Living in a Full-Colour World

In reading over my post from the other day, I can see that I sounded downright gloomy. Grey, in fact. I'd like to state right now that glum and miserable is not my usual habit of mind. More typically, I am a person who is thrilled by the experiences, sensory richness, and social engagements of daily life. And I like colour (even the muted colours of November).

This photo above is one that I took while walking in a field near my home during October. It is a beautiful field for taking a walk, whether snowy, soggy in the springtime with the impossible bright green of the first new growth, lush with lupins and buzzing bees, or red and yellow under autumn's crisp air. I especially love the autumn colours.

The seasons can also be enjoyed from within the coziness of one's house. This fall, I took a series of photos that I call "Views from my Window." The one below is one that I like. If you look closely, you can see a small reflection in the window. I wanted to capture the reflection because, after all, I wasn't out there; I was inside looking out.


I am lucky to live in such a wonderful place, surrounded by landscape views like this on a daily basis.

Work is the new grey

On Monday, I did not want to go to work. I really did not want to go. I slept late; I dragged out the morning preparations. The Christmas break had sped by in a twinkling. Our cherished children had visited and left again. We had feasted, drunk wine, skied along ridges, played with the dogs. Now Monday loomed bleak and ugly, the start of a new week, a new year, a new decade of work, work, working. Grey. Damp cold that gets in your bones. Inescapable.

I put one foot in front of the other, drove to work, unlocked the office, let myself take it slowly. I watered the plants, dry after ten days of my absence. I greeted colleagues and inquired about their holidays, my voice faint and echoing as if coming from the bottom of a giant tin can. My hands flapped like squid, and my feet dragged along the carpet like disobedient pets. I clasped my hands in front of my belly, wrung my fingers, crossed my legs. I hardly seemed to be in my body, but gazed on its awkward postures with annoyance from outside.

The litany wrote itself inside my brain: overdue unfinished tasks, too much, more work flooding in, trapped, don't show it. I organized my desk, deleted email, and started with some easy tasks. Plod, plod, plod. Made it through the day.

Tuesday, inside a cold grey metal can. Bent under my burden, a basket of boulders. Wednesday, a reprieve. A caring boss talked me through an impossible task, offered help, extended a deadline. His voice was as warm as a mug of hot chocolate.

Thursday, freezing rain coated my car like molten glass. In windy gusts, pins of rain flew at my eyes. Tires left slush puddle ruts. A medical test, finally after months of worry, ruled out the feared possibility. And now there was a yellow glow around me and my flesh was warm and vital. Back at the office, I chatted with staff, made decisions, and completed tasks, each neatly clipped and filed.

Friday, I'm back. Back at work, my usual efficient self. Back at home with a laugh and a hug. The year is full of possibilities.

Thinking of Art

This plein air watercolour was painted by Keiko Tanabe. It is titled Lake Hodges. Lake Hodges is a reservoir near San Diego, California. Clicking the link will take you to the artist's blog. She has won many awards for her paintings.

Revision Advice

Well, now that the first draft of my novel is finished (and apparently too long already at 114,329 words in Times New Roman), it is time to start revising. I do not write in the NaNoWriMo style, which involves putting as many words down on paper as fast as possible without editing, but instead I have been editing and revising as I have gone along. However, the revisions have mostly pertained to each small section that I was working on at the time, not to the overall structure of the story.

Another way that my story differs from a NaNo story is that I have written most of it over a period of three years (except for a small core section that started as four short stories written in 2003). So rather than springing out of my head in one short month, my story has had time to percolate and develop over a period of years.

Nevertheless, I do know that it needs revisions. For example, as I was writing, if I came to something that needed research or fact checking, often I just simply inserted asterisks as a reminder to go back later and correct the details, rather than stopping the flow and getting distracted with research right at that moment. (Note: I did not do this for facts that were critical to the plot, just for details and minor events.) As well, I know that there were some shifts in characterization as the book evolved.

What I need to do is sit down and read the whole thing at a sitting to see how it holds together. One of my concerns about revising is that I know that I hate to cut (but am happy to add!). But this manuscript already is too long; I'm going to have to be brutal and cut, cut, cut. Another concern is that I am not sure how to keep it coherent and consistent, given that it is so long. I am used to writing and revising much shorter pieces.

So, if you were hoping for revision advice, that's not really what this post is about. It's more about me looking for advice. I have come across one site that looks very helpful: HollyLisle.com.

writing sites

I'm just putting a few good writing/publishing links here that I don't want to lose. (That's one of the joys of getting older; you lose things.)

Bookends LLC - A Literary Agency

NaNoPubYe

Words on Top

It's past my bedtime, so more on this to follow...

Absentee blogger

Sorry, I haven't been around. That's because I have been spending every spare minute over at NaNoWriMo. Visit me there at AnnaHarvey's page.

NaNoWriMo calls

November is National Novel Writing Month. People from around the world hunker down and go into a frenzy of novel writing in November, with the aim of getting 50,000 words down on paper (or on screen) -- draft quality, of course. I participated in 2007 (when I had a leave from work), then kind of half participated in 2008. This year, I had sadly concluded that I am just way too busy with work to sign up. Missed deadlines! Travel for meetings! Looming obligations! Signing up will just be an exercise in frustration, I told myself.

But this morning, I awoke, and it was November 1. How could I not sign up? It was the first day of NaNoWriMo, and it was a Sunday! So I did register, but I am not going to push myself to pump out 50,000 words. All I really wanna do is finish a first draft of the novel I started in Nano 2007. I know myself, and the structure and camaraderie of Nano help me to sit down and write. I figure that some writing is better than no writing. My starting count is 95,008.