buzz

The garden is keeping me sane right now while I struggle with the middle of this book. What I’m really struggling with is not knowing. I have a vague plot, but nothing precise because the way I write, character has to lead to the next action. So I have to feel right in the character before I feel right in the action. Whine. Whine. Wine. Please.

I feel like the carpenter bees that love the cedar of my garage. They drill precise holes and burrow in and out to forage. But the return is never easy. They hover clumsily before the hole they’ve made, can float for hours before they enter. They remind me of landing craft whose pilot can’t make a decision.

So I can’t get in my hole of a story again easily once I leave it. To distract myself from the fear that this time I may not pull a novel together, I garden. I’m in the clean up, prune, unglamorous stage. Sweating. Hauling. But I have focus and a plan. I can see what needs to be done, and I do it. Done. Finished. Finito. New task. Next, please. Straightforward. Right there in front of me. Unmistakeable.

If I look back over this blog, I see my whines about my last novel, Before Versailles. As the Duchess always says, Nothing changes and everything does.

Sigh.

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some sky

I haven’t a big backyard, and I have the privilege of a number of grand old trees who were here before me, so when I walk outside and look up, I can only see some sky….but how that glimpse heartens me. I have to stand in the middle of the yard to see enough blue to make my internal blues lessen. Somehow I can breathe deeper. Bands of fear or anxiety that sometimes tighten around my heart let go their grip. I love the city, New York City, for example, but I miss Houston’s sky, miss the horizon that is so much closer, not blocked off. I guess one can stand just about anything if only there is some sky.