A gentle and benevolent conspiracy.
Wed 2005-08-03 22:08:57 (in context)
- 38,834 words (if poetry, lines) long
- 60.75 hrs. revised
- 6,708 words (if poetry, lines) long
I am not entirely sure that I believe in omens, good or otherwise, although I do tend to think that the coincidences and absurdities around us are susceptible to the same sort of interpretation as dreams. But I do think--believe--know this for sure: That we want very much to do a thing indicates that the universe wants very much for us to do that thing. A writer's ache to write is evidence of the Universe's need for the stories that only that writer can tell.
(Talk to Barbara Hubbard about it. I happend to use an interview with her from Magical Blend Magazine to fill up my half-hour of volunteer reading this week, and I was all like, "Yeah, yeah, self-rewarding work, the need to create, all that, totally, yeah!" only I was also like "OK, you and Mr. Langevin get to sit in the time-out box for insane overuse of the word 'co-create.'")
So while I make no claims about portents and signs in the sky, I do feel justified in taking that triple rainbow Boulder was treated to today as a sign of encouragement. (Triple? Yes! If you look closely, you can see green through purple repeated at the bottom, one rainbow on top of another, both of 'em below a faintly hovering third.) Kind of like the elements sort of conspired to give me a gentle nudge in the direction I was already going.
(Did I ever tell you about "Putting Down Roots," the 2002 World Horror Convention, and fried perch at the Greek restaurant across the street from the airport Radisson? ...Right. About that, more some other time.)
Of course, my camera decided to kaput at me. The collage you see here is entirely thanks to a super-sweet neighbor of mine who did not turn and run the other way when I asked him if I could have copies of his pics. (It was totally the batteries. Put new batteries in, and the camera worked fine. There's enough juice left in the batteries to power the TV remote, maybe even a stereo walkman, but not the camera.) To him, many thanks, and the hope that he's OK with me posting these beauties.
And the novel? A good 800 more words. Not the same as a pathetic 800 more words. These were good. This was a good blend of the dominant "Oh, whatever will we do?" theme plus a leavening of humor to keep us from tumbling too far, too irrevocably into the self-pitying abyss. There were tears, there was laughter, there were hugs, there was snot on Todd's sleeve. It's all good. Tomorrow, Brian'll show up and the angstometer will rise a whole bunch.
Chapter 7 is long. I'm not sure if its huge length relative to the first six chapters is OK, or if it's a hint that I need to pack more Stuff into 'em all. I reread Chapters 1-3 and realized that there's a lot of cool foreshadowing of lovely subplottiness that, sadly, totally fails to show up in Chapters 4-7. For now, I'm ignoring it. But just wait until the next pass-through, the one after this rewrite is complete. Those seeds will sprout if I have to yank them out of their fartin' seed-cases myself.