It’s been a little over a year since I updated this writing blog. That isn’t to say I haven’t written in a year. I have, just not coherently or with much forethought. I’ve aimless plotted here and there while the house was in disarray and I had no real place to work. As things kept crashing down and propelling me further and further from that place where I could hear the story I just stopped attempting, knowing that in only a little bit I’d have enough breathing room to get back to it.

Which means picking up the pieces and starting to learn to listen again.

I don’t want to write Boundaries. I don’t think I ever wanted to write Boundaries, but it did let me know that Holly’s class was worth the money. Whether I liked the feel of the story or not it was certainly one of my most well thought out and logical story progressions. My Muse, heart, and will though, weren’t in the book and that meant that while writing it was easy it was also quite boring.

I’ve had a story kicking around for the last five years. I’ve plotted it, poked at it, prodded it, and it’s still stayed interesting and fresh. I like it. No, I love it. I’d love to just sit down and read it but first, I’m going to have to write it. I will be working back through Holly’s lessons from my newly renovated office. I’ve got no excuses not to write and I don’t want any.

Some choice shots from the trip follow:

I started off at the lake. It’s huge. This is a simple shot across the water. I’m either using a river or a lake in one of the scenes – haven’t decided which yet. I need water. River has the advantage of claiming a bit of danger in its movement but I’m more drawn to lakes. Especially this one.

Just a nice shot of the morning sun. Dawn’s a key part of the story and we got there early enough to see it.

In an old growth forest the way the logs rot beneath the trees is actually very important. Without it and the constant change from old to young to old, the forest wouldn’t be considered ‘old growth’.

Grafitti on an old tree – more on that later. What drew me to this particular piece though was this:

No idea what someone meant it to be but there’s a great image in my head of some of the old trees in my forest being scarred in the fertility symbols for my gods and Lila inspecting them. Possibly Lila and Mallory younger carving things into the trees and getting in trouble for it also.

The way a Sugar Maple and Beech forest looks gazing through it. Bars and cages come to mind for me, but also height, depth, and nostalgia.

And the view up. This hit lace, spiderwebs, and skeleton leaves in my mind.

The size of these trees. See that tiiiiny person? That’s the spouse, polietly letting me measure – and I still didn’t quite get the tippy top branches. In a lot of forests the trees get fat, ours get tall. Very very very tall.

this really bothers me. Every old tree, every big one was covered in this stuff all through the forest. These are ancient trees that have stood while their others fell and they’re covered. On the trail we hiked, a couple mile loop, we counted 46 trees covered in graffiti including the Brown’s scores for the last 15 years. Why? Why come to a nature preserve and destroy things like this? They’re like scars from torture.

Anyway – we also saw wild turkeys, geese, and quite a lot of sap harvester buckets.

Bonus shot:

My creative process, complete with help.

alright, I’m going to work on some scenes and post Mal’s character sheet tomorrow so it can be compared to Lila’s.