Poor tree. It’s going to take a while to get used to a front yard with only two trees. On the other hand we ended up with an enormous pile of firewood (of which you can see only a small part in this picture) which we happily shared with our neighbors and friends.
As much as I hate to bump my beautiful cover down from the top (although it’s now enjoying pride of place on the page about The Second Duchess), just look at what we saw when we went outside this morning:
It happened about ten o’clock last night–we heard a strange soft crackley, crunchy, thuddy noise that sounded as if it was right outside our front door. Amazingly quiet, considering the damage. And it was dead calm–not a breath of wind. The tree just decided to give up the ghost. It missed my little car (an old vintage Honda CRX two-seater) by inches.
As it’s lying across our driveway, we’re trapped (trapped like rats! aieeeee!) until the arborist comes to cut it all up and take it away. So no farmer’s market this morning.
You just never know what’s going to happen next–you know?
My friend Jan O’Hara just pointed me to this post on Writer Unboxed:
“A Few Things the Salty Ones Taught Me,” by Barbara Samuel.
Go read it. It’s brilliant.
Ran across this great blog post from Karen E. Olson, the author of the lighthearted, Las-Vegas-based Tattoo Shop mysteries. It made me think about how I would articulate a Writer’s Code of my own. Here it is:
1. Write every day. (Momentum is everything.)
2. Work alone. (Editor and agent are exceptions.)
3. Read widely.
4. Never lose your sense of gratitude and wonder.
5. In fact, just get over yourself in general.
6. Be discreet.
7. Be generous.
8. Mind your manners.
9. Have fun.
What is your writer’s code? If you’re not a writer, what is your personal code?
Later this month. Well, at least they now have an “ejuror” program with which one can check in online and not have to fill in the endless forms by hand. If only they had a “jury-from-home” option, along the lines of working from home. I don’t really mind the jurying part—it’s fighting my way through rush hour traffic to reach the downtown court building (and we’re a long way from downtown) by 8:30 in the freaking morning.
An unnaturally quiet day today—both dogs are at the vet’s for minor surgeries. No claws clicking on the quarry tile! No liquid dark eyes following every bite of food from plate to mouth! All will not be right with the world (as dear Mr. Browning’s Pippa would say) until the dogs are in the house again.
ETA: Dogs are home safely. Boo looks like a fighter who’s been in one too many fights (two skin tags removed from his face, so shaved patches and scabs), and Cressie looks like a Frankenstein-dog, with two BIG shaved patches and stitched-up incisions, one on the left side of her neck and the other on the right side of her shoulder. Everything was benign, thank goodness. Now to fight the battle of “No, Cressie, no scratching!” I wonder if there’s such a thing as a backwards Elizabethan collar that fits around a dog’s waist, to keep it from scratching with its back legs. Heh.
<edit> <edit> <edit> <coffee> <edit> <rewrite> <rewrite> <tear out hair> <rewrite> <edit> <edit> <write new stuff> <write new stuff> <write fantastic new stuff> <run up and down hall shouting whoo-hoo!> <scare doggies> <edit> <edit> <edit> <coffee> <edit> <edit> <edit> <edit>……..
There aren’t really any unbreakable “rules” for writing—or for that matter, for life. But this is a good one:
Intend every word you write.
Its corollary for life-in-general, of course, would be intend every thing you do.
Harder than it sounds.
The blog post by Eric Cummings on intentionality (yes, there really is such a word) in writing that got me started thinking about this is here, on one of my favorite blogs, Write to Done.
To every thing there is a season,
And a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
A time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn, and a time to dance;
…He has made every thing beautiful in his time.
—from Ecclesiastes 3
Yes, here I am again, after a month not only away from blogging but mostly away from being online at all. A lot’s been happening, some of it good, some of it sad and stressful, and nothing is really resolved. But then life is never really resolved, and I certainly can’t hide away in my hermitage forever.
Today is All Saints’ Day (which is, of course, why Halloween is called Halloween—it’s “All Hallows’ Eve,” or the Eve of All Saints), and one of my very favorite hymns is sung as the processional on All Saints Sunday. For All The Saints is rousing and wonderful and I usually cry while I’m singing it, especially when the sopranos soar into the descant on the final verse. It also has a rich 150-year history. Part of the lyrics:
And when the strife is fierce, the warfare long,
Steals on the ear the distant triumph song,
And hearts are brave, again, and arms are strong…
All I can do, is all I can do. I need that brave heart and those strong arms. And here and there, a little time for writing.
