Small pleasures

[As an aside, before the actual post, I haven't been responding to comments recently. I'm so sorry about that! I really try to make it a point to respond to each, but this summer has been a strange one in terms of online activity and one of the things to get cut has been responses. Fall should see me returning to more regular posting and commenting habits.]

We had a glorious storm yesterday. Everything was turned to slate blue and green and grey. And the air was so full of the smell of rain. There's a great exultation in a really good storm that makes me go all Bronte--want to run outside and stand in it. Or maybe I mean Marianne Dashwood. I didn't, but I wanted to.

Instead I went down to the church bookstore and kept it open, although no one came but delivery men. Mused on the similarity of the bookstore to a fortress against the storm and the fittingness of the same. Connected it to Ely Cathedral--the Ship of the Fens. And then felt slightly embarrassed over the ramblings and Elizabeth Goudge-ness of it all.

The storm is gone this morning and it's currently sunny. I'm eating a fasting burrito (lettice, walnuts, onions, refried beans and salsa) and considering a Course of Action. I'm hoping today will be a good writing day (I've been revising my 2007 NaNoWriMo novel) but if it's going to be, I have to actually sit down and do it.

This has strayed a bit far from the title, hasn't it? The storm is a pleasure, the burrito is a pleasure. The writing is sometimes a pleasure, but most of the time it's just hard work. Harriet Vane and Lord Peter are a pleasure, but not a simple one. On the contrary, they seem to grow in complexity every time I re-read the wonder that is Gaudy Night. Which I did recently, in case you couldn't tell.

Why I write

I want to spin a story out of nothing, to paint the tale of the people in it against a blank wall in vivid colors, to make their world real for the time it takes to tell their story. I want to tell the kind of story that stays with you long after the covers of the book are closed, that enters into your life in some quiet way. I want to tell a story that smiles a little, that cries a little, that faces the darkness and comes out stronger.

Good writing

A forum I visit is having a writing contest based on the prompt "Winter." To get some ideas I re-read Wallace Stevens' "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird." Good writing like this fills me with a certain satisfaction that nothing else can. I'm not saying that it's the best satisfaction, but it is peculiar to writing, a certain voice that says "yes" very quietly when I finish it. Then I am left with feeling of great space and often sigh deeply and look out of the window, if I happen to be near one.

It's a strange way of judging a piece of writing and certainly entirely subjective, but I can't deny that those writings which cause that reaction are in a special category and are those which I am most likely to touch very gently when they are sitting on the bookshelf, to put somewhere easily accessible. They're the ones I tend to return to again and again, both reading them and thinking about them.

A short list of these:

"Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird"
The Blue Sword
The Thirteenth Tale
"Death be Not Proud"
The Rosemary Tree
"The Lake Isle of Innisfree"

I did it!!!

50, 015 words and I'm not done yet! But I'm an official winner. The proof:



And you know what? I can't wait for next year. Even though I have no idea what I'll write about.

Almost there

I'm at 49, 659 words. And I'm not going to bed until I'm a winner. Actually, I think there's a little more story left to be told, so I may be more than a winner.

I'm excited, but a little sad to think that soon I'll be leaving my characters for awhile. Oh well, I have other characters just languishing for a little attention.

NaNo day 14

I reached 30,000 yesterday! Yay! And I've only gone through 17 pages so far. I'm feeling a little more hopeful about this. So the goal for today is 32,000, maybe 33,000. (It would be nice. I'm not promising anything.)

NaNo day 13

I haven't written anything yet today, so this is really an update for yesterday. After yesterday I'm at 28,114 words. I've begun to go back and add scenes in as it became clear that I wouldn't be able to reach 50,000 just by going through to the end of the plot. I've still got 20,000 to go. I hope I can make it. On the other hand, I have time, so I can stop and think about it after I go as far as I can, if I need to.

Personally, I am officially in love with my main characters, which is not a bad thing.

Halfway!

I'm halfway there! 25,205 words! I'm very excited. I'm also taking a break. I've pretty much accepted that I'm going to have to go back and flesh out the novel to reach 50,000 but I wanted to do that at some point anyway. Let's just hope I don't turn on my inner editor and go frantic about the bad grammar.

Another NaNo update

At 19,291 words and haven't done any writing so far today. I'm starting to worry that I'll run out of story and have to go back and add scenes to make it to 50,000. But I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

NaNo day 7

I'm currently at 15,329 words. I want to try to get to 16,500 by the end of today which would be exactly 1/3 of the way through. I think I might make it, but I'm going to take a break for a bit. Eat some chocolate, do some homework, maybe read for a bit.

Incidentally, today I wove a P.G. Wodehouse quote into my novel.

"All the same, she could not think why he kept the minister of education around. The man was a pest, a wart, and a pot of poison."

"The kid is a pest, a wart, and a pot of poison, and should be strangled!" ~P.G. Wodehouse, "Jeeves and the Chump Cyril"

I wish I could claim that I remembered this quote off the top of my head, but I didn't. I used a search engine. I did, however, know that there was one like it out there somewhere.

NaNo update

I know I haven't posted anything for a few days. I'm currently at 10, 759 words. My roommate and I moved rooms yesterday and it wreaked havoc with my wordcount. I haven't written at all today--I'll update when I do. I'm hoping to get to at least 12,500. Obviously I've lost my excess word count, but I'm hoping I can get it back if I keep going.

NaNo day 2

I met my goal of 2,000 words again, even went a bit beyond, for a grand total of 4,176. Just keep plugging away...

I've done it

The gauntlet is down. The hat is in the ring. I've passed the point of no return and burnt my bridges on the way.

I'm doing NaNoWriMo 2007.

My author profile.

I'll probably feature some bits from the story at different point throughout the month. I promise that I won't post a whole chapter like I did last year. Still not quite sure why I did that...And before you die in agonies, let me say that the chapter looks quite different now.

And if the beginning of this post made you think I'm writing a P.G. Wodehouse parody, I regret to say that you were mistaken.

I'm not waiting for Prince Charming

This is part of an ongoing series of "controversial posts" I've been writing at my LJ. I haven't posted any of them here until now, but I think this one needs to be shared. I'll say the same thing I do there: you don't have to agree. Really. If you don't agree with me, say so. :) I want to hear your opinions. Doesn't mean I'll change mine, but I like to hear what other people think. Just be sure to be kind and respect my opinion as I promise I will respect yours. Unless it's so far out in left-field that I decide you don't deserve it. But that would only be if you think that Orthodox Christians are actually Gnostics (not making this up). In which case I reserve the right to biff you one with the Cluebat of Orthodox Righteousness.

I'm not waiting for Prince Charming.

I know some of you may be confused by that statement. I am, after all, fairly vocal in my support of "dating with a purpose," or courtship, if you want to call it that. I'm even the administrator (along with a staff of several wonderful young ladies) of an online forum called I Don't Date. Have I suddenly changed my convictions? No, not really.

But I repeat: I am not waiting for Prince Charming.

I am waiting for my husband.

I am not waiting for that mythical someday when a perfect man, a knight-in-shining-armor, rides in on his horse and scoops me off and carries me off to his castle where we live happily ever after. I am not waiting for that day because it will never come and believing that it will is only harmful to myself and to my future relationship with my future husband. (This is not to say that I don't love Pre-Raphaelite art as much as anyone else, just that I don't believe it will happen or ever did in the way we tend to think of it.)

You see, my husband, while I hope and pray that he is a wonderful and Godly man, is just that: a man. He is not now nor ever will be perfect and to imagine that he will is only setting both of us up for heartbreak.

Because what happens when he fails me?

He will fail me, just as I will fail him. And if I cherish the dream of a perfect man only to find that he is not so perfect after all (and I am talking larger failings than leaving his socks on the floor here), what will that do to my trust in him? How much harder would it be to find forgiveness for him and his failings in my heart? Yet would I not hope for that forgiveness myself? I would. And God calls us to forgive our fellow strugglers.

So no, I am not waiting for my Prince Charming. I am waiting for the man that I hope to laugh with, to cry with, to sing with, to read with, to live with, and to worship God with. I know that there will be hard times to come, just as there are hard times now. I know that my own sinful tendencies will rear up their ugly heads just as his will. And you know? I can only pray that God will bring us through them, whatever they be. But I can also refuse to fall into the trap of idealized thinking that is implicated in that phrase, "Prince Charming."

A collaborative poem

We wrote collaborative poems today in my poetry writing class. Each of us wrote five questions and five answers, none of which had anything to do with each other. Then we paired up and combined questions and answers in some way. Here's the final contribution from my partner and myself.

What does the wind think as it blows?
Soft winter snow.

What is love?
In the dark stillness, a fawn sleeps.

What do animals think about?
Clouds are never rabbits, but only sheep.

What is color?
Songs die out, but music is eternal.

Is there a place where in never rains?
In the dark of the moon, wolves howl.

Why do lobsters turn red in the pot?
A momentous journey.

How do we gain confidence?
Once, I saw two eagles race in a canyon.

What stops a breath?
Green is not the color of life.

Why do pigeons always sit on statues?
The distant roar of waves.

Why does the sea tug at our hearts?
Thunder of a roller coaster.

Slogging on

It's so easy to for me, to fall into a victim mentality, to start thinking about how wronged I am. I should have this, I should have that, I should have some money, I should have more books, I should be in a relationship, I should have nice clothes, I should have a farm, I should have a perfect family, I should have a perfect church.

I mean, everyone else does, right?

Well, even laying aside the fact that everyone else definitely does not have all of that, it shouldn't matter. God made me who he made me and gave me what he gave me. Josh Harris has a great story about that in Boy Meets Girl. He likens life to a painting class where everyone is told to paint a certain subject but they are all given different tools to work with. I'm just starting to really realize it for myself.

Of course, it's one thing to have a realization. It's another entirely to put it into practice. I think when we come to that point, we can only put our faith in God, gird up our loins, and jump in. We will undoubtedly fall, but as St. John of Kronstadt said, when you fall, get up. When you fall down again, get up again. I have to think this way or else I'll remain in the Slough of Despond and that way lies spiritual death.

So instead, let me remember St. Paul's words. "The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness and let us put on the armor of light."

The walk

It is very quiet as I set out on the familiar way; only the rough scruffing of my sandals against the sidewalk, the distant roar of traffic, and the whispering of the wind in the trees can be heard. The air is cool and full of scents: pine needles, wood smoke, fresh basil, and the sweet smell of nearing rain while overhead the grey clouds come rolling in.

I mark the way by the flowers I pass. The first of any note are the lavender bushes outside an orthodontist’s office. A few bumblebees make their way from flower to flower. Next are the small orange poppy-like flowers which grow around a telephone pole. Now they are closed for the evening but I greet them all the same. A few weeks ago the next landmark would have been the opulent purple petunias hanging outside a business but they have been taken down and so there is nothing more until the very end of the route: two beds of flowers outside a bank. Quite honestly, I don’t know what a single one of the flowers here is, but I have come to know them quite well this summer and I am happy to see them again.

As I walk, I let the wind blow my skirt and my hair about. I love wind. If I wore tighter skirts and had short hair I would forever feel that I was missing something glorious. I feel a bit as though I was the subject of a Waterhouse painting, “Windflowers” or “The Tempest.” The glory of the rush of the air makes me think of all sorts of bits of poems and they weave themselves together in my brain.

Here is the destination. I go in, return the library books I was bringing back, and check out a few more. Then there is the walk home, during which I think of nothing in particular and notice even less.

Dan Pettigrew's Romance

I wrote this for a writing contest at Arwen-Undomiel.com's forum. It ended up winning second place (yay!). The theme was romance. You can guess what most people's entries were like. Here's mine.

There she sits, pretty as a picture, sewing at something or other, and here I sit, with my tongue all stuck to the roof of my mouth, not knowing how to say what needs to be said pretty, the way I reckon every woman should hear it so as to know that the man she’s hearing it from means it. Somehow I just can’t say it. The words came easy enough earlier, when I was alone, but the sight of her put them clean out of my mind. Don’t reckon any of ‘em were as pretty as what I thought then anyway. Dang it, I’ve got to say something. Anything. “The weather we’re having sure is good.” Dan, Dan, that’s purely the stupidest remark you’ve ever made. She’ll think you don’t know your own mind. Oh, if only I wasn’t such a clumsy oaf—wish I were one of them fellows who writes the poems they print in the newspaper. Seems like then I wouldn’t have a lick of trouble at all. What’s she sewing? Oh, a quilt. Looks mighty nice. Reckon I couldn’t make one of them things even if I’d all the time and patience in the world.

Now you look here Dan Pettigrew. What’s to be ashamed of? You’re a fine, upstanding man. You’ve a farm that’s been farmed by your family as far back as anyone can remember. You work hard and you can sing just as well as the next man. You haven’t got the best education and you haven’t got bushels of money, but you ain’t poor. There ain’t anything in all that a young woman could rightfully stick her nose up at, but somehow I know in my bones she won’t say yes. S’pose I could come back later. Maybe take her out for a buggy drive. It’ll be a fine night. Maybe if it were dark and I didn’t have to look at her at all I could say it all. If the moon were up there a-shining and the birds were a-singing, surely I wouldn’t be so shy and all. But then I’d look silly sitting here all this time as if I’d nothing better to do than chat about nothing.

And anyhow, it ain’t as if she was some city girl all dandified up and looking down her nose at us. Why, I’ve always known her. I helped her father with his haying when I was ten. I threw mud in her face once when we got mad and had an argument. Must a been a dandy of an argument. Can’t rightly remember now what it was about. “Do you remember when I threw mud at you once when we was young? What was that argument about anyway?” I don’t recollect ever trying to drown kittens, but women is supposed to have better memories about those sorts of things. “I wouldn’t drown them now, that’s for certain. I’ve got five cats to home, and they multiply often. Oh, I leave the kittens round with folks I know will give ‘em a good home. Well, I hope I’d have changed. That were a long time ago.”

Now she’s getting up. Reckon I’ve stayed too long and made a nuisance of myself. Oh, she’s giving me some pie. “Mighty good pie. Strawberry rhubarb always was my favorite. No, one slice will do me up mighty fine. Thank you kindly.” I wonder how often she would make pies. This really is the best pie I ever have tasted. And the glass of milk washes it down real nice. Better ask how her ma’s doing. The old lady’s held up real well considering that stroke she had. Bit poorly? That’s a real shame. I’ll go up and see her before I go. Drat. I shouldn’t have said that about going. Now she’ll think I’m raring to go and shoo me out the door before I get it out. Better say it now. Can’t hurt none.

“I know this is a bit sudden…I’ve always held you in the highest regard…well yes, and your pies…But I ain’t a-asking you for your pies. Well, I would be mightily happy if you would wed with me, that’s all. I suppose I do love you. I know this ain’t the most romantic of proposals…You mean you will? Really you will? Sarah Jane, I am the happiest man alive, I reckon. Well I surely am glad you’re happy too—I’ll try to make you happy all our days. Yes, I will kiss you, if you don’t mind.”

Sunrise

This was written about a year ago, but I decided to post it, slightly revised. I haven't seen the sunrise in awhile because I don't get up that early anymore, but I miss it.

I do love watching the sunrise. When I was little getting up at 6:30 or 7 was early, and seeing the sunrise was always something special. Now I get up at 5:30 on the weekdays and so I see it every day, but it's still a special time for me. I watch the sun rise every morning over the river as I'm riding the bus and sometimes I see the college rowing team practicing. Their movements are so beautiful--graceful and synchronised--and the growing light is reflected on the water. The trees are still black and form a delicate pattern against the sky that reminds me of tracery or lace. I usually say my prayers on the bus because I don't have time at home, and the dawning of the new day always inspires me. It is a time to be quiet and still, and yet it holds a promise of new life.

Currants

A poem by moi.

Currants

Picking red currants in the
Hot June sun;
Plucking these hard
Ruby gloves
Whose clear beauty belie
Their clear tartness
Which I have tasted knowingly
Yet craving
The burst of liquid
In my mouth,
I feel that nothing can mar
This perfect moment.

June 27, 2006