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.

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

 

 

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. 

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.

 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.)

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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.)

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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.