Despite the fact that I chose FLEXIBILITY as this year’s guide word, I’m feeling seriously inflexible right now. In the past month, I haven’t been consistent with my routines and have been sitting way too much, for way too long.
This is my reminder to move, stretch, and experience life outside my writing space.
Yeah we all shine on,
like the moon,
and the stars,
and the sun.
~ John Lennon
Lost in the shadow
ant hill intended subject
photographer looms
I’ve gone back to a project I haven’t looked at in 18 months, a project that hasn’t been shopped at all so should still have a brand-new shiny feel. Instead, this project that’s given me fits over the years continues to make me nervous. I think the nerves are a result of the MANY hours I’ve put into this book without an end in sight. I read it through in one sitting yesterday and while I admired much about the manuscript, I’m still not confident the story structure is correct.
You know what that means . . .
Tricolored Heron in irrigation ditch
Tried for bird outside
but it flew from camera
captured son instead
I’m in Florida with Zebu, visiting my mother (his grandmother). Today we went to the beach in Honeymoon Island State Park and I brought my camera in hopes of seeing lots of shorebirds and maybe a pelican or two. The only birds I saw were Laughing Gulls and I snapped a total of three photos.
When I saw this, I thought it was a freakish and somewhat unsettling image because it looks as if the head was pasted on another bird’s body. But when I showed it to Zebu (who doesn’t have a great appreciation for birds in general and even less appreciation for gulls because of “their beady eyes and shifty behavior”) he thought it was a great shot.
Go figure.
I just hit SEND on my manuscript and am doing the Ed Grimley happy dance!
Finishing that round of revisions is totally decent, I must say!
In honor of those who struggle to address life’s demands in an orderly fashion without getting distracted along the way . . .
My self-imposed deadline for finishing this draft is fast-approaching and I’m torn between wishing I had another couple days of work time and being SO GLAD the end is near. I’m at that point in which I’d just as soon throw the manuscript in the lake.
Soggy or not, here I come.
Lately when I leave something on the bed, Marcel curls up on whatever I’ve left behind. Two days ago he spent much of the day sleeping on top of my basket of assorted workout clothes and yesterday he got cozy with my running socks. I
assumed the theme was my powerful stink. But today he’s thrown me a curveball.
How am I supposed to interpret this behavior?
There’s no escaping
contrast between young and old
Even pinecones age
Sometimes taking the most simple action can quell my anxiety. Yesterday as I worked on this revision and felt overwhelmed by the many, many details of my madcap story that must be explained by the end of the manuscript, I started a list.
LOOSE ENDS / EXPLANATIONS NEEDED
Whoa. Behold this literary rocket scientist at work!
I’m trying hard to stop kicking myself for not creating the list at the outset of this round of revisions and, instead, be grateful for my peace of mind in the here and now.
Psst…my guess is Black-capped Chickadee. Photo by Zippy
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.
It is the source of all true art and science.
~ Albert Einstein
I’ve spent the last couple hours working on my revisions that are moving along, but are also causing me a bit of angst as I struggle to achieve the vision I have for this middle-grade project. I just decided to take a break to put up a blog post and went to my photo
files for an image. I chose a picture from a couple days ago of a poppy in bloom along with a lovely not-yet-bloomed bud. As I cropped the image, I considered blog post titles and immediately landed on Poppy and Potential Poppy. I’m embarrassed to confess that it took a few moments for this extremely relevant factoid to hit me:
The protagonist in the manuscript I’m revising is named Poppy.
Oy. Here’s hoping we both achieve our potential today.
The idea is to write it so that people hear it and it slides through the brain and goes straight to the heart.
~ Maya Angelou
Yesterday as I ran on the open space trails and flax tickled my legs, I wished Zippy was with me. Blue flax flowers are his favorite and they’re at the peak of their bloom right now. Good news for him, our flax is also blooming at home in one of our beds.
Here’s a domesticated memento of yesterday’s trail run.
How many guys does
it take to fix a zipper
pre-ceremony?
Art is all in the details.
~ Christian Marclay
I’ve spent the day working on the third draft of my work-in-progress. Thanks to three reads (partial and full manuscripts) from the wonderful Writing Roosters critique group, the book is in pretty decent shape, which makes for a pleasant writing experience. I can see the good that’s already there and can easily envision the good to come. I’m
about sixty pages from the end and hope to have the draft completed by the end of the month.
I feel incredibly fortunate to have this creative outlet.
Give fools their gold, and knaves their power; let fortune’s bubbles rise and fall; who sows a field, or trains a flower, or plants a tree, is more than all.
~ John Greenleaf Whittier
As I hooped this morning, a bunny came into view. The furry beauty remained in that same spot, calmly chewing and staring into space, despite the fact that I spun and twirled nearby. And then Marcel, sensing something outside, jumped up in the window. The bunny casually glanced toward where the big white cat stared longingly, and immediately returned to her bunny business.
I’d like to emulate that self-confidence during this coming week. Me and the bunny, not overly concerned with matters outside our personal spheres.
I’m so happy Zebu’s graduation weekend coincided with Mother’s Day because Wildebeest came back to help celebrate his brother’s milestone. We haven’t all been together since January.
Here we were on Friday. The sun didn’t shine much that afternoon, but the happy, proud, and goofy smiles from everyone on the CU-Boulder campus lit up the place.
Soon after starting my vermicomposting bins, I also began using fly catchers. Bell jars with a couple inches of red wine and a funnel duct-taped in the opening. One downstairs next to the worms and one upstairs on the kitchen counter. Fly activity has been low and the wine developed a layer of mold that I thought would make for a trippy photo. I took it outside to photograph it and as I aimed the camera at the jar, sudden movement caught my eye.
A fly was running across the mold. It got up next to the glass and pawed at it as if trying to find a way out. I felt really, really bad. As soon as I’d finished taking the pictures, I released the fly from the trap.
Outside, of course.
Tracy Abell 