Today I am thankful for:
(1) open space
(2) Emma the happy pup
(3) clover vetch (h/t Jenn Hubbard)
emotional health
Friday Haiku
Removed wall hanging
and all the clutter on top.
More room for my thoughts.
Thankful Thursday: the moisture edition
The last couple weeks have been warm and DRY and windy and DRY, and I was starting to have serious anxiety about climate change. Don’t get me wrong, I know it’s still happening. But this wet snowfall is taking the edge off.
Who knew the white stuff could be a balm for the soul?
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Thankful Thursday: The sunshine edition
This is Zippy’s indoor weather station. As you can see, it’s sunny and 65 degrees outside. Granted, the outdoor thermometer is in direct sunlight right now so it’s really only 65 degrees against the bricks on the south side of the house. But still. Sixty-five degrees in January!
I’m going out for a run around the neighborhood and am looking forward to cruising past the snow piles lingering from last weekend’s storm.
Gotta love Colorado and its split-weather-personality.
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Healing effects
Lavender has many medicinal properties. It’s also good for the soul, especially on a gray Sunday afternoon in January. Now if only this post was a scratch-and-sniff.
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All thumbs
I’ve written lots of stuff over the years and have quite a few thumb drives.
Going back to locate an old project used to be a pain in the ass. Well, not anymore! I FINALLY took the time to index my various drives and to move files around so that none of those projects are on multiple drives. (In case you’re judging me, I challenge anyone to work on a project off-and-on over the years and still maintain a pristine filing system. And yes, I do know about the cloud. Much of this stuff’s out there, too, but that’s a task for another day.)
Right now I’m very satisfied with my little box of thumb drives and index. Never underestimate the power of organizational wizardry. The world feels very bleak right now, and little victories such as this can stop me from running into traffic.
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Best tool in the box
Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand.
~ Mark Twain
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Acts of defiance
If bumblebees can defy the laws of physics,**
I should be able to defy the ennui of January.
So here goes:
Look at me!
I’m smiling!
(Okay, maybe it’s less smile than grimace, but I want a gold star for trying.)
**Brief online research revealed a lack of agreement on this issue.
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Here comes 2017
I wanted to end the year with a photographic image I’d created on the last day of the year. So I grabbed my camera and in the fading daylight, captured this image of Loki:
Whoa, that’s kinda scary and weird. Slightly disconcerting. An image that overstays its welcome fairly quickly.
And then I captured this:
Ahh. Delicate beauty that evokes peace and calm. An image that grabs my attention without gimmicky extra eyes or blurred pink tongue.
And that about sums up the philosophy I want to carry into the coming year. Every day is going to have its bizarre-scary-weirdass-infuriating-heartbreaking-unjust moments, but there will always, always be moments of beauty. It’ll be up to me to notice them.
Here comes 2017.
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Thankful Thursday: The I-finally-freakin’-did-it edition
If you happen upon this, writer-friend Linda Salzman, you might be happy to know that yesterday I finally, finally wrote the final scenes of the YA I’ve been wrestling with since the beginning of time. Are they perfectly written scenes? Hells no. Are they fleshed-out scenes? Absolutely not. Are they even close to being what they’d need to be in a final draft? HAHAHAHAHA.
In which Linda is the pug offering encouragement (“Do it!”) to the tortoise-slow Tracy.
The scenes I wrote yesterday are, at this point, a collection of placeholder words. A roadmap for the next draft (should I ever have the inclination to wade into the manuscript that right now feels like a horrible, torturous place to spend time). I learned about the value of using placeholder words from writer-friend Laurie Schneider, and I must say it’s one of the most liberating tools in my writing kit. The pressure is off when I’m creating placeholder words; all that’s required of me is to literally hold the place in the manuscript with clues for my authorial intent. The details come later.
So after writing those scenes, I printed out a hard copy and wrote out a few notes for myself before packing everything away in an accordion file. At the soonest, I’ll read that manuscript again in a month. But I have a feeling it’ll take longer than that for me to muster enthusiasm. After finishing, I’d gone back to read the opening chapter, thinking it would fire me up by reminding me the rest of the book is stronger than the ending. *insert hysterical laughter* Turns out, I’d arrived at the THIS BOOK SUCKS MORE THAN A HOOVER stage, and it’s gonna take some time for those feelings to fade.
The good news? I’m already reacquainting myself with another project. This one has huge potential and fills me with excitement. So take that, nasty voice! (Also, I was very grateful for the distraction of this “new” project when I woke up in the middle of the night thinking about Debbie Reynolds dying the day after losing her beloved daughter.)
There are sad and horrible things happening all over the planet, but I’m grateful for the fictional worlds I create in my mind. Sometimes the pretend is the only thing keeping me from being crushed by the real.
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