New Year's Eve

Winter, through the window, 2010

I thought I'd post some of my most favorite photographs from this year today.

A Memento, 2010

Horses once lived here, 2010

Hope, 2010

Another year has gone by, and a new one is on deck. I treat every year as an "open-ended hope". I do the best I can to accomplish my goals, I work at my own pace with patient persistence, and do what I do in spite of everything that could cause me to give up.

Independently published 2010 by Field Stone Press

Looking back, I see my happiest achievement, I independently published my second novel, The Fractured Hues of White Light, although it doesn't seem to be as well received as Dusty Waters was in 2009, I still feel it is one of my best efforts. It was a difficult book to write, I don't know if I have words to explain what I went through since the book first took form to the day the first paperback copy came into my hands, but it was much like a birth, a very difficult birth...the self-doubts are the worst. And I put together an e-book file for Dusty Waters to become available for the B&N NOOK. There's one in the works for The Fractured Hues of White Light, but I'm not ready to release it yet. In time I will. And I'm busy with the third novel, Drinking from the Fishbowl, which I hope to have ready by mid to late fall 2011, if I get it ready sooner, that's cool, but I'm going to take my time...no rush. I am pleased that the books are selling, one at a time, I'm not making much money with it, but I'm patient, this has been an experiment to see how I do out there, and I can't be happier about it...my books are being read! That's important.

Me n' my Fred at the Gallery making art together on a Thursday night

My second happiest achievement this year has to be our little co-op art gallery, Moonlighting. I am always a firm believer that from little things, big things grow, this is only the beginning, we're doing a good thing.The resulting artwork has been encouraging, and although I haven't sold much this year, just having a place to gather with other artists, create art, display our work on a consistent basis, hold openings, and treat the community to a nice space filled with beautiful artwork is special. It's another experiment in DIY!

Suddenly, Last Summer, 2010

A lot has happened, and there's no way I can recap everything said and done, between my blogs and my journal there are plenty of entries of everyday things. I have been hanging in there in spite of the fiendish symptoms of FMS, and continue to adjust to the phases that I go through and alter the "me management" to get through the day. My mantra is "I'm upright and going forward." I'm grateful that I have stayed away from the pharmaceutical band-aids and that I can still keep going to my day job, as I know so many with this illness lose so much because of it. I'm thankful that I have many who support me in my day to day life, tho' because I'm stubborn, I tend to do for myself, but I do have the sense to ask for help when I need it. I'm hanging in there, staying positive, and remembering to breathe deeply when the pain gets to be too much.

Full Moon, June 5, 2010

I'm trying to pick a favorite painting that I made this year, I'm happy with so many of them, I had to scale back to picking one that I'm glad did not sell...it's hanging on my studio wall where I can see it every day. I remember how I went at this painting with a 'fuck it' attitude, it had such a bad start and I was getting frustrated with it, so I just started to make marks in random places...I was in my "zone", and was very happy while I worked...I truly painted this one for myself. (I posted the favorites at my other blog Follow Your Bliss http://ohdrat.blogspot.com/)

Hands down, my favorite book this year has to be A Writer's Diary

I read a whole bunch of cool books this year...thought I'd share a few here:


The Journal of Joyce Carol Oates 1973-1982
Isak Dinesen, Out of Africa
Joyce Carol Oates, Little Bird of Heaven (a signed copy!)
Ondaatje, Divisadero
Poppy Adams, The Sister
Virginia Woolf, A Writer’s Diary
Audrey Niffenegger, Her Fearful Symmetry
Sherwood Anderson, Winesburg, Ohio
E. M. Forster, The Celestial Omnibus
Nichole Krauss, The History of Love
Janet Frame, Towards Another Summer
Rikki Ducornet, The Stain
Angela Carter, Magic Toy Shop
Joyce Carol Oates, A Bloodsmoor Romance
Iris Murdock, The Sea, the Sea


Books of Poetry that I’ve carried around in my purse this year:

If Not, Winter, poems of Sappho (ed. Anne Carson)
Kay Ryan, Flamingo Watching
Catherine Daly, Da Da Da (I’m still carrying this one around)

Favorite books that I opened to read random passages from:

Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

Virginia Woolf, The Waves
John Cowper Powys, Porius
Virginia Woolf, Night and Day
Joyce Carol Oates, Bellefleur
Joyce Carol Oates, Wonderland
E.M. Forster, Howards End
Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine

Books started in 2010 to finish in 2011:
Virginia Woolf, The Years

Charles Dickens, Tale of Two Cities
Isak Dinesen, The Gothic Tales
David Foster Wallace, Infinite Jest (e-book, reading on my laptop using the NOOK app)

Sunburst, 2010

A full year and a full life. I am content.

Sunflower, August 14, 2010

The day after Thanksgiving...

Blue on Rust, Leaves (Sumac on Maple)

Briar and Weeds

Fossils and Weeds

A Solitary Leaf

Shell and Leaf

Pale Green Viola Leaf

Viola Leaf on a Rock

Leaves

 Thankfulness...

I got up at 6AM yesterday morning, and had the nigh 20lb bird stuffed and in the oven by 7AM, the routine is a familiar path, I plodded along all through the morning making preparations, then got halfway upstairs to change, and ran back to the living room to turn on the Macy's Parade just in time to see Santa Claus...(it wouldn't be right to miss Santa!) Although we had a fraction of the family around the table than in past years, yet still keeping to the tradition as we've known it...my Fred's mother passed away almost two weeks ago, and so it's been a time...as our niece insisted, "Grandma would have wanted us to be together today." And so we did gather around as a family to begin the process of moving on, and we enjoyed our company and talked. It was lovely in spite of moments of missing her...and missing Grandpa (our second Thanksgiving without him.) We're still in that emotional period of loss, slightly numb, yet sharp in feeling...we're seeking a foothold on the latest version of "normal". Time will tell. Today I'm in that fatigue zone...painfully tired, which is typical FMS, I'm used to it, and push through it (how easy it would have been to go back to bed and sleep the day away!), but in spite of it, I worked on my paintings today, for some reason, on days when I'm this tired writing is impossible, but the act of painting flourishes in that intuitive flow that is beautiful, and it felt right. If anything, I am thankful for my determination.

Leftovers for dinner tonight...mmmmm...and tomorrow TURKEY SOUP! (I love that more than the dinner.)


I haven't been able to keep up with the last three Literary Blog Hop activities through the Blue Bookcase, but have enjoyed the conversations that have emerged since the first one I hooked up with earlier this month. As I noted in the side bar of my blog, Dusty Waters is now available as an e-book on the B&N Nook (as part of the B&N PubIt! program, released on 11/19.) It took well over a month to accomplish it, I had slowly worked my way through both books to get them properly formatted, but only put up the one. The Fractured Hues of White Light will be saved aside for release at another time since I'm still in the early giveaway mode of the paperback at Goodreads. I downloaded the Nook app for my laptop so I could sample the technology, and purchased Virginia Woolf's early novel Night and Day just for fun (since my most favorite paper back is falling apart) ...it is a temptation to buy more books, but I will restrain myself for now, and make selections of old favorites in due time. No matter the convenience of the e-book and all the other arguments that make them the bees knees I still love the intimacy of a solitary book made of paper, and will gladly make room for more of them on my to-read pile. Will I purchase an actual Nook? Probably...I've become slightly smitten with the gadget during my careful investigation of gadgets. Will I convert one (or both) of the books for Kindle? Eventually, it is quite possible with all the available conversion tools out there to 'make it so'...I'm in no rush (if there's anyone who wants it bad enough for their Kindle they can send me an email and say "pretty please" and I'll see what I can do about it sooner than later.) For now, the Nook is the test...it is one more test in my indie publishing experiment, I'm going to see how it goes as I continue to muddle along at my own pace. It is just how I am...it is how I do what I do.

Reading Virginia Woolf

One of my favorite books in the whole wide world is Night and Day...

This one bit in Chapter 12 is one of my favorites...we've all been in Ralph Denham's shoes, when faced with the reality of a person who we've fixated on for hours, days, weeks, only when we see them in the flesh again, we're struck by how different they are from the coveted dream...

His eyes were bright, and, indeed, he scarcely knew whether they beheld dreams or realities. All down the street and on the doorstep, and while he mounted the stairs, his dream of Katharine possessed him; on the threshold of the room he had dismissed it, in order to prevent too painful a collision between what he dreamt of her and what she was. And in five minutes she had filled the shell of the old dream with the flesh of life; looked with fire out of phantom eyes. He glanced about him with bewilderment at finding himself among her chairs and tables; they were solid, for he grasped the back of the chair in which Katharine had sat; and yet they were unreal; the atmosphere was that of a dream. He summoned all the faculties of his spirit to seize what the minutes had to give him; and from the depths of his mind there rose unchecked a joyful recognition of the truth that human nature surpasses, in its beauty, all that our wildest dreams bring us hints of.

Katharine came into the room a moment later. He stood watching her come towards him, and thought her more beautiful and strange than his dream of her; for the real Katharine could speak the words which seemed to crowd behind the forehead and in the depths of the eyes, and the commonest sentence would be flashed on by this immortal light. And she overflowed the edges of the dream; he remarked that her softness was like that of some vast snowy owl; she wore a ruby on her finger.

From Night and Day, Chapter 12

I find it to be a very funny book at the same time as beautiful...I've read it so many times, I'm going to need a new copy, my paperback is falling apart!

"Books are a school for character, she argues, because they change (like people) as we read them, and change us as we read. Books read us." Virginia Woolf, Hermione Lee, Chapter 23, Reading, p. 397