It's rainbow season...

On the evening of May 5th the conditions were just right, rain in the east, the sun setting in the west and a big rainbow shimmered above our old barn...

...and the maple tree to the north (it was a double for a bit)...

...and the other end to the south... it's a magical time of year on the hilltop...I love running out into the rain to catch these fleeting moments in the sky...

Pretty stuff from my digital sketchbook...the new leaves are lovely...

The red maple...

My old friend in a different season...

There's this old honey suckle bush that must be as old as our farmhouse with a gnarly trunk... I've been photographing it this week, lots of the photos look like my pencil drawings...


Like this one from my sketchbook, "May"...

No book cover yet for White Light, I've been under the weather for several days now, Fibromyalgia has been kicking my butt in a bad way... I can only describe it as feeling like I've been shoved into a trash compactor and there's someone who keeps turning it on and turning it off all day... it's better today, but still there in a hum set on low... I push through it and often accomplish more than I think I can... it's better than rolling up in a ball in bed (tho' sometimes that is necessary.) Maybe tonight we'll work on it, all the elements are there, it's just piecing things together so it becomes the recognizable image of the book, I'd like to get it done this weekend, get it off my plate and move on to the next project...

Dusty Waters received another positive review from a reader (to read it go to: http://thecajunbooklady.blogspot.com/) she won the book in the Library Thing Giveaway... I am always so grateful when a reader takes the time to write a review and posts it on Goodreads, Amazon, Library Thing, and their blog (if they have one)... I'm working with a shoestring budget and word of mouth is priceless!

May...

This pert little face looked up at me from the rock wall with it's "Who do you think you are?" greeting...I love the wee viola's known as Johnny Jump-ups... who do I think I am indeed... some days I wonder...

The book signing went well yesterday, I sold and signed a few copies... met with a young lady who is in the process of becoming a writer, and while her mom was in line paying for a signed copy of Dusty Waters, she meekly came back and said "Can I talk to you?" She pulled up a chair and asked "How...?" And so I told her... finish this book, but most of all practice, patience... and don't forget to have fun...

Although we had a lovely chat there's this part of me worrying... Wait, who do I think I am? I'm still muddling along, sure I have a book published, and altho' I'm doing better than I ever imagined a year ago at this time... my sales report wasn't "zero" for the month of April, I have a new 5 star review on Amazon, so I'm doing something right... I have an author chat coming up at Library Thing starting May 10th (about Dusty Waters of course)... my second novel is on the cusp of being published... I just need to get a cover ready... but is it enough? What did I forget to tell her?

What I forgot to tell this young lady is this, sometimes there's more uncertainty than certainty on a good day... don't lose heart. It won't be your first book that will get published, it might be the fourth one you write, or the tenth one... no matter what, set your goal to keep going forward. Soak up experience, write, keep your mind open to new stories, write, listen to that special voice that's whispering to you, write. You want to be a writer... be a writer... write every day because you love it. Don't write for the money. Look at it as an investment... invest in time, invest in the tools you need, invest in your words, make them right, make them tell the story the way you want it... it's a labor of love.

It was a hot weekend, the lilacs are blooming... coming around the back corner of the house this morning, the smell of lilac beauty hit me... here they waver on the afternoon breeze...

I spy...

...a wee baby bunny in the leaves underneath the ancient lilac...and just to the left of where she's hidden, there's a bit of fluff where the nest is...and possibly there's a little round and brown bottom of a sibling tucked under the leaves...


...she sat very still for her portrait this morning...I love the little white spot on her head...

My kitty boys were out yesterday, enjoying the beautiful day, it was Crouching Tigger-Hidden Pooh who I discovered stalking the nest (I knew about the nest, I wasn't sure of it's exact location)...I scooped up the tabby and put him back inside...found the Fatty-Woo and took him in too...now Max...I have to keep the doggy's nose out of there (he helped point it out to Tiggy-Pooh!) He adores baby bunnies, he loves picking them up and bringing them to me (he thinks I'm a good mommy and must take care of it), but there's no mommy better than a bunny mommy for baby bunnies...and these babies will stay where they lay...

I worked in the garden yesterday, did some painting, did a little bit of writing (I'm revisiting the work in progress, Layers of Illusion) , it's been a lovely weekend...

Dusty Waters received another excellent review this week (posted on Amazon and Goodreads!) and it is now on 203 peoples To-Read list since that fine review, and two more copies have sold...I have to say, my little self-publishing experiment has been a success... literary fiction is a tough sell, and I'm glad that so many have found it interesting enough to add my little ghost story to their list and the ones who have bought it or received it through my giveaways have been generous with their reviews. I'm looking to have my second novel The Fractured Hues of White Light ready sometime in May, I'm still working on book cover ideas, so far nothing has "sparked" or "sparkled"...it'll come...

I have a book signing coming up on May 1st at Fat Cats in Johnson City, NY...it's National Free Comic Book Day...and it's Derby Day too, it's going to be a good day.

Sunday morning...

This is the leaf that I picked up off the ground outside of the Newhouse Building the day I met Joyce Carol Oates. A little souvenir of the day, and I photographed it on our stone step by the side door...I love the old stone steps, they're awesome! Weathered, pockmarked by the elements and time...

It's a quiet morning, this week was a week with emotional upheaval caused by outside sources...and some inside... our boiler has apparently conked out, so that one more f-ing on my laundry list of upsetting things, but I'll deal with that in due time, I'm not making an emergency call to the repair man on a Sunday morning, I'll call tomorrow...at least it's not January, we have the woodstove, and space heaters, we're good. As usual, I take the good with the bad, I try not to suffer too much over such things, but well, I'm only human and so I get riled in my own special way... I'm much better today. I immersed myself into trolling through my photographs, printing special ones, working on the adjustment of images, cropping and levels, black and white and tints, pushing an image to its limits and then bringing it back...would this be considered digital painting? Dunno, but I like the idea of a digital sketchbook. Thankfully, this quiet, busy work settled me down yesterday, and so, I thought I'd share a few of my favorites...

A fading star...the squill is already done for another year, so beautiful, so brief.

A blue stone... it is a much paler blue in person, but I pushed the color around for the fun of it, pulling out the details that were lost otherwise...looks like a piece of our blue marble seen from space...
And of course, the classic rose... always the drama queen of flowers... although this one was nibbled upon by some critter... a bit of a Blanche DuBois... I love the look of it, tho' she seems a little grayer than I like, but the tint turned out nice... I'm sure I'll revisit her and tweak the image some more...

I spent one sunny evening this week underneath the bushes photographing the little white violets that are very prolific on my acre, they're just scattered everywhere...I love them! It was one of my most pleasant moments of this week of turmoil, and I found a sense of peace in that patch of sunshine, sitting in last year's pale leaves, surrounded by these delicate flowers with a powerful scent, I adore them... and this little one, with her face to the sun, so hopeful!

In spite of things that went wrong this week, I'm still hopeful because of the things that went right...

I've been working on my "brief" promotional description for The Fractured Hues of White Light, I've gone through every single copy of synopsis-sis-sizzz, that I've written to the various agents in the past, and gleaned the 'gems' from them to make this one. It's hovering at around 250 words, and I'll need to trim it down to the barest bones possible, but I thought I'd share what I have so far, I fear it seems a bit pieced together, I'll smooth it out before long:

The Fractured Hues of White Light is an emotional journey that explores the inner-tickings of the human heart—who we love, why we love them, mother, father, daughter, siblings, lovers, spouses, and friends, it’s all love in some form. Samantha Ryder is autistic, it is because of her handicap that she often fails to articulate her emotions with an appropriate demonstration. Ironically, the ‘normal people’ who surround her are just as incapable of communicating their feelings, and handicap themselves with secretive obsessions, thus causing a snowballing sense of isolation full of things left unsaid. They love her with unconditional bonds that vary in degrees; her mother Lenore’s maternal nurturing is sorely missed after her death when Sammy was six. Her father, Whitley, is a possessive narcissist, but his heart is always in the right place. Memories of the protective love of her father’s stepson, Guthrie, filtered into her adolescent fantasies. Her half-sister, Helena, exhibits a lackadaisical tolerance and irritable impatience, yet offers a clinging-vine possessiveness in spite of herself. The lingering romantic feelings of her friend and former lover, Sylvester, manifest in his boundless patience; their continued friendship stands firm on a foundation of trust. When Sammy agreed to marry Preston she initially believed that she could learn to love him, but the empty bond between them causes her to emotionally lose ground. As their marriage falls apart, Preston becomes dangerous; forcing her to go on a journey of self-preservation away from the familiar security of home, her escape threatens to be her undoing.

I guess there are ghosts in this one... but they're the memories of the living...

On Writing...writing on...

That blue spring haze in the grassy corner of the acre is lovely squill...I have watched this patch grow from a few blue stars here and there, to a skirt around the foot of one of the Norway spruces...it's been a lovely day...

Just when I thought all my crocuses were done in by the summer-like heat that we had last week, I found this lovely girl sitting up tall in a shady place where she was protected...I love her delicate lavender stripes and purple throat!

Dusty Waters received another good review on Goodreads from one of my giveaway winners. She says that she will keep my little ghost story on her library shelf forever...I wrote her a thank you note, telling her she just made my day. I could just cry sometimes. It's readers like this who I write for...

Through Library Thing I followed a link to an LA Times essay by Dani Shapiro A Writing Career Becomes Harder to Scale http://articles.latimes.com/2010/feb/07/entertainment/la-ca-endurability7-2010feb07 I nodded my head, grumbled various curses that weren't so nice and muttered, mmmm-hmmm, oh I know...I've had my share of uncertainty, rejection, and disappointment to feel what she wrote all too keenly. The essay pretty much lays out why I've gone ahead and taken my writing career into my own hands, I can't compete with the block-buster bestseller mentality that the industry is courting, I have no grand delusions of making millions and running myself ragged in the process to please the corporate mentality who'd cut me off without a care about my goals or creative well-being. Making money has poisoned the beauty of the creative process...now I know this might sound like a pie-in-the-sky ideal, but I went into writing my novels feet first into the reality of the creative situation, there's no money in it...Grandpa Gordon said as much about my going to art school when I was eighteen and thought I knew everything about it, but in spite of my being such a know-it-all, I believed him because he was a good business man, and very wise. So I became determined, stubborn, "endurability" as Dani Shapiro calls it. I sit at my desk night after night, muttering my mantra, "practice, persistence, patience" and I go forward. I keep a day job to pay the bills (thankfully, I happen to like it well enough, not everyone is so fortunate.) I squeeze in the time to write on my own time. The words tumble from the keyboard onto the screen, and I work them until I'm satisfied with the image they create. I've been seen carting around a ream or so of printed paper, bleeding with red ink, post-it notes fluttering around the edges, as I make my way through another draft toward a finished book. You know, I could cry sometimes because I'm so happy to be doing something that I love so much...and so I go forward, one book at a time to one reader at a time.

And so here it is, another week has gone by and once again, I have set aside The Fractured Hues of White Light, yes, once again, maybe for the last time. I've passed the new changes on to my Fred to update the proof in InDesign, and we'll go over them in due time. I'm very tired, very satisfied, I do believe this is it. I finally found that one last thing that was bothering me way way back near the beginning of chapter one (in a sense it felt so buried that it felt 'way back' rather right there in the front!) It was a solitary sentence that seemed unattached to the words around it. So I fiddled with it all day yesterday, cut and paste, re-writing, reading, leaving it for an hour or two to do other things, revisiting, re-working, juggling words around, trying other arrangements, reading the section of the chapter while asking myself, WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO SAY HERE? I took lots of walks with Max around the acre, giving my brain a rest...who would think that one little sentence in a paragraph could be so much trouble? Well, it is trouble no longer, there is harmony there now, and I'm happy. It's a labor of love writing a book, a study in patience...I could never expect anyone to understand the joy and sorrow, the ups and downs that I experience while writing a book. In spite of the frustrated mutterings and the gritting of teeth, pensive stares and burning eyes, worry lines and deep sighs, it's done to my satisfaction. She's closer to being published than ever, and I'm blissfully happy. Possibly in time for my birthday I'll have a new book in hand! One with a yellow cover...Sammy's color.

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!)