Thoughts about The Shadow of the Wind...and other stuff

The Shadow of the Wind is an epic, a mystery with romance, and it has just enough Gothic creepy edge to it to make it special—it’s a lovely book, read it, get lost in it, find and absorb all the good from it—and it’s got the Cemetery of Forgotten Books, what more can I ask for as a book lover?

"This is a place of mystery, Daniel, a sanctuary. Every book, every volume you see here, has a soul. The soul of the person who wrote it and of those who read it and lived and dreamed with it. Every time a book changes hands, every time someone runs his eyes down the pages, its spirit grows and strengthens. This place was already ancient when my father brought me here for the first time, many years ago. Perhaps as old as the city itself. Nobody knows for certain how long it has existed, or who created it. I will tell you what my father told me, though. When a library disappears, or a bookshop closes down, when a book is consigned to oblivion, those of us who know this place, its guardians, make sure that it gets here. In this place, books no longer remembered by anyone, books that are lost in time, live forever, waiting for the day when they will reach a new reader's hands."  From page 5-6

This is the quote that caught me firmly into the teeth of this book—only because of my own life experience and emotional connection to books put me there. When I walk into antique shops, I go find their corners where there are old books and I search for ones that I must adopt—it always makes me sad to see them languishing, unread—being the imaginative person that I am, I feel these inanimate objects have an essence about them that is in a sense alive—a soul—it is the spirit of the person who wrote them, the person who bought them, the person who read them (loved them.)

I often look at all of the books in our personal library and wonder—“Will I ever get around to reading them again or reading the ones I haven’t read yet?” And then I sometimes go the extra step further to make it worse and wonder, “Who will take care of my books after I’m gone?” (Painful isn’t it?)

So...with that said...I recently went with my sister to Bouckville, NY to do antique shopping...and of course, I look for old books to "adopt" this time, I found Kipling's Jungle Books, Volumes 1 and 2, illustrated by Aldren Watson, published by Double Day & Co. 1948...they are gorgeous! Volume 2 is his collected short stories, which I was very happy to find...I mean, who doesn't love Rikki-Tikki Tavi?

He creeps up the little creeks that men think would not hide a dog...

Kaa...I always thought he was a very cool serpent...

 Of course, the books were not all that I adopted! I found lots of cool old goodies...

An iron bank (very rusty) and it's a donkey! I could not pass it up!

A compass and a scribe

A pretty yellow ware bowl, not as old as others that I have, but I like the blue stripe...

Old bridle bits...I wish they weren't painted black, but I guess someone thought it would make them more "decorative" that way...paint comes off (but it isn't a priority at the moment.)

I'm still slowly recovering from the shingles (it's been two months already.) The good news is, it isn't the first thing I think about when I wake up in the morning, so that's progress. What a wretched illness to have...I went all day yesterday without taking my pain meds, I did very well, I hardly thought about the pain at all, but today I am, which is not a good start to the day, it is what it is...so I'm going to mellow out and not let it get me down. I do believe the rash part is finally done...one trick I learned out of desperation...use Listerine on that shitty rash! It stings like crazy, but sends the itch away with its tail tucked between its legs...there is something very satisfying about that sting, trust me on this. Other things I've done to take the edge off when the drugs seem like they're not working (there have been days when it seemed pointless to take stuff that only made me feel dull witted or loopy): gentle stretching does help A LOT, a TENS unit is also a good thing to invest in and use as needed...most of all, patience and be good to yourself, REST (I read a lot and I played a lot of Majong just to concentrate on something else.) That is my advice for shingles.

In spite of being sick and having the shittiest concentration in the world because of pain and pain killers, I have continued to work my way through my manuscript Drinking from the Fishbowl. Even if I work on a paragraph or two at night, I am happy that I've done something that resembles progress. I'm currently in chapter 36, which was once two chapters (36 and 37), but it is now only one...I've practically rewritten the whole thing, there's barely anything original left...I "killed some darlings" that came from the first draft, and I'm happy they're gone. How does one do that? Well, it's not an easy decision to make, but once I made up my mind to do it and carried it out, there was a sense of relief and the flow continued. Let's just say, it wasn't my favorite pair of chapters, and they came from a "different place" than where the book is today, it has evolved and matured beyond its initial conception. I am constantly reminded that this manuscript is only the second novel I ever wrote, and it was initially loaded with some goofy shit that no longer fit in...I'm still tweaking it, nursing it along...of course, whenever large swaths of text are cut out, there's that stone tossed into the pond thing that happens, the ripples travel into other chapters and I have to be vigilant as I travel into these final chapters. Nothing is written in stone in this manuscript...this book can continue to grow and change (evolve.) I even had a crazy thought about wiping out even more, three chapters (34, 35 and even 36)...this possibility is still being investigated (since I'm still thinking about it), but I don't think I can disentangle parts that are deeply ingrained into the structure...a fresh printing of the chapters in question and a pair of scissors might help me piece it together... it's a work in progress. (I love it!)

...[he] stands alone, a solitary tree in an open field of emotions. - from Chapter 18, Drinking from the Fishbowl

How come...

Morning mist at the Floody Place out back, 3/17/2012

 It's a contemplative week...I've been thinking about a lot, and at the moment, I can't think of anything...

Dew Gems on a Tendril, 3/17/2012

It's been a 'real' week, and I'm still trying to digest some of it...lots of things happen for a reason, and all that sort of shit that we can puzzle about for hours, days and years...and still ask "How come?"

My poor father thinks he's a U.S. spy in Germany along with an old friend of his (who has been dead many years) and when he saw us come into his new room at the nursing home, he was surprised that we got through the lines and checkpoints to get there. (My Fred assured him that we had all of our papers in order.) He was surprised that our son had not yet been drafted...Hitler is dead, but still the war was going on...just differently. I'd like to believe these imaginings are the result of his reading a treasure trove of novels over the years...and I'd rather he be living in a fantasy than mourning his loses...it's his way of dealing with it...or it's just the dementia taking him away from me piece by piece...eventually, there will be a day he won't know who I am. This time he still did.

To make a long story short...our son's car died...here's the photos from the week...

a boy and his old car, "Lillian", 3/13/2012

Happy trails, Lillian!

I love this photo of the car on the flatbed (a distant black blob) riding off into the sunset...

My parent's Mustang, the "new" car, Max is giving her a sniff over. I think her name is "Nell", tho' "Tilly" would be a good one too. 3/14/2012

Our son has been notified that he's fresh out of grandparents with cars they no longer need...


It's enough to make my head spin...

I don't know if I'll ever understand the 'how come' of any of this...it's been bittersweet. Visiting my father, picking up his car and bringing it home, walking around their backyard and enjoying the beautiful day...the flowers...

The little purple crocus growing in my parent's backyard 3/14/2012

The weather has become peculiar...too warm for this time of year to be considered normal...but what is normal after this strange winter? Weather in the 70's for St. Patrick's Day in Central New York...it's unheard of!

They're lovely...and my mother would've loved seeing them. 3/14/2012

I'm going out to my garden to toil in the dirt, sit on my porch and soak up some sunshine...write things out...write things down...or do nothing but watch the world go by with my dog dozing at my feet...

Little bugs flitting in the sunset, 3/17/2012

Misty Morning...

My Fred and I pulled over one fine morning (April 1st) and took pictures of the mist... there was a touch of frost on the ground and the day was warming up with the sunrise... it's just been very weird having 80 degree days so early...

I've been playing with color and cropping again...
I just wanted a sliver of this one...

This next one is pretty much untouched, I only toned it down just a little bit...


...the old trees in the flooded place are gorgeous...and the frosty weeds with the ribbon of mist make it so fragile...and my favorite tangle of vines and briars...

I "finished" my proofreading marathon today (is it ever truly finished?), but I will be spending more time spot checking places that I want to change and to check on things that I thought about changing, but passed over as "okay"...and then I'll do random spot checking here and there before I turn it over to my Fred for one more pre-printing proof. We're almost there, I can't throw up my hands yet. It has been frustrating to find things wrong in a manuscript that I've been working on steadily for over a year, but that's okay. (I'll keep telling myself that!)

It's okay, really. It's worth the extra effort to make it right.

Beautiful things...

Birch bark, March 2010

Rotten pumpkin from last Halloween, March 2010 (maybe not so beautiful to some, but dang, I thought it was mighty cool looking anyway!)


Weed and peeling paint, March 2010

Bare Trees and mist, March 2010

Old bricks, March 2010

A pale leaf, March 2010

The Robin's Story:
I rescued this poor little fellow this morning, (I believe it is a young male from last spring.) The robins have been abundant on the acre and there was a bit of a scrappy bird war going on, and this little guy took a header right into my studio window! I looked out and saw the poor thing lying in the leaves, I feared that he was dead, but when I went outside for a closer look, I saw he was breathing and the little eye flickered open. The other robins were fussing wildly, partially still at war with one another over territory, but those in the immediate area were cussing me out for butting in. I gently scooped up the little fella, cupped in one hand and held him close, sheltering him from the wind. It's such a beautiful thing holding a fragile wild creature, feeling it's life and warmth. After a brief examination, I determined the little wings were not broken, the feathers were all aligned proper, usually they're just stunned and need a chance to come around. After a bit of time, he perked up, and the little feet grasped my fingers, I asked him if he wanted to leave, but he remained hunkered down in my hand, so I tucked him close again. A little longer, the wings fluttered and the eyes were brighter. When I felt certain that he was going to be all right, I found a safe place in the blue spruces on the north side where it was less windy, and perched him on the branches, but he wound up tumbling to the ground and hunkering down in the leaves; a bit of wavering sunshine landed across his back and he seemed content (so of course, I ran inside to get my camera!) He spent most of the day there, being quiet, getting his bearings. By this time the rest of the robin tribe seemed to have sorted out their territorial dispute and were hopping around looking for food, flying and tut-tutting. Later, during my walk with Max, he was still there, but hopping around, looking over his shoulder, watching me; hop and flutter. I called out "Hey, you, I need to make sure you can fly, go on, git!" I clapped my hands and he took off for the trees. A happy ending.

I'm up to chapter 10 in my latest proof-reading round with The Fractured Hues of White Light, I'm hoping to get past chapter 11 before the day is over...and squeeze in a little bit of painting too...

My giveaway of Dusty Waters at Library Thing wound up today, the three winners were announced, and I will be mailing out their signed copies this week, by Wednesday the latest.

Thanks for stopping by!

The Life of the Mind...what we dream of, that we are...

I spent a few minutes with our friend's old horse barn this week, and have been fiddling around with photos, these are a few of my favorites, I'm still "playing", I really love the brown tint I managed to create in this first one...

This one has a real "Boo Radley" look to it...

Haunted...
Seeing the trees grown up in front of the stall door reminds me how long it's been since Eli and Bill passed through to spend a day in the paddock. The horses are long gone, the kitten that was born in that barn is now a fat little old tabby.

I love how I was able to keep the pale blue color in the glass.

Life really beats the crap out of these old places, but this one lingers on, a sturdy testament to how well it was built... but it won't stand forever without attention...

Old paint, old boards...

Hard as nails.

I finally turned over my new changes that I want made to The Fractured Hues of White Light, I sat on them for several days, reading through them, making certain that they were sensible so when my Fred and I go into it, there's no question where they are in the manuscript proof and what I want done. I will need to read through the whole book one more time before I publish it, so I suspect we'll be well into April before I can even think of publishing...but that's fine, I want it to be right.

There are times I'm so glad to be self-published, I can take my time, there's no stress allowed. I've read enough about authors who have nightmare experiences when they lose their editor at the publisher before publication, and being assigned a new one who is not an advocate for the book, who doesn't return phone calls...I'm sure this doesn't happen all the time, but with my luck it would...it's a cluster-fuck I don't need...

I take my writing very seriously, I'm creating a book that will endure, it's not a product that will satisfy the latest craving saturating the market...I don't anticipate making a quick buck. Dear god, what's wrong with me, right? I'm an artist, I'm a writer, that's what's wrong with me. It lights up my soul to read a book that is well crafted, reading words that a writer has spend time putting together, a story that is timeless (not necessarily timely).

Today's blog title comes from an article that I recently read about Joyce Carol Oates in Smithsonian Magazine...

"—I was mesmerized by books and by what might be called “the life of the mind”: the life that was not manual labor, or housework, but seemed in its specialness to transcend these activities."

Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/Joyce-Carol-Oates-Goes-Home-Again.html#ixzz0ip1fyCEp

She always has such interesting things to say, follow the link if you're interested in reading more.

The life of the mind...yes. That's what I wanted to do when I grew up...my time spent in libraries, museums, art studios, theaters, wandering around in woods and meadows, the associated smells that would excite me, chasing the elusive dream ("What we dream of, that we are" - JCO) The pictures in my mind that I wanted to paint, the stories that I longed to tell...

The life of the mind. Yes. That sums up my two disciplines, art and writing...I'm always looking and digesting what I've seen, I'm always listening and absorbing what I've heard...it's an existence dependent on the senses...I feel so alive while I'm working on the latest thing... heart breaking at the same time as profound happiness...it's so beautiful.

Formations...

This was ice in a small puddle in my driveway the other day...

Lichen on an old tree stump...

This is some mossy stuff on one of the logs for our fire...


Tree branches against the sky...

The flow of water...


A sprig of a weed on a board...


Another spot in that puddle...


One of my old maple trees...

Looking at these formations... order and chaos at the same time... really pretty stuff.

Speaking of order and chaos... I just finished my latest proofreading of The Fractured Hues of White Light, it's been a month... a long long month of steady work... I started at the end of the proof and worked my way forward, bit by bit, picking out changes to make, rethinking some paragraphs that felt a bit "thin" that I took the time to improve upon. I've been working on this book since... well, 2001 I think I plunked down the first notes having to do with a curious conversation between a couple of people who had nothing to do with a book I was working on at the time... since their banter wouldn't go away I had to write it down, they were too distinct to ignore... there's order and chaos in writing. I've been working on getting this baby ready for publication for almost a year... originally I thought I could get it done by October, but that didn't happen (obviously), but thankfully, I've been taking my time, it's a better book for the extra effort and time. I figure I have one more read through before printing... I'm hoping by May she'll be ready to put into the hands of readers...

Studying Stones...

My visit to Tinker Falls last month allowed me to get behind the frozen waterfall to photograph the beautiful rock formations behind it...tho' many of my photo's turned out to be blurry because it was dark and my hand wasn't very steady... these are my favorites from that day...


I've been busy as can be working on my proof for The Fractured Hues of White Light, I have three more chapters left to proofread, I'm so relieved that it's getting closer to being ready to publish...and it's just as good as I believed it to be...


Lovely stuff... I've started printing photographs on my new printer, working out what ones are the best of the best, and tweaking images that need work...I'm impressed with how nice they print...and now I'm nearly out of ink, so I must wait for my order to arrive (unless I go to the store first and pick up more!)

Ice-scapes...

I've been having fun studying icicles up close... pretty stuff... we have plenty of it after the Nor'easter dumped over 2 feet on our hilltop acre on Thursday...and it's still snowing...it hasn't really stopped...dang.

Our friend's garage fell down yesterday afternoon because of the weight of the snow...be careful out there!

I've been deep into the final proofreading of The Fractured Hues of White Light and have reached the halfway point...I'm reading the whole proof backwards so I'm in chapter 14 today, and hope to be entering chapter 13 by tonight...not "going with the flow" really helps me catch the last stragglers that I want out, or if I'm really unhappy with a sentence, I'll rewrite it on the spot. I'll do my best to make it as 'squeaky clean' as possible before she is printed...

I'm putting up two copies of Dusty Waters: A Ghost Story for a giveaway at Library Thing, starting today I believe...I didn't see it on the list yet, it was still pending as of this morning...

Please enjoy the photos of the "Ice-scapes"...there's critter pictures at the end...

I'm a sucker for the vertical orientation of these shards of ice... I tried a few horizontal, but enjoyed them more as verticals...





This is "Pinky 'Possum' who has been visiting our bird feeders for about a week, she's not very big (that's why I think she's a she, the lady opossums tend to be smaller than the boyz.) She is quiet and doesn't seem to mind us much, I have to keep Max on a leash while she's there, he's soooo excited to make friends, but I don't want him to tangle with the little fur ball, make her play dead or anything... I just love that little face (and she does wiggle the little ears, how funny!) I'm sure, there will be moments when she'll become a nuisance critter... if necessary, I'll trap her in a have-a-heart and release her so she can be happy somewhere else.



I caught a rather blurry shot of a crow landing on the snow, I loved the open wing...I'm fooling around with it in Photoshop, this is what I have so far...

Last but not least, my faithful dog, the Best of Good Boys, Max! (The day after the snow storm, after my Fred dug out the driveway!) For ONCE he looked at the camera with ears in full bloom!