Just some stuff I think about...and look at...

I went trolling through my photos today, played around looking for inspiration...I really really really love looking at stone surfaces...especially the ones with rusty deposits in their composition...along with a few fossils stamped into their face...more ideas for paintings later...or paintings in progress (which I have a few, an update at "Bliss" to come soon!)


Lichen and stone...always a pleasure...

More stony nooks and cranies with fossils...


...and then I found these leaves with such pretty markings hung up in my lilac bush a few weeks back, and yes, this incredible pale green-blue color is there...I really don't know how that happened...I even went back outside to look at them again, had a tough time finding them in the snow...but yes, there is a blue-gray tint, tho' I think the camera "saw it" differently...camera's can exaggerate reality at times...

It did snow over night, not much, but enough to leave some icy patches here and there, the night sky is clear and bright with stars...crisp...pretty...

And I'll leave you with a portrait of my little boy cat Charlie Chowder...aka Doohicky...or just Doo for short...

Sooooo innocent while asleep...but along with that handsome face, with that pink nose (he has the prettiest green eyes, but he wouldn't open them for a picture)...

...these naughty appendages...mischief mittens! My what big paws you have, Mr. Doo! (The better to knock your stuff over with!)

This and that, and more...

Another Thanksgiving has come and gone, I'm recovering from the preparation before and the day itself...lots of family, lots of food (I've been known to whip up a Thanksgiving dinner storm that is quite heavenly! But it's always amusing to me that after it's all done and on the table, I don't want any of it...hello, anyone ready to order some Chinese? Go figure.

While cleaning my house, I always wash off my collections of stones that I have around the house...the little kids are always fascinated by them...Great Aunt Laura is weird you know...she collects lots of strange old things and has then lying about in bowls and on tables...these were in a bowl on the dinner table...

The day before the day of our feast, we were visited by a rainbow...
Always a good omen...the day itself was above average good weather, lovely, mild...and then it snowed overnight...so yesterday morning, I tromped around in the winter wonderland and enjoyed the sights...and took lots of pictures...

The mist...

Peering up through the branches of my favorite gnarly maple tree...


A patient little peep in the tree...my feeder is visited daily by a variety of birds and furry critters, but the gold finch flock is quite sweet...

Snow and tree branches...I love black and white...

While I wait for my first proof of The Fractured Hues of White Light to come into being, I've started to read my next offering for Field Stone Press, Drinking from the Fishbowl...I read through the first eight pages yesterday, but I was still in too much of an exhausted state from the day before to really comprehend what I was reading...and I have to admit that my work on White Light really took a lot out of me after all those weeks working on it, and having Sammy, Sylvester, Guthrie, and Helena in my head clamoring about their concerns, it wasn't so easy to step into Georgia Sullivan's world...so today I back-tracked...yes, it's just as I remember it...I haven't seen it since October of 2008, so it's good to visit it again and to see that my hard work last year made it a strong piece...reading Georgia's poetic musings always makes me think about my poems that I have left aside for many years...maybe one day I will return to their simple pleasures...tho' I'm sure that they're not as wonderful as I had once thought (I cringe to think)...Georgia herself is a delight, a young woman with a mind full of beauty and hope...I love her naivete in spite of her book learning, she's the perfect innocent...so when Professor Mortensen Boyd asked her why she wanted to be a poet, she stumbled...she never thought about the why, but "this is what I want to do" and "this is what I've done" have been her focus...from there I take her beyond the dream to harsh reality, and then return her to the dream and the hope...it's quite the journey...I can't wait to get on with it...

With that said...I'll leave you with the other end of the rainbow...

The Birds Nest...

Today was a tangle and chaos day...not really...now that my work on The Fractured Hues of White Light is done until the proofs come through for my final inspection, I'm feeling a bit in knots and adrift...and so, I went walking around the acre with my camera and Max, and I followed his nose into the weedy tangles behind our barn...and I found a bird nest (note you can barely see the black dog in the weeds just beyond the small tree!)

It's that time of year when nests are visible, and this one was special because of the dangle of plastic that the birds must've been sooooo delighted with to add to their little home...I have no idea what kind of bird would build it...low to the ground, grass, straw, twigs, some mud...possibly one of the black bird variety, they like shiny stuff and things that are eye catching...it's quite the little construction...

I got up close and took a peek at the debris gathered inside since the birds left it...

I'm feeling a bit "on pause"...after working for 8 months on the manuscript...I do deserve a break...but I feel at a loss...restless...odd, very odd. There's an emotional process that I go through after finishing a book, some of it is not so good...if only I can avoid some of the bad parts, but I take the good with the bad, it's part of the package. There's a sadness, there's a happiness...frustration and self-doubt...back to joy...and relief. Let's just say, a pokey walk in the weeds gave me something else to think about, and I enjoyed myself immensely...while I was out there, getting into the burrs, I wanted to write something grand about books being like bird nests...but that didn't happen, I'm feeling a bit tapped out of words...but I did dedicate my new novel as follows:

This book is for those who love the written word, and for those who still prefer to hold a book in their hand while sipping a cup of hot tea...or a tall glass of Guinness. It's a beautiful thing.
(or something like that...subject to change anytime between now and the final proof before printing.) Anyway...I felt that I needed to say something in that sort of vein...just because of the current climate...tho' as an independently published author with my own indie press, I could be accused of being part of the problem...but...whatever...I'm looking forward to digging into my next one, Drinking from the Fishbowl, it's finished, but I'm going to spend time polishing this winter...I'm going to try to have it ready by April or May...

Books...bird nests...tea or beer...

Good grief, I still don't know what the cover is going to be! My Fred says not to worry, he'll come up with something. I keep thinking yellow...it's Sammy's favorite color.

The book is about love and it's many forms...it's about art, making art that is from within...it's centered on an autistic woman (Samantha Ryder) who is an artist...she's in a rut with the routines that have been instilled into her daily existence that allow her to be independent...it's also about loss...I only recently realized that my main characters each lost their mothers in some way while they were young and vulnerable, it was unintended...I guess Bambi had a profound affect on me...there's an ongoing theme about dreams and realities...we have expectations how things are, our minds construct fantasies that put the people we love on pedestals, but the reality often causes that pedestal to wobble, crumble, fall...oops...drat. I just love these characters that I created...I can't wait to see how readers receive them...

(I miss reading them!)

Well, thankfully, I have Thanksgiving to think about, a turkey to buy, a menu to consider, coordinating who's to bring what...I'm expecting 17 people...as the nieces and nephews grow up, they marry, and are having kids...my old farmhouse can handle it...the cats will hide...Max will have more ear rubs than he can stand...and then I'll have time to decompress after the turkey day is over...

What stories a dog's nose could tell...

Can you just imagine what this little guy is finding out while sniffing? Oh, what stories this dog's nose tells!


Tip of nose to tip of wagging tail, he reads a busy cast of characters!

Listen, squirrels, chipmunks...bunnies (oh, especially the bunnies, he loves the bunnies best of all)...

Deer...mice and birds...

And yes, coyotes, we heard them last night, made his ruffle stand on end, and of course, there's those other half dog-half coyotes...those are the bad ones who cause lots of trouble because they are very bold...no worries, they're not here now...(just so you know, the pictures that I didn't take of my dog was of him marking every tree, twig, leaf, and blade of grass because of the coy-dogs and coyotes that have passed through our yard leaving their calling cards!)


Max is the Best of Good Boys! (Darn it, he won't look at the camera!) My handsome boy-dog...the little black face is getting grayer...just turned eleven years old...not old yet...still a pup, right?

Today I thought about one of my favorite passages in The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje, it is about a dog's paw...yes, far from the dog's nose, but not that far, and still very much part of the beauty of a dog...and the stories they can tell...

Her father had taught her about hands. About a dog's paws. Whenever her father was alone with a dog in a house he would lean over and smell the skin at the base of its paw. This, he would say, as if coming away from a brandy snifter, is the greatest smell in the world! A bouquet! Great rumors of travel! She would pretend disgust, but the dog's paw was a wonder: the smell of it never suggested dirt. It's a cathedral! her father had said, so-and-so's garden, that field of grasses, a walk through cyclamen - a concentration of hints of all the paths the animal had taken during the day.

And so...yes, it's been a difficult week, we buried my Fred's father on Monday, and the family from out of town left, and we've moved on to the latest version of normal...we draw close, talk more, cry now and then, wait and watch, we think too much about our inevitable...which one of us will be the one left alone? We wonder, can't help but wonder...but we mustn't dwell on it...we must move on, go forward, and live life to its fullest...and always love one another especially more now than ever...we have a beautiful life together...we shall savor every day.

November photos...

Snow and milkweed pods...

Love in the Mist seed pod...I love these things...

Today, I'm going to share a collection of photo's that I've been taking lately around the acre...it's a sunny Sunday...warm...I have calling hours to attend this afternoon for my father-in-law who passed away on November 5th after a long illness...it's a bittersweet time, and the photo's reflect the season nicely, sunny and warm one day, gray and rain and then snow overnight, back to sunny...it gave me something else to do anyway...
Frost on our windshield with the sunrise shining through...

A dried milkweed leaf...

And I'm a sucker for moss...so forgive the multiple images...


This little guy was a VERY active woolly bear...he wouldn't roll up when I touched him...a caterpillar on a mission...and if you believe in the weather prediction of a woolly bear, it appears that we're screwed...


I'm in that in between state, I've finished my novel The Fractured Hues of White Light...the pre-publishing editing part, now the design part is going to be the next step...this is exciting...yet scary...I'm still uncertain that I might not have caught everything...or good grief, left something out (I don't think I left anything out, the manuscript is 515 pages long as it is, at one time it soared well over 600 and was edging toward 700...the things that I did leave out needed to be left along the side of the road, good riddance!) Or goodness forbid I left something written half-assed...but I think I got it all...I think...I've read it backwards and forwards multiple times, and have left the first paragraph of chapter 19 high-lighted in yellow last night just so I have a reason to look at it again...I fear that I'm setting it aside in kicking and screaming mode...separation anxiety, perhaps? Am I truly ready to let it go into the hands of readers? Are readers ready for it? Will the readers love my characters and their human flaws just as much as I do? I don't know. There are no ghosts in this one...well, sort of, the characters are haunted by memories...there is beauty in the ugliness of life...the uncertainty of doing what's right can be maddening...and love has a sneaky way about it that can be confusing to those who feel it (it is love in some form)...overall, I feel I've done my best with a difficult story, it's a human document...and out of them all, this is my favorite novel.

I have been trying for something with the Queen Anne's lace in the garden and haven't been happy with them straight on...so this morning I tinkered with the color and saturation...

Pumpkin colored boy cats...

The boys were snoozing by the woodstove on a blue blanket...I went outside with my camera leaving my kitty boys inside...last week our leaves were in full gold and the sky blue...


It was a gray day...
...in a weeks time we now have bare trees...

The morning sky framed by sumac and grape vine...


Milkweed set free on the wind!

Goldenrod...

I've been studying the goldenrod along my fence...and played around with a few, this photo turned out to be my favorite...it reminds me of one of my favorite paintings, Charles Burchfield's watercolor, Goldenrod in December, 1948...(Whitney Museum of American Art, 74.62, follow link for photo and a complete entry: http://www.davidrumsey.com/amica/amico266784-125220.html)

I always loved his work, very lively mark making...looks like home...

A very rainy day today...a good day for writing and painting...a fire in the woodstove a pot of soup simmering...snoring kitties scattered on the floor...wee juncos at the feeder...

First Snow October 16, 2009

There's something magical about the generous sugar coating of the first snow that I stepped into at dawn...

A wee pink stripe in the sky...

More looking north, northwest...I'm glad I wasn't over there, it looks a bit scary...

I have a head cold, and have been at home in bed doctoring myself for the last two days...I sort of feel like how this pitiful flower looks...

Ah, but this one wore it's snow so prettily!

As did this snow-capped bunch!

Yes, it's cold...but not too terrible...the snow was gone before noon, like it was never there...

Here I am...

In a field of stones there are big ones and little ones...and here I am, the little stone wedged in between the big ones...I am an independent author, independently published. Field Stone Press got its name from those beautiful old bones of the earth, their composition an amalgam of the ages, we find them strewn about our Upstate New York acre, they are collected, piled, lined up, weathered by the elements, and revered as precious. Life is too precious.

Looking out my window, I'm finally seeing the sunshine after a week of rain and scattered peeks of sun. It's so beautiful. Although I do complain about it, I do believe there is something special about the weather in Upstate New York that generates great writers. So many have hailed from here, or just passed through underneath the prevalent gray sky. I wonder. The profusion of overcast days certainly can make one gritty around the edges; some places have trouble with the Dog Days of summer bringing out the worst in folks, but in Upstate New York, the sun comes out and that spectacular blue sky that can make the most surly character giddy. I think the lull of gray skies keeps writers inside writing since there is no temptation to go outside and play — ah, but writers will write no matter the weather. At least I can feel that I’m in good company when I sit at my computer patiently contemplating one paragraph at a time during those precious hours I maintain in my studio. Often I’m bemoaning the fact that it’s already eleven o’clock at night and I have to get up and go to work the next day. So, I walk my dog before bed to decompress, looking for the stars, hoping to see a sign of a clear sky—sometimes it is this upward glance that provides a resolution for that one elusive character quirk or just the right name. I’ve pulled many ideas out of the sky; I live on a rather large hill seven miles outside of Syracuse, so there’s nothing but sky out here.

There are many times that suffusion of gray comes down as fog, and my world takes on a different quality—isolated; it is a rich atmosphere for a writer’s garden of thoughts. How many plot knots have I worked the kinks out of while my hands have been immersed in the soil of my garden on a fine sunny day, having the soft, sweet tail of a cat brush my arm as it passes through, its paws relishing in the freshly tilled dirt. Happily, there have not been many kinks for me to work out, it’s more likely that new stories are found amongst the weeds, stones, and cat leavings. Sometimes I forgo the garden to just sun myself in my favorite chair on the front porch while hummingbirds buzz at the bee balm; my dog resting his head on my barefoot, as the latest red pen sits poised, ready to stab at a manuscript lying in my lap. You see I have a good life on my hill, so pastoral — this is how I want you to picture me — this is how you will know me.

This journey that I've started, becoming a writer, is the result of years of hard work and pure joy. It is perhaps the bravest thing I've ever done writing my books, and then putting the first one, Dusty Waters, into the hands of readers. (I thank those who have already purchased and read my little ghost story, your support is most appreciated!)

With a sky like that behind my barn...why not aim high? I believe, I've rambled enough for one day...and that's the news from the windswept hilltop in Upstate New York...

Homecoming...

Wanting to meet the author because you like his work is like meeting a duck because you like pâté...Margaret Atwood.

I laugh at this quote every time...

I always find it so flustering to meet a person I admire...have never found it too fulfilling because it winds up being this weird thing, unsatisfying...I don't know, like a bad aftertaste. It's always so awkward meeting the famous anyway, they're inundated with everyone else who's with you in line waiting for the autograph and after my book signing experience, I know it's just...tiring. Today, I met my inspiration, Joyce Carol Oates. I found her exactly as I imagined...not at all disappointed...why, blow me down, she rocked!

I normally do not like being in crowds, so I was very brave going alone without any moral support...I also braved the chilly gray day...found my way into the auditorium, settled in and waited for the show to start. The place filled up...and as usual, I always get the person who doesn't have space issues sitting next to me...a very large elder man kept bumping my arm...and then midway through...he fell asleep. Which...I think...can't be sure...JCO looked in our direction and I felt like saying..."No, I'm not with this dude..." And I kept saying to myself (just like I always do when I'm in this situation), why me? Damn it.

Anyway...JCO read poems...talked about the poems...told stories, went on tangents...made fun of Syracuse weather (an easy target)...was amused because people kept laughing whenever she mentioned Donald Trump (so she'd just say his name again just because)...and the New Jersey Turnpike...(you had to be there.)

There was the one person during the Q&A who had to say something about her work being "so dark and depressing"...she again joked about the Upstate New York weather possibly being the cause...I giggled quite a bit (quietly, I didn't want to wake the man next to me of course). I do believe that the Upstate New York weather adds something special to the writers who have experienced it...

I thought JCO was gracious throughout the event, very funny and natural, down to earth. I got in line, bought a copy of her latest...and got in the line for the signing...


Yes, it's official...I'm a nerd...I'm awkward to begin with...being small, light weight, sickly, juggling myself, my belongings that consisted of my purse, long flowing raincoat, oversize scarf, my funky hat, my mocha cappuccino, and I had extra big hair today because of the weather...reading glasses, then add a precious book to the equation and stick me in front of a woman who I have admired since I was 14 when I read Wonderland (during that impressionable time when I found out that I can write about ANYTHING I wanted to...I didn't have to write something "nice"...) Okay, you get the picture...so she asked for my name, I sputtered it out...and she asked, "What do you do?" Ummm...I'm a writer, an artist, and I work here in the art collection. She signed the book, handed it back..."Well, looks like you really got the artist thing going with what you've got on..." I think that's what she said, and she kind of laughed...maybe she smirked just a teeny bit. Ugh..thanks...thank you for Bellefleur, it's my favorite book. I don't think she replied, I left the line, nearly running, trying to find my way out of the building, to familiar ground, back in the bowels of the art collection, back to my office that I fondly refer to as "the cave", back to my work that I abandoned to go dallying on Homecoming/Reunion weekend...25 years ago I graduated from SU (JCO graduated in 1960, two years before I was born.) Then I started to laugh at myself...You nerd. It occurred to me that I kept crouching down while I stood in front of her...she was sitting, and it made me feel odd being so excessively taller (I'm almost never taller than anyone, except wee children)...so it must've looked like I was bowing and scraping...I wasn't, I just felt the physical need to be at her level...

I'll bet she was thinking..."Okay, who brought the weird girl?"

I don't know...but...it's funny...did I leave an impression? Probably she'll get a story out of it for her next reading...(oh god, there was this weird girl...why me? Damn it.) I know I would...I just did...a story that I'll remember.

Maybe she knows...she has an inkling what I go through on a day to day basis, as a creatively driven person...a mind that is running a million miles of thoughts at light speed...I can't write it down fast enough...I muddle along trying to go above and beyond stuck on survive...writing and painting...working a full time job to support my "habit" as I call it...that creative vice that requires certain tools and devices to make inspiration come into being...

Since I've been reading the Journal of Joyce Carol Oates I've felt this kinship with her...I feel less "nuts" knowing that she feels exactly like I do about writing...it's been like looking in a mirror at times. I would love to sit and chat with her...maybe someday...

And so...that's my story...

It's Friday night, raining and dark...welcome back to Upstate New York JCO...