I don't make hay, but I do get me to my local CSA:

Here's what I found:


  This is what I love about July in Vermont--pick-your-own strawberries and snap peas and cucumbers! I asked if the cukes were greenhouse-grown, but no!

I love my CSA!

I'm so glad I went when I did, because the reason I have time to make this post is that, on what was supposed to be the first sunny day in weeks, we are having a shower, so I can't go out and move wood.

Writing accomplishments for the week: 2 humorous pieces for the local paper about The Great Sorting, hereafter to be called TGS. After I see the printed versions, I'm going to post the text, with additional photos, here, probably friends-locked. I'm also working on a longer essay on the same subject (TGS), which I may have a market for.

I guess this is why I couldn't dive back into THE GROVE. I  needed to purge myself of TGS first. But it will be purged, just as it will also, one day (soon, please, soon) be over.

Kristy Dempsey's post today inspired me--

For National Poetry Month, why not a poem a day?

I've been reading a lot: Poemcrazy: Freeing Your Life with Words (Susan D. Wooldridge) , The Rhythm Method, Razzmatazz, and Memory (Keith Flynn), and The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within (Stephen Fry), because of "The Grove" and another project I've been mulling over for a while.

So: Reading into practice. Who knows, if I stick with the inimitable Stephen Fry, some of it will be formal.

Care to join this challenge?

This week was scheduled to be "lost," because of standing deadlines on Monday, plus an additional one that day due to jury duty. Tuesday-Friday were supposed to be jury duty from 9-4:30.

However, after two days in court, the last four hours of which were spent hanging around the jury lounge, watching a storm inch across the Adirondacks and Lake Champlain, the defendant decided to plead guilty after all and we were released from further service this week. The general take-away from this trial is: Do not plead ignorant when any reasonable person could be expected to have knowledge;  willful ignorance is not the same as innocence. 

As a result of yesterday, today was a complete gift! Nothing scheduled, nothing planned. I took a nap. I caught up on email. I read a book I need to review for the Vermont Department of Libraries and wrote the 300-word review.

Best of all, I met the goal I set when I was driving home last night, which was to get back to THE GROVE. I wrote 4 (!) new poems and revised one. I feel so good! I like all the other writing I do, and I really appreciate the paychecks, but writing fiction or poetry satisfies me more than any other kind of writing.

I suspect it helped my writing process that the State's attorney, who shall remain nameless, looks like a grown-up version of one of my characters. You know you can tell exactly what some people looked like as little kids or as teens? Did that ever happen to you with a character?

While the squash soup simmers, (For those who want to know, it's onion, carrot, potato, apple, squash, cider and water, seasoned with salt, pepper and a hint of cinnamon.), let me share this morning's revelation.

I have become an outliner.

How'd that happen? I've always hated outlines--ask any of my professors--, but for both THE GROVE and the plot bunny project (think I'll call it PBJ for now) that struck before the holidays, I've planned out the plot before I started writing. The characters have still come first, but they were followed by planning.

I suspect it's because these are more plot-driven novels than SPIDER FINGERS, which is definitely character-driven, and than my very first novel project that may someday still be revived. For both those projects I had my characters and I let them take me where they would. Much of the time I sat at the keyboard waiting for them to tell me what would happen next.

Also, THE GROVE has six different narrators, so I had to have a clear sense of what happened so that I would know where each person was going to be speaking. The PBJ project is a retelling of a classic, so I need to go through the classic and figure out how I'm going to translate it.

Know what? I'm having fun! I'm hoping maybe the actual writing will be easier this way. I know--Hah! But writing is about hope anyway, right?

Any one else use both techniques?

Yesterday I felt it building. I was fidgety, restless. My mind elsewhere. Finally, around suppertime I knew--

I HAD TO WRITE TODAY. Not "if." Not "after everything else." BIC asap. "The Grove" was calling.

Last night I cancelled my participation in a standing Thursday morning activity and this morning I got up, ate breakfast, and got to work.
I had 45 minutes before I had to leave to have my hair cut, and I typed up the one poem I've drafted for "The Grove" in the last three weeks,  drafted the poem I poked at unsuccessfully earlier this week, and got going on the next one.

So today I

wrote

had my hair cut

had a massage

got the next piece of a quarterly copyediting assignment.

This is shaping up to be a pretty dang good day.

This was one of those mornings we writers live for. I bypassed LJ and all distractions except for a quick check of email and started clickety-clacking. The words that just didn't want to rise to the surface yesterday were there. 

I was so definitely in the zone that it was 9:30 before I realized that I did in fact have an 8:30 breakfast date. Luckily it was with someone who understood and we've rescheduled. The fact that she understood is another indication of future friendship.

But even that "OMG, I forgot!" feeling didn't pull me out of the zone. I kept right on clickety-clacking and at the end of the morning I had passed page 100 and completed Chapter or Section 5. THE GROVE is now half-way drafted.

Whee-hoo!

Since I'm not going to be around to do "Five Things on Friday" this will be a combination--5 things I'm thankful for:

1. A big woodpile in the yard and a crackling woodstove. It is co-o-old today! In the twenties and with a nasty wind.

2. Filling the well last night at the Mahan Esfahani concert in Burlington, VT. If you like early music, Baroque music, Bach, the harpsichord, or the organ, this is a young performer to look out for. He's very personable, plays amazingly, and knows his history. Mmmm. My favorite by far was the final organ work, which was written to show off the organ at the time when the organ was really hitting its stride. Show it off it does, with all registers working at one point. I adore the physical sensation of live organ music. You can almost feel your lungs vibrating.

3. No matter how tired I was today (because of getting home late from the concert), I did get pages written on "The Grove," and know where I will go next.

4. HH and I will be able to have supper at home together tonight.

5. My  mother promised to make plenty of stuffing (the real kind, cooked inside the bird) for Thanksgiving. I love, love, love sage stuffing, especially hers.


Happy week-from-Thanksgiving, everyone!

The jonowrimo  goals? Can you say unrealistic?

Yup. November is not a good month to write a novel, even with extra weeks added.

But I'm now on Chapter/Section 4 of 10 for The Grove. My goal for this week is to get at least two pages down for five of the seven days.

On the plus side, I now have 86 pages drafted, far more than I would have had without this challenge.

Whew! I am ever so happy  to announce (and cross-post to jonowrimo ) that I not only met my twice monthly deadline and finished drafting my syllabus, but (making this a red letter day ;}) I wrote 1.8 poems for THE GROVE. I didn't even hope to accomplish anything on it this week, so that is the cherry on top of the ice (well, snow) cream of the day.

I'm also excited about getting to see my long, long-time friend Muse in Kansas tomorrow (we go back to 3rd grade). She's visiting family and taking photos of Vermont farms to share with Kansas farmers, so you all might want to check out her gallery in the next week or so.

Doin' my happy dance!

I'm where I'd hoped to be at the end of last week. The second section of The Grove is complete. It's long enough that it may turn into the third section, but that's something I'll deal with in revisions.

Not only is it done, but I finished it while HH was working on the bathroom. After 19 years, it's getting a facelift in the form of tiling around the shower enclosure. My writing day was broken up by a trip to pick up the colored tiles ("Ruby") that will edge the whole and, we hope, make it "pop." 

But I'm happy to be the gopher, because HH was putting up the backerboard and measuring our old, and therefore not square, house. (We live in a small train station that was built in the late 1870s. This project will be phase I of 3, because BD is coming home for mid-semester break this weekend. The next weekend we'll do the floor, and then we'll paint.

Tomorrow is a day of appointments in town, so no writing will happen, but I'll be mulling over section III, ready to hit the keys as soon as Thursday breaks.

New week, fresh start.
deadline met,
copy edited,
The Grove grew by two
or possibly three poems,
the day bisected
with a walk to the mountain
and the river
where a kingfisher flew.

you can write two more poems.

A mini-section within what I am thinking of as chapter II is now finished. Two more mini-sections and all of chapter II will be finished and my aran isle pattern (link to the post where I first made that analogy) will be well established.

I am having so much fun with this project, even with computer glitches and complicated patterns. Or maybe because of them. I do enjoy a challenge.

I did it! I met my goal to complete Chapter II of THE GROVE today, as I posted over on jonowrimo this morning (it says I posted at 1:58 UTC). This is satisfying in a big way. Tomorrow--on to Chapter III, with whatever time I have.

Doin' a quick happy dance before I start supper in prep. for heading out to a meeting.

Any knitters out there will understand if I say that getting  "Chapter II" of THE GROVE in shape has been like knitting, pulling out, and re-knitting an Aran Isle sweater. It was a solid afternoon's work to write several poems and then make sure each poem was placed in the right order. But I think Sections 1 and 2 are in order and I know where to pick  up tomorrow with the third and final section.

Whew! (Why is it I hold my breath when I'm concentrating?)

It feels like a good way to close September, even if I'm not as far along as I had hoped I would be.

So, look for an upbeat post on jonowrimo tomorrow.

While the spaghetti cooks for my lunch so I can pack and get out the door to the fall League of Vermont Writers meeting, let's see if I can come up with Five Things.

1. jonowrimo is keeping me on task--Thanks, Jo!

2. halseanderson  's words about not volunteering give me the mental support I need--so many people think that because I am a writer and community reporter I should be on their committee. I'm always happy to let others know what is going on in town, because that's my job as community reporter. But I could be at a meeting about 4 nights out of 5 if I said yes to everything. And I would have no time to write if I said yes to all the pr they'd like me to write. So I'm saying no more and more often, trying to keep the number of meetings down to 2 per week.

3. Sherman Alexie's poem is amazing! I'm bookmarking this to keep in mind as I work on The Grove.

4. Nick Hornby is turning into one of my favorite contemporary writers. I'm reading A Long Way Down right now and am loving the multiple voices and the way they interact. It's also good reading for The Grove.

5. (totally at random) I am still picking a few blueberries off my bushes. What a year it has been for them!

Gotta fly.

After muddling around with my calendar pages some on Saturday, I left them alone yesterday and did outdoor stuff and an interview for an article due in November (more interviews to come). But before I fell asleep Sunday night, this thought rose to the surface: Set the calendar, then revise the poems to fit the calendar. Because that's how it would work in real life. Just because you've already written a bunch of poems you like doesn't mean you can't "kill your darlings" if they don't fit. So that's what I'm going to do. Look at my calendar and re-write the poems as needed.

It's going to be an interesting week.

--cross-posted to jonowrimo 

This was going on over at kidlit_central , and I was taking a break from jonowrimo clickety-clicking, so I gave it a whirl. Give the multi-voiced Grove, I could do this five more times. and maybe I will, if I don't get something figured out this afternoon.
 


10 questions about your character (please answer in complete sentences):

1. What is your character's name, sex, age? - Sam Witter is a guy, age 16.
2. Does this character live in the present? If not, when? And where? He lives in the present (or maybe the very near future, like next year), in a fictional town on the Connecticut River in Vermont
3. What does your character daydream about? Any recurring nightmares? He daydreams about finally being alone in his car with his girlfriend.
4. Who is her hero/mentor/inspiration? Why? His hero is his uncle, a logger who can do anything, fix anything.
5. What does your character treasure? He treasures his car and the freedom it represents
6. What song would your character sing? (Or what would be his theme song?) His theme song would be "Born to Run," but he's basically into metal, because that's what he thinks he should be listening to.
7. What's the worst thing this character has ever done? The worst thing he has ever done is lie to his dad to get money to pay for a parking ticket
8. What's her greatest fear? Sam's greatest fear is of rejection, which is why he works so hard to reject pretty much everyone/keep them at a distance except his girlfriend.
9. What is your character's favorite article of clothing? The heavy-duty red and black plaid hunting shirt his uncle gave him.
10. What actor/actress would play your character in a film adaptation of the novel? (Include a link to the photo!) I have no idea who would play him, but it would have to be someone who looks like an ordinary guy. Forty years ago, maybe Billy Bob Thornton would have played him.

Progress, although it was on the small side. But 2 new poems and some serious plotting, plus a trip to the library to grab a couple of reference sources to browse tonight (Field guides to the Trees).

Besides, who can resist a sunny afternoon and ever-bearing raspberries? Some of the serious plotting happened while I was picking and some while I was making chocolate raspberry shortcakes. Now I'm ready to hit the desk with both hands tapping.

You know the scene in Lord of the Rings when Gandalf into the flaming chasm with the Balrog? You know the expression on Frodo and Bilbo and Aragorn's faces--that's how I looked about four hours ago, when the chapter I had worked on yesterday and for several hours this afternoon somehow suddenly

DISAPPEARED

Gone. Zip. Nada. Bubkis. Null. 
Cyberspace ate some of my best poems. Certainly the best poems in The Grove to date.

The Shriek Heard Round the World (yup--that was me).

I tried to revert/recover. No document found. 

And then I sat. And thought.
I could spend more time searching the system and the drives and being all techy
Or
While things were relatively fresh in my head I could try again.

Which is what I did.
In the last four hours I have reconstructed 6 poems using the minimal handwritten notes. They're free verse, or use a pattern unique to each, and I remembered the shape and the pattern. Most are pretty close to what they were before. One is, I think, better. One definitely needs work--I can't pull the really great pun that closed it out of my brain. But it's done. And if I have time tomorrow I'll take another look and revise before going on.

I'm still mourning the feeling of satisfaction I had right before it all went away, because of the work it took to get it so utterly right. But life and writing will go on--and I have kim_hiraeth 's tomato recipe for additional consolation.

Hereby resolved: Poems will be printed after the first finished draft.