Month: February 2018
Twofer Tuesday: the cat-centric edition
I took a total of two photos today. First, I crept up on wild and crazy Marcel. SNAP!
Then, I pivoted to capture the rambunctious Loki.
National Geographic, you know where to find me.
A pain too lonely
Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother.
~ Khalil Gibran
Chainsaw massacre
Yesterday I (finally) came to the realization that a couple two or three much-loved scenes in my manuscript serve no real purpose. Try as I might, I couldn’t justify them. And after attempting to salvage little bits here and there, I (finally) came to another realization: pruning shears weren’t the tool for the job.
The first cut is the deepest, baby, I know.
Friday Haiku
My sister’s beagle
temporarily off scent
in stare-down with self
Thankful Thursday
Today I kept writing despite
the overwhelm
the nasty voice
the fatigue
the feelings of futility
the sweet seduction of giving up
the anger
the impatience
the I’m-so-effing-sick-of-you
the stack of unread library books
Netflix
despair.
Today, I’m thankful I kept writing.
Heartbeat at my feet
My little dog – a heartbeat at my feet.
~ Edith Wharton
Snowy day
I’ve seen a fair amount of snow in my life. I grew up in Wisconsin, lived in Alaska for six years, and now live in Colorado. Snow is a known quantity. That said, I can’t remember another time I looked out the window and saw individual flakes.
This snowfall is magical.
Coming up for air
All good writing is swimming under water and holding your breath.
~ F. Scott Fitzgerald
This is not to say that the words I put down today are necessarily good words, but for right now, they are close enough to good. I’m moving around some scenes and adding others to this draft, and many of the words I wrote today are more placeholder than set-in- stone. But, as a result of the day’s underwater swimming, I’m that much closer to The End.
And now, I breathe deeply.
Friday Haiku
Bouquet from the spouse
They’re beautiful, says Tracy
Cat food, says Loki
The importance of activist work
I think the importance of doing activist work is precisely because it allows you to give back and to consider yourself not as a single individual who may have achieved whatever, but to be a part of an ongoing historical movement.
~ Angela Davis
Angela Davis at a political rally in Raleigh, North Carolina on July 4, 1974. Photo courtesy of Bettmann/CORBIS.
There is so much work to be done.
We have lost our souls
Roses are red,
violets are blue.
Guns have more rights
than children do.
Today, I ran back to myself
Yesterday was cold, gray, and icy here in the Rocky Mountain foothills. Today was sunny and warm enough to run in shorts. The last few days have been emotionally draining for a variety of reasons, and I felt that fatigue and heaviness as I ran.
However, each step felt like a gift, my cadence matching my internal chant:
I am strong and getting stronger. I am strong and getting stronger. I AM STRONG AND GETTING STRONGER.
Sing it, believe it. Live it.
Emma-versary
Exactly one year and one day ago Emma came to stay. Not a whole lot has changed since then, except that we still haven’t mastered not-blurry photos of her AND elder-dog Zoey now has one more “damn millennial” to shake her head at AND cat-brothers Loki and Marcel have mostly put aside their differences to join forces against the high-energy pupster AND strangers now stop Zippy and me on the street to inform us that Emma is so very cute.
As if we hadn’t noticed.
Sunday Confessional
Today is one of those days I’d prefer to interact with plants and animals rather than contemplate the mind-boggling awfulness of some human beings. I can’t think of one instance in which a clematis bloom caused me a moment’s pain or anxiety.
Until they flower again, I’m basking in the memory of their quiet beauty.
Friday Haiku
A feathered swimmer
at home in sky or water
adaptable bird
The eyes have it
This morning, these frames were merely cracked and tape held them together. This afternoon, the bow broke off completely. Lucky for me, I recently got a pair of “computer glasses” which allow me to comfortably see the screen, plus focus on things up to about five feet away. So, until my new glasses arrive next week, I’m confined to a world that consists of my computer screen and anything within a five foot radius, or the far-away distance provided by my prescription sunglasses.
Eye strain is my new middle name.
What do you see?
It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.
~ Henry David Thoreau
Today I choose to see an insect that inspires awe and a little bit of fear every time I look into its bulgy eyes as it slowly and hypnotically waves its front legs.
Is there anything trippier than a praying mantis?
Nothing but carpentry
Ultimately, literature is nothing but carpentry.
With both you are working with reality,
a material just as hard as wood.
~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Drinking up the magic
If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water.
~ Loren Eiseley
Joy of cooking
Today I used my Scrivener corkboard and calendar pages to finish plotting out this revision along with the story’s revised time line. I made good progress, but am still not sure how the newly envisioned climatic scene will unfold. So I made a list of the fifteen or so ingredients that will be in play during that scene, and am now letting my subconscious do the cooking.
Friday Haiku
A good reminder
full lifetime packed in two weeks
live as if that’s all
My aim is true
Today as I work on my novel, I am thinking ahead, hoping ahead, to the day when a reader reaches for my story. Last May, I photographed this man perusing a “Book Exchange” in Stockholm and am posting it as a motivator. I aim to create the most compelling, reader-enticing story I can write, dammit.
Tracy Abell 