s. I am so awful at everything, there is nothing, NOTHING, I am good at. I have no graces, no talents, I stink at this, that, and the other thing. Bad wife, bad mother, no domestic skills, not attractive...yada yada yada (I mean why limit myself to a writing bash when I can bash myself about everything?)
That was the mood I was in Wednesday while I went on my walk. It was a beautiful day. It is better though to walk angry than sad, angry moves quickly, sad meanders and mopes, feeling sorry for itself, drifting back and forth between edge of road, and grass.
During my walk I saw a low stone fence, created without mortar, just round stones, and sharp ones, resting, wedged, interlocking like a puzzle. And suddenly I wanted to be that fence, to be something, anything, connected, solid, holding. A low break against wind and snow, standing year after year.
Reading my work I felt it as a visible struggling, that was what it manifested, the stress of a writer desperately trying to say something, not the concerns of the characters, not their story, but mine, I saw the ugly strain of my attempt, I read failing. Struggling, like I can not hear my own voice and am wildly screaming and screeching, trying desperately to hear, to be heard, but without confidence in my ability to make true sounds, nerves and stress mangle my thoughts into harsh broken noises.

Last night I didn't feel up to going to the writer's meeting at our local bookstore. I had never gone before, but thought I should because next month is a writer's conference, which is expensive, and really scary to me (alone in a prolonged social situation with many strangers in places unknown.) and if I intend to attend, I better start by dipping my toe in this bracing pool now. I decided to just go check it out from a distance, pretend to read a magazine or something.

I'm so glad I went. I was nervous and had to be invited over by the woman who gave the editing talk at the library on Monday. I thought it was just going to be random talk about the writing life, but there was a topic and a print out, and then reading aloud and critiques. Anyway..they were inviting, understanding, and energizing. Others who have traveled the road I am on. They were encouraging and eager to offer ideas and tips. Rather than a lone failure (I'm a loser baby..), I felt like I was part of something, connected to others also working on trying to become authors.

They talked about editing, ways of approaching it, ripping out sections (ripping out your heart), of the possibility of needing to set the draft aside and start writing all over at the beginning. Bracing words, a shiver at the thought of doing such work, tearing stuff down, starting over, yet also the bracing support of others holding me up making me feel strong enough to do it.
I didn't want to go, but now I know I needed to. I could join this group, be part of round and jagged stones, set together, creating a low lying fence, a break against wind and snow. Forming something, a group of people who write, we could stand together year after year.
In this simple act of going from a lone stone at the periphery of my yard, to a stone set with other stones, all jagged and smooth in different ways, but each striving to be more, a boundary of being could be built,

this post is almost two weeks old, and both long and incomplete, but I've decided to publish it so my thoughts can keep moving forward.

2009-02-18T08:33:00.003-05:00

Nearby, even have an unfinished real post. But currently all tied up in knots over child and school.

read cat picture as SCREAMING, not yawning (though I am indeed tired.)

2009-02-09T15:20:00.003-05:00

I've been quite busy lately with..It takes a village. As in it takes a village to get my son to do any of his school assignments. And this year there are all these big long term project thingies, history day, science fair. I am trying to readjust my mindset so that it stops being a continual source of stress. Because a stressed out me is no good for me, and no good for my son, or for my husband who I keep trying to get to take my place in the whole helping our son get from point A to point....um well actually maybe that should be from point D to point A.

A person who does manuscript editing for cash is speaking at my local library tonight. I went last year to hear her and I'm thinking she is just going to say the same things, but still I'm probably going to go. I need to get back on track with my writing and maybe this will help me to do so. I did make the tiniest bit of progress the night I was so sick I couldn't sleep at all. Just little things that I liked...a swan graveyard, a secret door leading to a hidden staircase, etc. little clues and riddles to decorate the story with. Little things certainly but for me emotionally helpful flourishes.

2009-02-05T08:43:00.015-05:00

mood a bit..I don't know what word fits..
Yesterday was my birthday. I turned 39, probably a good time for self reflection and what not, but my stomach virus had derailed any deep thoughts into merely, "God, I never want to feel this awful again."

Yesterday I felt my energy coming back, felt more like myself. I took Cheese to an orthodontist for a second opinion concerning Invisalign (this one recommended braces instead). After school, I was a bit bummed that not only did my husband not take off for my birthday but he was also working till 10PM. But I was able to put butter on the raisin bagel I ate, that was festive. At about 9PM my best friend from college called to wish me a happy birthday and that meant a lot to me, and suddenly I was cheery and chatty. After I got ready for bed I did what I always do before getting into bed, I went in to check on my son. Sometimes I just look in on him, but often I still lean in to listen and make sure he is breathing. He sleeps with a CD (on repeat) now (a woman singing in Japanese) so I have to lean in close for a second to hear him. As I did this, he popped up abruptly (which he sometimes does, as a 'haha I'm awake!') and his head crashed into mine. I grabbed my nose, started whimpering sharply, and felt the blood coming down into my hand. I ran for the bathroom leaving a blood trail behind me. Blood dripping down my chin, all over the sink, my hands, running down to my elbow. Thank goodness Bob was home by then, he had been yelling, "what's wrong?" forever downstairs and now came up to find out. He ordered me to apply pressure to my nose, and tilt my head back slightly. I started to feel nauseous and faint (probably from some blood dripping into my stomach and because I was hyperventilating a bit). I got into bed, took tylenol, applied an ice pack to my face (which Bob told me to do, but which I had to go downstairs to get for myself). Oh how I wished I was sleeping. I couldn't figure out how I had come to find myself in such a situation. It took a lot of harassing Bob to get him to at all clean up the blood trail on the carpet, he kept saying he didn't know how to clean it, and trying to go back downstairs to watch television. I didn't fall asleep before 1am, I couldn't breathe through my nose, and my nose hurt, and after awhile I realized there was no rest till I washed the blood off of my elbow and foot. But I did finally sleep. Ah sleep. Sleep is great.

I was a bit disappointed that Cheese didn't ask me how I was this morning, he never even got out of bed last night when it happened. Though clearly an accident and not his fault, I still would have liked an 'I'm sorry." Whenever I have accidently hurt him I have always said, "Im sorry". He didn't wish me happy birthday yesterday either. Of course he did both after some serious prompting.

Anyway so here I am, no much swollen and only a bit black and blue along the left side of the bridge. I'm fine. But it was an odd sort of a birthday. And I am in an odd sort of a mood. You know being sick leading up to my birthday in a way I hadn't been sick in 11 years, and then the finale of closing that day like that. I live a rather careful slow paced life, and am not used to any sort of physical trauma, and though the damage is slight, for me it was indeed traumatic. I truly hope that last night was the finale, I am a bit concerned about what might be lying in wait round the corner.
Yes, I seem to have lost my pep, maybe that is it there upstairs staining the carpet, perhaps after I go up and truly clean it out, it will be abosorbed back into me.
Well the good new is, all this has distracted me from any trauma I might have felt over turning 39. It is just good to be here, be well, and not have any parts broken.

(Cheese says the discoloration doesn't really show because my face is rather multicolored already. I'm sorry to say he is right.)

now if I could just get some decent pancakes...I know my mood would brighten.

2009-02-01T11:56:00.004-05:00

sick. At least finally well enough to go online for a couple of minutes. I hadn't been sick like this in 11 years. I can't remember ever having gone an entire day without eating anything like I did on Friday and I was too sick to sleep or watch tv. Miserable. Yesterday I had a small banana and a soft pretzel, and was able to watch movies :)!! Today my son, who has no other interest in the super bowl, keeps asking, "what are we going to make to eat for the super bowl!" Actually we were supposed to go out to eat to celebrate my birthday (which happens later this week), but my current food ambition doesn't go beyond hoping I can eat some diced pear and not regret it.
"What do you think, fish and chips or corn dogs?" He just asked me. Obviously I can't eat either. I just hope whatever my husband and son make the smell isn't nauseating, and that they clean up afterward. (my refusal, over the past two days, to clean up after either one of them has caused some tension between them, but eh..I have faith that they can survive one more day.)

2009-01-27T08:45:00.004-05:00

Sunday night, I was flipping through channels, and stopped now and again on a PBS show about Iran

It was wonderful, it was beautiful to see. Always I see certain countries through the lens of politics, of troubles, in the news, always sand and guns. But this was different. Travel. Hills like red clay, separated by glowing green grass. Cream colored building taking on warm tints of coral. Food, architecture, culture, people. Beautiful people. Young people who were not saying anything about hate; warm, lovely, friendly, faces.

Now, I know the world is still the same as it was before, the politics, the troubles, they are not gone. But I thought of how nice it would be to only look through this lens. Just being interested in other people and how they live. What a beautiful world it would be. It did my heart good, made me happy, to see this country in a different way.
Sometimes the news drags me down, till it all seems war and strife, and that everyone hates us. I realize I too often let myself be fed a media diet of limited images. Yes there is war and strife, yes there are those that hate us; but there is also so much beauty. And mostly people are just people, wanting the same things, and wanting to harm no one.
Like my prayers at night, not limited prayers for one country, but prayers for all people everywhere. I want to say something that sounds a bit deeper, but the trouble is that Peggy Lee song keeps playing in my head, and I might as well just surrender to it,
"My wish for you, sweet happy life."

all images off wikipedia, except the last one, that was off a politcal wordpress.

starting of a brand new day

2009-01-19T14:33:00.003-05:00

I'm still working on my New Year's resolutions, you know it's not good to jump into these things to quickly. I'm trying to decide what is really important to me, and what goes at the top getting the most time and energy and what gets fit in when it can. Last year I put writing on top and gained weight. I don't want to remove writing from the top spot (of personal pursuits). But I am not enjoying the way my body currently looks. I don't feel like me. I wish I could lose weight without making that the primary focus of my time and energy.
So far the feedback for my writing (Echo) has been scant. My mom did say some things about the prologue needing work, and my cousin did tell me that the grammar is very bad, "at times not really even writing sentences." I took those kind of hard. As I did the fact that none of them have made much progress with reading it. The energy for writing has really been knocked out of me, it has felt rather pointless to pursue. (Why bother? is the attitude I keep trying to ditch) But my husband not known previously as a pep talker, has certainly decided to be one now. He has told me to keep going forward, keep writing, telling me he likes my writing, and that the areas that need improvement, are areas, with work, that can without a doubt be improved. I say, "But why spend my life pursuing a dream that can never be, it is pointless." And he says, "What other way is there to spend a life?" And then I think of that, what other way would I want to spend my time. To let go of the dream, to pursue nothing, is certainly not an improvement. I wouldn't like such emptiness. One can of course change one's dream and pursue something else. But he is right in knowing that I am not at that point yet. I am still only at the beginning of this journey. I must fail a lot more before I know whether or not I can succeed. And I might as well finish the stories I have started that I long to see all the way through.
I wish I wasn't taking it so hard, this lack of feedback, and then a few negative words, but handing someone Echo is like handing them a fragment of my soul. Dramatic words I know, but it feels entirely true. My other storeis are part of me too, but not in the same way, not to the same degree. I knew it needed work certianly, I asked for feedback to help me improve it, but they are finding things wrong with the parts I thought were fine. And no one seems to be connecting with it, feeling and seeing any part of it as meaningful or beautiful. So that is the source of my sadness.
So I am trying to move forward with the writing but I am doing so on wobbly legs. On the positive side, I am really touched by my husband. I mean perhaps when married it should be obvious that one loves the other, but I haven't truly felt it so, merely so, but not deeply so. But in this, that he didn't say, "Yeah you suck, why are you wasting your time, and our time. You should be learning how to cook better, and looking after us more. Go get a job outside the house to bring in more money." I have felt keenly his love for me. He has validated my pursuit of a dream, knowing it may bring him nothing, and even take time away from him. He has validated it knowing I long to pursue it, knowing how much it means to me. There have been times when I would have, and have, fought for this privilege, for time, mine. But not lately. I have stood before him more or less defeated, feeling I had no right, to take such time as my own, to sit alone for hours with pen and page. Sadly at this point I felt, I feel, I need permission, and I have been amazed that he has given it to me. Not reluctantly, not under coercion, but freely, abundantly, heaping it on me like a directive. With a little bit of tone that I would ever leave the question of pursuing my dreams up to the opinions of other people.
God am I grateful.

I don't have my new year's resolutions down yet, I'm still forming them in my head, but I do know that writing wont be pushed down around the edges. Not this year. I must finish the other two stories.

2009-01-08T10:12:00.013-05:00

We have a temporary house guest. We named her Poppy Strudel.

Sebastian keeps begging for just a little taste.
She likes to sit in her food dish while she dines.

She is soon to be joined by 5 brown mice, if we can ever find such, so far we can only find white mice with red eyes which I sweetly call possessed or evil mice. Why the rodent invasion? Science fair project. Which involves having them run on a wheel(with a generator) to see if they can generate enough power to light a night light or some such.
I've read Robo hamsters can go up to 20 miles a night on there wheels and watching her I believe it.

Here she is in her litter box. Yes! A hamster litter box. She loves it! No she doesn't go to the bathroom in it (like the box claims) but she finds it makes a great tunnel and she likes the way the little balls feel under her feet.

I have nothing to do with the science project, as it is way over my head, my job is care (aka clean-up) and feeding of critters. And I have no intention of keeping any of them (though I do find Poppy quite cute).

I do hope we are able to find them suitable homes after the project is completed.

by the bye,
I am having a little bit of trouble picking a theme that shows all the type. And since I can't figure out how to adjust the color within a theme, I'm choosing a theme based on text visibility.

I don't know if anyone of my family members has made progress reading Echo; I think not. And the research for Swans is slow going, as I am not at all enjoying reading The History of Private Life, so far. It seems to take a ton of words to say anything, I just want info, short and sweet, not ideas. Usually I like ideas, but not when researching.

2008-12-29T19:05:00.011-05:00

we had snow and inbetween headaches I went out sledding with Cheese

The cat insisted on going out too but then regretted it

I really like Christmas lights

Much much better,
headache was off and on for a week, but is finally gone. I named it Pith. Pain in the head.
I spent this past week cleaning and getting ready for yesterday's Christmas get together at my house.
Tomorrow we go cookie making with my mom, and Cheese's cousins.
And I will drag him to the library near-ish her house, because I think that one will let me take out the History of Private Life books I think will help me with my research. I also intend to rent something from the library or video store, some lighthearted chic flic. Yes, I am a woman with many great ambitions and plans, make cookies, eat cookies, get books, get movies, sit on butt.
Sadly, so sadly, I shall also have to exercise at some point, or I will regain the weight I lost on my house cleaning "don't get to sit down for a second" diet. I actually have little black and blues on my knees and arms from floor and tile scrubbing.
Day after tomorrow I hope to go visiting and see what you all are up to.

by the bye
while I was waiting for blogger to download these pictures I went off to the cutest blog on the block site, and I have yet to decide on which background to use, so it may change frequently for a while.

2008-12-16T09:01:00.003-05:00

headache. Had it since Saturday night, gets better gets worse. Sometimes in left eye, always at base of head-neck. It likes to pound in the top of my head when I bend foreward. Using computer makes it worse, so I wont be around much. I had planned on doing some visiting. Maybe tomorrow.
Theories of cause (because I like having them)- dehydration, lack of sleep, neck strain, radical weather changes.

Waiting for Tylenol to do something magical.

2008-12-13T11:14:00.003-05:00

Time for me to get ready; going to a family reunion today. To see people I see at best, once a year. (There was a time when a lot more people would have been there, a time when we saw each other a lot more often, but the older generations, the ones who had the closest ties to each other, have passed on, and most of the younger generations have moved away.) I am always nervous in social situations, especially without a nice buffer to place me within a setting of people among them (like if my Brother and his family lived close enough to go to this get together; or if my Nana and Pop were still alive. Then I would feel snug and cloistered, feeling connected to the people that connect me to these other people) but still it is really good to them. To keep some connection with my Nana's people. We are all connected in one way or another...we are family.

And Cheese, who is always resistant to such gatherings ( and to any sort of leaving the house on Saturday and Sunday. "Today is my day OFF! I should not have to go anywhere.") seems okay about it, as he has categorized this get together in his mind under Chichen fingers with mustard sauce, chips, soda, and desserts. I know this because he keeps asking, "Now this place we are going on Saturday, this is the fried chicken fingers with mustard sauce place?" Me- "Yes" Cheese shakes his head and says, "Okay." God help us if they have changed the food they have ordered to serve this year. My son will look at me like he has been tricked, evilly misled...not by his own expectaions, but by me. And with an indignant tone that will keep asking me to conjur some up out of the air.

2008-12-11T22:17:00.001-05:00

sometimes writing, is a knowing, sometimes it is throwing darts in the dark.
I've just been doing the latter.

2008-12-08T16:58:00.004-05:00

I haven't been able to stop wedging chairs infront of the doors, even though it has been well over a month since I saw that guy walking through our yard at 10:30 PM. For the past few weeks I have been able to stop having the flood lights on at night.
I thought I had a problem I should be getting over by now....
BUT
One of my neighbors called me today and asked if I had heard about all the car break-ins in our neighborhood (about 10) (it is a cul-de-sac of about 30 homes). She told me she thinks one of the homes was broken into as well; and that a few neighborhoods over, some lady's house was broken into and she was abducted. (I'm hoping that last one isn't accurate.)
Horrible. I like to be paranoid without cause.
Oh well, those chairs aren't going anywhere,
and it's back on with the flood lights!

by the bye,
the black sandal (Bob's) is necessary to keep the basement door open for the cat. (location of cat loo)

Don't poke a rabid dog

2008-12-06T20:01:00.006-05:00

I think I'm going to have to exercise, though it is getting late, and I don't feel like it. I must do something to control the thunder that shakes me, and the cold rain pelting my insides.

I don't know if this is an upside, but, my mood is now so intense and pervasive that it doesn't cling to writing, no not at all, I find I keep slipping into furry at those around me. Their moods are horrid too. Three feral beasts housed in a small space. We did better briefly while out running errands, and thought we would return more reasonable, but each beast has again unleashed on the others.
I for one feel no guilt whatsoever at the present for any time I spend writing. I do plenty of housework, feels like I am constantly cleaning up after everyone. Constanly. LORD am I cranky.
Okay well
:)
Hopefully we will all have tomorrow together and do much better.

Losing Faith

2008-12-06T12:48:00.002-05:00

It's a sad horrible feeling. Decorating the house, stringing lights, weaving garlands, feeling bleak inside. Losing faith in myself, my abilites, my writing, my stories. Falling falling falling down; searching for some branch to cling to, wondering if I must hit bottom; and how long it will take. Trying to focus on the next one, in moving on; but asking why? Why do it at all if I can't make anything of value, anything worth sharing? Yes I know the answer, and Bob has echoed it already this morning, "for yourself, your are writing the stories for you." Yes, but how sad that makes me today, a circle of one. I will write, for it is how I am made, but I have nothing to give. And while I never cared if anyone else appreciated my painting, they seemed complete in themselves. If I hung it on a wall and liked looking at it, it had all the meaning and value that it and I desired. But an unread story, is not complete, it is unused, unknown, it longs to tell. It can't be hung on a wall, glimpsed and grasped by passersby. Someone has to sit with it, and turn it page by page. Sit still and listen, a long time, wanting to know. Wanting to know what is contained inside. Wanting to find themselves somehow reflected there, somehow contained within these pages written by another. (I guess my stories only contain me. That though I see them as full, they lack scope and space. ) Yes I will go on writing, the stories will tell me, and I will tell the stories, but we are a world alone.

2008-12-04T13:44:00.002-05:00

Researching for the next story
off to a France of long ago
searching for the beginning
but also finding out that which comes before the beginning.
Perhaps finally,
I will learn some history.
In school, I never thought of such information as tinder for igniting my own stories, thus it all went on, blah blah blah, and went away, taking no hold within me. (you would think they would have held meaning for me in and of themselves, as they should,...sometimes.)
Now for me the information holds possibilites, different doors I can walk through, creating different stories, different realities for my characters. And suddenly I am interested in the past, the way a chef is interested in good, fresh, seasonal ingredients. Seeing what I have to work with, getting inspired. Rooting my present idea, into a past it grows out of.
And I'm having fun doing so
...how odd.

I think I really may be picking this up, this habit, this way of life; Writing. I thought perhaps being done (for now anyway) with Echo, I would wander off to other things. But not knowing how long I have till I am forced to get "a real job", I want to create as much as I can of these worlds. It feels weird now to not be working on it. Though I fear it would seem odd to others that this is how I spend my time. You know if neighbors or acquaitances were to ask what I did today, researched the history of France would seem a ridiculous answer. A fine valid answer for a published writer, but something seeming a silly dalliance for one such as myself; one who should rather be focused on homemaking or earning money. But my husand after years of not seeming supportive, somehow suddenly is. I could tell him how I spent my day, and he isn't "wow babe that is fantastic" but he isn't "why didn't you scrub the shower?" either. He wants me to try, he wants me to do this (at least for now.) And my mom is also supportive. I don't think they think of it as my work, as I do; but they know it is what I am doing and they don't tell me not to, they don' tell me I should be doing other things instead. They understand. And for that I am grateful. It makes it easier for me to keep walking down this road, to walk as far, as long, as I can.

2008-12-03T09:13:00.003-05:00

What exciting thing am I doing?
Just cleaned up my desk top, saving all my notes (and everything else in it/on it) to disk.
Cleaned up Nissus and saved some downloaded books to disk.
Aaahhh the joys of open space.
Changed my screen saver to swans to motivate me on my next writing project, Fountain of Swans.
I got a movie from the library yesterday for research.
Currently procrastinating exercising (sports bra is killing my ribs), and deciding what part of the big clean I will do today. Fridge probably. Best put wash in for the boy now before I forget.

editing coma

2008-11-29T18:56:00.002-05:00

sick of it. Even spent 4 hours of Thanksgiving doing it.
Still have 108,856 words, and 211 pages.
Guess I'm not much for editing down the material.
I'm going to print it out now (second time, with edit corrections), and give it to my mom tomorrow, I call her reader number uno.
And I have no; no no no no no intention of thinking about this story again till after Christmas.
I wonder how long it will take before the pages come back to me all marked-up with highlighters and red pen? I don't know but until they do, I plan on working on other stuff. Like getting my house ready for Christmas, and working on my NaNoWriMo story, which I haven't worked on at all, and as you can see, November is pretty much over, so, so is my chance to do that challnge. Oh well, I feel challenged enough. You can indeed get so frustrated you fall into a stupor. Yes, you might think it would make you hyper, but prolonged hyper day after day after day, for me, become stupor. I thought I would try and read through it one more time (as quickly as possible) before printing it out, but I can't bear to do it one more time.
Schmaltz, death, and bad writing. Yes, time to open the windows and air myself out.

2008-11-24T09:24:00.005-05:00

Reading The Elements of Style (found it on my shelf). Reads to me like a foreign language, or rather like some dialect that uses familiar letters and sounds, and strings them together with words I know, but then fills each sentence with words I don't know the meanings of, so I'm foever going "Huh?" "What?". I feel like an idiot. The examples are helpful, I can understand them. I just can't comprehend the sentences containing the rules. The book assumes, sadly wrongly so, that I have some sort of clue as to the definitions (and thus the words contained within them), of the terms it uses.
Goodness, I'm going to have to make flash cards and stick them around my house; see if I can't get some of this stuff into me.
No I am not smarter than a 5th grader.
pronominal possessives
indefinite pronouns
parenthetic expressions
a conjunction introducing an independent clause
a participial phrase
Clueless.
My brain just doesn't hold such things.
( I do however recall what adjectives, nouns, and verbs are)
Many of the rules once I see the examples, I realize I know and do; others I know I can't consistently apply, because I can't understand what is contained within the rules.
ugh.
Salt, I need mental salt, to help me retain information like water.

2008-11-24T08:48:00.005-05:00

my camera and I couldn't capture it well

sunlight on grapefruit
colors, sections, forms, textures, juice contained within, sugar clinging, seeds inside; the possibility of seeds.
And I thought how wonderful to be alive, eating grapefruit on a Saturday morning. With time to watch the shadows and sunlight; with time to taste the sour, and try to adjust and balance it with sweet; over and over, tasting sour, tasting sweet, seeking harmony. Time to pull away the light pulp and wonder if paper could be made from it. Time to gather the seeds, and think of the meaning contained in each.

edit

2008-11-23T11:46:00.004-05:00

My dream last night, had a professor in it, (good looking). He asked us to give a sentence about pain. I said something like..
"Pain crystallized, broken into shards, inset flatly across the skin, decorating, shielding; shinning." And it took him several minutes to reply with a comment, he said because it was such poor writing. The use so common. It was the ; followed by one word that he didn't like, that he felt so contrived. ( I had worried about the rest, but liked that part.) I have started to use ; to connect sentences, ok well not really, I 've started to use it to break up my run on sentences. But, I do know I've used it several times with just one word after it; I like doing this. I like the significance it gives that word, it both modifies what comes before, and stands alone. Anyway I was really upset in the dream. And today I am going through my books trying to figure out if what he said is true.
Also I was me, but the character wasn't. My being was tethered to her, watching and occasionally able to direct her. (She much younger than me, bit like Kitty from Pride and Prejudice, the year perhaps in the 70's) that very night she was eating sunflower seeds on the roof with a boy, heard her father wake up, and slide down to hide in the bushes (Why didn't she just go back into her room through the window she came out of?). Her dog, a wire hair jack russel, gave her up. She pretended to be sleeping, she pretended to be dead, but of course her father didn't fall for it. While I was watching her I was thinking, 'I've seen this one before. Yes, she ends up having an affair with that teacher.' I found this progression workable, as I had every intention of asking him my writing questions each time I/we saw him. But alas I woke up, before she could get into anymore trouble and before I could get any useful information.

I went through my books this morning with the hope of finding the answer. Nope. I still hope to glean some useful info from reading novels, but as far as my writing books go, I realize I have entered a new area, one I don't yet have a book for. My writing books are more about the emotional side, the having courage to write, and about the process of writing that first novel. But I don't have any on how to edit. I do have some about sentences structure, and spelling, et. cetera, helpful certainly, but not one on how to approach editing, how to apply it. Being me, I need a reference, a manual, a way to enter and navigate through this new territory. So it is off to the library (not open til Monday) or Barnes and Noble for me, as I doubt I shall see the professor again, and anyway I would like a more reliable source. (I mean knowing what he will be doing with that silly girl, how can I trust him?)

indecisive people shouldn't attempt to be writers.

2008-11-20T10:05:00.003-05:00

I keep going over sentences changing this, then that, reading them back again and again, not knowing which way is better. Or are they the same? Move it to the beginning, no to the end; the middle? Omit it! Put it back.

Direct and clear, flowing and musical. Static and sharp, chaotic and rambling.

I can't even decide if he is trying to see farther in, or further in.

mentally tone deaf

zhe turkeys zhey are escaping

2008-11-19T08:32:00.003-05:00

Or so you would see if the glare hadn't blinded the camera.
As I drove by, I saw what looked like clusters of white trash bags about the turkey farm. Odd..I thought, then they moved a bit....and I realized..Turkeys! I don't know if the company has decided to go free range all of a sudden or if this decision was made by the turkeys themselves...but I'm thinking perhaps someone tipped them off about Thanksgiving being next week.
A company truck came by and I told the driver, he said, "Okay, I'll have someone take care of it." but without any interest, then drove away. I thought about calling the farm when I got home, just to make sure they knew...but then I thought, 'What's the rush? it is cold out there, the turkeys aren't running around or anything, just having a bit of a stretch, no harm in that.'

better

2008-11-19T08:30:00.002-05:00

I didn't work directly on improving my writing yesterday, but I did some reading.
And firstly I was annoyed that the story I was reading had some of the same imagery that mine does. No, this didn't make me feel common, it just got me riled up. I want the chance for my version to be known. And the longer I wait, the less chance my version has, for other people's will keep coming. So that was a bit of a pinch to wake me out of my stupor.

Secondly, I noticed that within the book I was reading there were some incidences of common sayings, and ways of saying things. And I realized it is not about reinventing the wheel (cliche), I don't need to stress over it to the extreme, to be harsh with myself, and unrealistic. No. I need to be calm, and go through and fix what I can see that is wrong, focus on the obvious ones, the big ones, and for now not worry about if there are others. That is what reader feedback is for. I need to keep my focus small at the moment, to work on and improve one part at a time.
.
I'll have faith
and I'll work hard.

having a wannabe writer meltdown

2008-11-18T09:16:00.017-05:00

I've long feared that my sensibilities and skills are too immature....
and while I do feel that I can improve my skills, I'm concerned about my sensibilities. Or rather my ability to convey them. I think perhaps my perspective is simple, or at least my image/concept to words process is. It goes in meaningful, I feel it fully, but it comes out simple, standard, ordinary, in lowest common denominator form. (My crayons straight out of the box. Metaphors, ideas, words, well known, worn.)
I am not concerned so much about changing the in-waves stuff, it will take time, but I believe I will do it/can do it. The trouble is, that example is just the one that I can see. The whole thing is probably like that, in ways that I don't see or know, because it is just the way that I am (made).
I'm not striving for high art, not for something complex; I decided a long time ago, I mean to by writing to my own level, not attempting anything lofty. But still it shocked me to find my writing so immature.
I'm not giving up, just going to tumble all the way down, and taste the dirt a bit, before I get myself back up.
Because the parts that I don't write, the parts that just come to me...well I love those parts. I owe them more than just connecting them together with garbage (plastic bags and the like, not composting). And I guess I owe it to myself to ask more of myself. (To try. And try..and try...and try.)
But I know I will get, I can go, only so far, I wont be changing my core perspective, my way of seeing; I'll just be tweaking my ability to share it. I'm only going for the change of one note lower in pitch. (the sound of one note deeper).

There are so many different things one has to face when writing; (ironic for me here) complex issues arriving from the simple stringing of words on a page.
(combinations of letters vexing, hexing; a curse of self-doubt, I cast on myself again and again.)
Deconstructing a paragraph; deconstructing me.
Sitting alone in a room, asking myself questions all the time (all the time, cliche, no doubt, oops, another). And it looks like I don't move at all, I look fixed and unchanged over time, yet how I answer each and every question, changes me.
Forms me.
There is a world contained in each question. Can I do this? Is this worthwhile? Why am I spending my time this way? Do I have a worthwhile perspective? Is it meaningful; am I meaningful? How do I see the world? Is anyone interested in seeing the world through my eyes (through my character's)? Am I the same or different than? What do I believe?
It might seem sacrilegous to say so, but it reminds me of believing in God, the continual questions of faith one goes through when trying to write a novel. And in what one asks of herself, in always trying to be good, always trying to be better than she is, or believes herself to naturally be. In asking oneself what is truly possible, what is reasonable, logical to believe, and then believing in what seems extraordinary instead because somehow it is more natural.

because somehow there is a greater truth tucked into the impossible.

In waves

2008-11-17T09:17:00.010-05:00

what to do? What to do?
In waves...that is the trouble.
The book, The First 5 Pages called in waves a cliche.
I can't find it listed elsewhere (on the web) as such.
The trouble is, I have in waves in my story, eek, about 4 times. It is about energy or sound moving in waves, from point A to point B, while the objects of origin seem outwardly unaffected. One is nausea, several times it is sound, and the sound waves even come crashing in on main character.
The repeat of it is intentional.
I am wondering how to fix this?
I'm trying to think of other words to use in place of waves.....and also wondering if then I should use the same (new) words each time to draw attention to them being a part of the same process, or if that is totally lacking in subtlety?
And of course also wondering if it need be fixed? Must I not use, in waves?
Is that definitely bad writing, or does cliche depend on context? The guests came in waves, I can see that as a cliche, and I could also easily change that; but I'm not so sure about sound; and waves of nausea does seem a cliche, but it does come and go, and I want for the wave, the surge, of energy up/out (nausea), to be echoed later by waves of energy down/in (sound).
sound waves
energy waves
Well I don't know, I'm off to go highlight it wherever I see it, and then see how it reads with whatever other words I can come up with.

Here are some others I found, which I will get rid of-
soaked through to bone
his days blow in and out
working from sun up till sun down
under a canopy of stars (ah but I love that one)
quick on his heels
the rain comes down in rivers (well I can't do sheets either. How shall my water pour down?)

One of my- in waves, is awful.
The ocean tide comes in and out in waves.
Silly, not necessary.

Dreadful, horrid, horrible, Horridible
22 times! 18 in the first half, and 4 in the last.
building in great waves, waves of frustration, wave of panic, waves of sadness, waves of sadness and fear, around me in waves washing over me, being forced upon him over in over in waves, waves of sound, in uneven waves, coming in waves, death in waves, nothing but waves of his pain, shock waves through the trembling earth, waves of sadness strike him, moving in giant waves, another wave of birds, moving in waves, drifts on waves, currents waves of thought, snow falling in waves, a wave of anger and sadness, a wave of something rides through me.
Ugh
Okay well, yeah, most of those need to be reworded.
God I had no idea all that waving about was going on. Yes, I knew it was in there, and I knew I repeated it, but I had no idea it was that bad, 22 times.
Perhaps, while some of these will need to be rewritten, for most I can just delete the waves part, and the rest will be workable as is. (?) I hope so.

Echo edit

2008-11-15T22:12:00.002-05:00

read it all the way through, on actual paper pages.
Made lots of notations in blue ink.
Feel there are areas that are, and many areas that aren't working.
If there are plot problems someone else will have to point them out to me, because the sorts of problems that I am noticing are wordy wording, and sentence structure awkwardness, and perhaps too much info.
So I am sitting here wondering how I am going to fix those problems.
?

2008-11-12T08:34:00.003-05:00

My son talked about abiogenesis and spontaneous generation as I drove him to school this morning.
The idea of spontaneous generation, excited me. I quickly asked him what time period people believed this in. He thought the 1400-1500's, which just happens to be the time period I intend to set my story in ( I still have to do more research to be sure. I am attempting to avoid time periods with much stife and upheaval). Before my son brought up topics of science, I hadn't thought of the possibilities that different time periods offer in the realm of beliefs. I had thought about music and art, and decided to try and weave a bit of that in, but this offers a whole other direction, a whole other way, of not just using a time as a backdrop, but in inhabiting a space, a place in time. There is much work to be done, there is much research to be done. Both daunting and exciting. But....
not today,
today I need to finish the read through of Echo, so I can make some mild corrections, and send it off for others to read, so weeks from now I can do a proper (intense) edit.

My point here is this, I love this part too, about writing, how everything one hears or sees, becomes a possibility, has a potential to lend itself to the story. Whatever I am exposed to during the period of writing it, from TV (the media), the books I read, family, things I overhear strangers saying at the grocery store, world events, the weather, whatever, all this will have some part in shaping little pieces of what I write. Two tawny mice materializing from wheat (or perhaps hay). That imagery wasn't within me yesterday. While such an idea might not end up anywhere in this story, those little mice feet will no doubt lead me on to other ideas, that will become part of this tale.