Certain days feel like pages turned, and surprise! A new chapter begins–characters, settings and plot take a sudden shift–and you can’t say exactly why the day and days to come feel so new and fresh or where the story leads next.
Certainly our stage props have changed such that, in our week away, the forest disrobed to reveal an open fence of vertical trunks where before we left it was still swathed in an obscuring curtain-barrier of red-shifted leafery.
The garden needs no attention now though I’ll be out there later today winterizing the tiller and mowers. I’ll miss it, and it will be a relief, though wood gathering takes its place.
The winter’s wood is already dwindling from a couple of early fires the wife insisted on (though not today with temps expected in the 70s–far too warm for November.) Yesterday I cut into some oak with the saw, and to be sure, the smell of it has done its part to trigger the page-turning toward what lies ahead.
Plot development? Not so much that I can read it very clearly from here. Upcoming, the Forest Watch event at Hollins on Saturday. (And if anyone reads this far and comes to that event, the FIRST person to ask gets a FREE set of notecards.)
And several good things are coming together on the photography front–even so far as to anticipate a small bit of income to re-invest on something like Lightroom (I hear there’s a learning curve–great for long winter days indoors!), a polarizing filter for the 18-200 lens, that sort of thing. I’ll be telling you about some of the places where you can find my photos coming up soon.
What pages are turning with regard to future writing? Will I repurpose “book two” or pitch it “as is” to the couple of somewhat hopeful outlets I’ve been exposed to since SEJ? Will I re-up for another year of newspaper columns or is that too much time for too little return of readership, reach or revenue? And whither blogging, so changed as it is from the first pages. To blog is more and more like a shout from the front porch just to hear the echo off the barn. I realize my rhetorical questions are mostly for me to consider alone. And yet…
One never knows where the first page of a new chapter will lead. After all, we’ve never read these pages before and thankfully, can’t turn to the back and see how the story ends
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
I hope you’ll continue blogging. I hear your shouts every day, look forward to them. I like that it’s an interesting mix of subjects and styles.
Pleeeease don’t stop blogging. You help keep me sane.
I hope you won’t stop blogging, Fred. Like Chris, I hear your shouts and would surely miss them if they were gone.
Am I the first to ask for notecards? I was in MOD while you were away. I still owe you a libation.
Thanks guys (er, gals)–I can’t imagine mornings without a blog to “talk to” but have a weaker sense of connectedness than I once did. I carry most of the blame for that, having diluted my time at the computer with so many other projects–happily so–but don’t participate as actively in the “blogosphere” as when there were only about 50K of us in 2002! I feel both the dilution and the distraction factor at work.
I hope to find a balance between looking inward and looking out at the so-called real world–both have their worth as a focus for a writer’s attention.
I’ll be getting back to posting images too–from the archives and some fresh ones soon.
Ah, good! Thank you for not shutting down the blog. It would have been sorely missed. I have sensed that you have a full plate of things to think about, so I appreciate your keeping it up.
I read the Friday post before I read the Thursday post so please consider my comment there as additional positive reinforcement to continue to speak to us from your front porch . . . and know your voice travels much farther than the barn.
Blogging does take time, but I find it to be a wonderful way for me to sort out my thoughts. To me, blogging is an “interior” process, not an external one. But I also love reading other blogs for their insight on topics that I am also concerned about – yours among them!
I am so excited to read that you are going to get Lightroom. Allen just bought version 2 and it is a big learning curve, even from version 1. He loves how it works though. To learn it, you have a choice of books or videos, depending on your preferred learning style. The best site for all types of resources is lightroomkillertips.com.
Good luck with your photo sales!