My two "girls"...

These are my two “girls”…I just want to announce that I’ve signed them up for the Kindle Matchbook program the other day, so when a reader buys a paperback copy of The Fractured Hues of White Light or Dusty Waters, A Ghost Story through Amazon.com, the Kindle edition comes free…It went live today, so please indulge if you feel inclined…

Even after all this time, I’m really squeamish about this self-promotion stuff, it’s really weird…especially when you're raised a certain way, and told not to be such a "show off" or whatever...but it must be done so you know what I'm doing or that I've done something…

I do love my two little books...still do! They are my girls, Dusty and Samantha. I love what I do and I feel very fortunate that I have accomplished what I have accomplished thus far…the girls sell from time to time, I make a little pocket money. I've had readers leave me nice notes telling me how much they liked what I've done and I've had some readers leave behind some venom in their dislike...it's part of the territory, so I don't mind so much anymore. I have no illusions about becoming famous or being "set for life"... I'm not going to delude myself that this is a get rich quick scheme. I have an honest perspective about how I want my life to be, everything that I have, I've worked hard for, and it has very little to do with being famous and having gobs of money. I'm content with my life and making the time to be creative...I have creative freedom to write and design them as I envision them...that's what I want.

My third novel (my third 'girl'), Drinking from the Fishbowl is still in an editing marathon that started three years ago, its been an epic effort to get it ready. I really butchered it back in 2007 when I bloodied it with red ink and threw away chapters of nonsense, so much of my work as I go along involves some rewriting where I'm filling in the gaps that I created years ago. Honestly, I'm loving it, I love watching this little-big book about Georgia Sullivan mature...

I've learned so much since I first started writing about her during that muddled period of inspiration between 1999-2003 when I filled up salt n' pepper notebooks with the initial plots, lists of characters and smatterings of dialog, flailing around with early drafts and thinking I could find an agent with the mess I made in double space 12 point Times New Roman, perfectly formatted to the proper specs for submissions to the various slush piles in NYC. Oh, those were the days...I've learned a lot since then. I've become a better writer from the years of experience, plugging away, muddling along, feeling my way through the process, most of the time going with my gut...it's part of being honest with myself. I feel confident that when I'm finished, I'll be glad to have spent the time to see it through... to make it right. It's part of the craft...it's part of the art of writing.

Writing a book and having the patience to accept the responsibility for the entire process before publishing in paper or electronic form, it is not a task for the faint of heart. Yes, there is always hope that one of my books will do well, that one will stand out a little more than the rest. Fishbowl has been in the works for ten years or more…I have no idea when I’ll finish it as I creep along line by line, tweaking words here and there, writing a new paragraph, but I’ll keep you posted when the time is right and I’m happy with the result...

I'm actually thinking about how I want the book cover to look, so that's an indication that I'm "getting there"...

A few pictures and thoughts...

Sunspots

Life has been a bit hectic lately, it is all do-able at some level, but there are times when just finding a moment of quiet contemplation is becoming a rarity...

My laptop has been in the shop having an issue cleared up, so I'm working off my old Boo Radley XP  which is still serving me well after all these years...I think I bought it in 2007 or something like that...it's a little slow, but it works...if anything, I don't spend too much time online...

Catching the light...

A truckload o' stuff

Clearing out my parent's house has been a priority for two years...it still isn't finished...there's nothing more personal than sorting through the 61 years of a married life contained in one structure built by our father. I swear that my mother is still there in some form. I haven't seen her or heard her, just felt her presence...and as we were loading the rental truck with furniture last week, I swear she was disappointed that I didn't get the dry sink on the truck...I can't fit it all, Mom. The smaller truck helped me make more logical choices rather than a shopping spree...I could always get another truck.

A donkey and a sunny day

The wee donkey and goats are doing well, however, I'm having trouble finding a farrier to trim Elizabeth's hooves, they are growing longer every day, and were neglected by her previous owners, so it's becoming dire. I am very frustrated with this...calling, leaving messages, waiting for responses, getting none...I feel as if as soon as they hear "mini-donkey" they just don't want to deal with it. She's not a fancy show horse, she's a pet...I'm persisting to find someone to do the job because it must be done, poor little thing. She's doing great except for her feet, such a sweet little soul.

Hi, got any carrots?

The Little Monster is making progress...he's good until he isn't...

Max and the Little Monster

I like seeing that he's getting on better with the dog, just not yet with our four resident cats, this is going to take time...

Max is hanging in there, becoming frail at fourteen years old, he's the best of good boys still and always will be! I'm not sure how much time we have left to enjoy him...it's always a tough call to make when he has a bad day that is immediately followed by a string of good days with perky ears and bright eyes...we'll know when it's time.

Progress is progress no matter how small...I've crept my way through my manuscript Drinking from the Fishbowl, I'm poking and prying around in chapter 27, this chapter is nearly finished. I'm quite happy with the whole thing thus far, I can't determine when I will ever finish it, but I'm not going to rush through it in any panic to have it ready by Christmas or any such artificial nonsense. It will be ready when I'm ready to let it go...it's a big book, a doorstop...I've put my characters through the wringer and they're growing stronger.

I've been re-reading Wonderland by Joyce Carol Oates, which was one of those landmark books that inspired me to become a writer...it is quite intense...and will post my gut reactions on Goodreads once I'm done with it.

There was a Special Delivery Today!

Delivery of 1 miniature donkey and 2 pygmy goats

Me n' Elizabeth

Have a carrot!

Exploring and meeting the horses

I'm going outside to take a look around...I'll be back.

My Fred and Elizabeth

My Fred and Pebbles and Tessa the wee goats

 A transition for them and for us...my goodness they're little!

Her name is Elizabeth...

Hello, Elizabeth!

 My Fred and I are in the process of adopting a mini-donkey and...

 

  ...and her friends the two pygmy goats...

It's not definite as we're still working out the details, stay tuned...

The White Peony...

Something Georgia O'Keeffe saw once, and I could see it too.

It's raining today, naturally, now it's going to rain because my peonies have finally bloomed (they were tight little fists right up until Friday, being in the higher elevations, I'm a week or two behind everyone else...my spring is longer.)

Abstraction

Swirl

I have more photos than I can count, I was out there hovering around the blooms from early morning to twilight for the last three days...and of course, I couldn't avoid the ants...so I focused on them too...my camera looks forward to photographing these beauties every year...

One Ant

Two Ants

Morning dew on petals

My Daddy when he was a wee one-year-old being held by his father, Rochester, NY

My Daddy, the sailor, posing with his father, Spring 1945

Another Father's Day, I visited with my daddy at the nursing home, he's very frail, his COPD has become more advanced, and although his dementia rules much of his thoughts, he still knows who I am and is glad to see me and sad to see me leave. I'm still mining the family photos, it's a long process...

A Poe-em about Dreams and Realities

Dumpster Abstraction, 5/31/2013

Thoreau said: “To live deliberately,
to front only the essential facts
of life and to see if I could
not learn what it had to teach,
and not, when I came to die,
discover that I had not lived…”
…the trials of life stretch ahead of me.
I am drunk on the prospects; the future
is Wonderland — yet, I’m chronically sad
for the loss of those innocent days; entering
my own simple history, a sentimental composition
of ethereal memories — chasing dust motes in horse
barn sunbeams and butterflies in the meadow —
riding bareback, my legs clamped to the reality of
a warm barrel of horseflesh, furry muscles running
between my knees, charging up the hill to reach the sky,
we fly together, my horse and I; a daydream —
a wish — a hope; desire so sweet — I watch my plans
swim in a fishbowl — a crystal ball in motion.
Plans change when the bowl needs to be cleaned.
Hold on — I stop time to write down words —
random thoughts on bits of paper to save
for later — poetry made by the day drawn out
by hand in a silent night spent in my room;
the dark presses against the window —
the unknown tomorrow leaking into the darkest
hours before dawn. Peeled onion eyes filled with
sleepless dark, I wait impatiently
for the light of day to set me free from
the thoughts reeling inside my mind —
drinking from the fishbowl in Wonderland.
Thoreau said: “There is more day to dawn.
The Sun is but a morning star.”

Drinking from the Fishbowl in Wonderland (Georgia Sullivan’s Dreams and Realities) – 6/7/2013


The words rolled out the other day while I was editing my manuscript, Drinking from the Fishbowl...the poem is based on the main character Georgia Sullivan and her vision of the future as it was played out in chapter one...sort of channeling my little poet girl, and her anxieties. I'm quite happy with the editing process I'm going through this time around...thoroughly enjoying myself and taking my time. I butchered it back in 2007, several chapters gone forever and others bleeding red ink...so this time around is a reconstruction in a good sense. I've learned a lot since then, and my vision is clear. It is distinctly written in three parts and I'm tempted to serialize it as three books before printing them in one volume, but that's just thinking about it, I might keep it together as one book and forget about this trilogy business altogether...who knows. It's going to be a big fat chunk of literary fiction...

 Leave it to me to discover beauty in the dumpster we hired to clear out our garage and shed...random junk jumbled together and the rusty and battered insides of the beast fascinated me for a few days...I probably have over 100 photos...there's no way I can process all of them...

a dumpster collage, 5/31/2013

The Battered Insides, 5/31/2013

The Battered Insides, 5/31/2013

The Battered Insides, 5/31/2013

Then...it wouldn't be a post without a picture of one of our cuties...

Butters

A few pictures of things I've seen lately...

The Pale Leaf

I've been reading a lot, looking through the camera lens a lot, drawing a bit, not painting much...

The dumpster

...editing my manuscript Drinking from the Fishbowl after sufficient time away from it to review what I've done to it...slowly, chapter by chapter, paragraph by paragraph, sentence by sentence, it will get done...I've had many ask me "when..." but I cannot answer when I will finish it...all in due time, I guess. Whenever I become anxious to finish so that I can move on to the next one, I calm myself...I want this one to be right, I cannot hurry through, muck it up because of self-imposed or external pressure...it is coming along...just when I think it is not any good, I read it and know that it is how it's supposed to be, how I envisioned it.

The lilacs in the dooryard bloomed and are fading...I almost forgot to mention...there was snow in the air on Friday (5/24)...it didn't stick, it was just in the air...before that on Tuesday, (5/21) we were in the midst of the Tornado Warning area of a bad storm (such things are rare in Upstate NY)... we did spy funnel clouds, but none touched down. Everything's shiny, not to fret. By next weekend we'll be in the 80's nigh 90. Huh.

The piano in my parents basement…no clue how it got down there, and no clue how to get it out without busting it up to pieces, which would be a sad shame, poor old thing…it was well loved by us all growing up in that house all those years...I did attempt to learn how to play, could play some, but I was too much of a squirmy child to sit still long enough to practice and my brother bullied me away from it…after all, he was the musician, not me. I made up my mind then to not be like him…or to listen to his bullshit. Anyway, it was the only house I knew before I left it. It is sad to go through all of our things and have to pick and chose what to keep, what to sell, what to throw away. Each time I visit, I sort through our things, I pack a box or two, yesterday it was my mother’s old Revere Ware tea kettle that I latched onto, I found it in the tall jelly cupboard that I want to haul home eventually.

I think I die a little bit every time I go there...

Hostas in a Cluster

Two of the three baby racoons

The mother of these little baby racoons was hit by a car and killed (I heard the loud bang, the car never slowed down, and I could do nothing for her as she flopped around dying...it was a horrible thing to witness.) When they started fussing a few days later, I kept a pan of water near their little home, I fed them various things (raisins, black berry jam, kitten chow, fancy feast, peanuts, sunflower seeds, water soaked bread.) I called to them, talked to them...they chittered and chortled...just when I brought home some fresh corn on the cob from the store I discovered they already moved on...wee as they are, nature will take care of them as She sees fit...my father used to tell me that I can't save the world all the time...I know he's right.

The Little Monster at Play

Our new acquisition is slowly becoming socialized (him I can save, right Daddy?)...he's mostly happy...give this kitty crinkly paper, string, milk rings and toy mice to play with, he's happy as can be! He hasn't made friends with the rest of the boys yet...tho' he's become nice to the dog. He is full of play, the others will come around eventually because they like to play too and they're cats...all full of curiosity...

Popeye and sunshine

 Popeye is such a sweet kitty, I'm so happy that he has found a home with us...

The barn swallows are back!

Rotten old plywood

My one dog named Max, the best of good boys

My doggy is aging...but happy...I don't know how much more time we have together, but I'm making each day matter, he's downstairs waiting for me right now (no longer able to climb upstairs to stare at me.) I can hear his little doggy-paddle pacing, waiting, anxious to go for another walk...which I will do now...

Spring time...

Shadow and Light, in the old horse barn

Spring is here - yet there is still snow in the air. The violets and colts foot are just now bravely putting out their little faces from underneath the debris of a previous year. The squill is making the grass in one corner of the acre turn blue as the sun peeks out from behind the shreds of clouds and coaxes them to open their little buds that had shut tight for the night...the ground is soggy from Friday's storm, there are twigs on the ground - I have entertained the notion to go around with the wheel barrow to collect them, but then remember that my lower back filed a formal complaint on Friday morning after I spent time in the dentist's chair for a new crown (being in a dentist's chair three times in the last two weeks is a bit much - I joked with the kindly assistant that I'd rather be at the gynecologist, unfortunately, I wasn't in a position to see her face when she quietly replied with her agreement.)

Deer Skull

Springtime and old barns

My slow progress with editing Drinking from the Fishbowl is what it is...methodical. I'm on chapter 23, working backwards, paragraph by paragraph, not necessarily catching grammatical missteps, but tackling where my brutal editing from before had carved out canyons of empty places - Georgia is currently having a revealing conversation with her mother-in-law that is now so vastly improved, that Quinn Muldoon's small role is now as it should be...I'm happy. I'm beginning to feel like Donna Tartt, taking 10 years or so to finish a manuscript. (I'm looking forward to picking up her new release this fall!)

The Little Monster, in his cute phase (it didn't last long!)

We've acquired another cat a month ago, his name is The Little Monster, and he truly lives up to that name. He's a TNR (Trap n' Release) that imposed himself on us during a raw weather spell, and then I got bit while feeding him, so we had to quarantine him for 10 days, and he's been in our bathroom living in a large, comfortable cage ever since. We think his neutering was recent, he acquired all the tomcat features and attitude, so he might be awhile working out all that testosterone in his system...I've read it can take up to two months before we'll notice a change in his aggressive behavior. Since we brought him inside and started the TLC with hefty doses of PATIENCE, he's slowly becoming a "good kitty". He's unpredictable. Sweet and purring one minute, then gnawing on the nearest appendages with a twitch of his restless tail. He's cute, but not so cute, we're concerned that he might not get on well with our resident boy cats who are all neutered and sweet...if he doesn't adjust and get along, we'll have to find a special forever home for him with someone we can trust.

Rusty Remains

I'm getting to know my new camera (SONY NEX 7) that I bought with money made from the sale of my paintings to ProLiteracy. Gosh it's nice...tho' I'm annoyed with myself that I need to wear my reading glasses to see if I have the image in focus...(naturally, I tried to blame the camera for the blurry photos.) Dang it takes some mighty pretty pictures. It's shocking how many images I can accumulate just walking around my acre. I still try to post an image daily on my Tumblr site http://laurajwryan.tumblr.com/ 

Frost on Last Year's Debris

March Ice

Shadows and Light, concrete

I'm still traveling back n' forth to my parent's house to clear it out, it's taking forever, but slowly things are dispersing, AND I KEEP FINDING MORE PHOTOGRAPHS! I've been spending time in our father's darkroom clearing out and organizing all of the bits of this and that, packing up things to keep, throwing out what needs to go. I expect to make one major move of larger items.

A tin-type photo of an unidentified relative with an amazing ruffle of chin whiskers - I think he's from Mom's side of the family, likely Gram VanDusen's side of the line (Brewer/Farnsworth/Woodworth?)

Questions come up such as: "What does one do with baby teeth?" I haven't found mine yet to know.

Would it be weird to keep my father's old bridge? (Just sentimental reasons.)

How the devil will we get that pink upright piano out of the cellar? (How did they get it down there in the first place?)

Yes, I did say it is pink. Painted pink, somewhat faded over time. It was once a player piano.

Another question - who in their right mind would paint a piano pink - and why - why - why - why - why (so many questions that fail to have answers - it makes my head hurt.) Before we move it - I'm going to photograph the shit out of it.

None of these questions need to be answered - I'm just sticking them out there just because...dealing with the past is just fascinating at times.