Wintry, Sunday thoughts…

More White Stuff…

Woke up to another day of snow this morning, as this winter just keeps rolling right along. We can get out if we need—or want—to, so it’s not as though we’re “snowed in.” Today, however, it will just be easier to stay in and not have to navigate the streets and roads in and out of our small town. Living out here in northern Illinois, surrounded by open fields, we get a lot of blowing and drifting. Thus, the roads are often more treacherous than those closer to cities and larger towns and villages.

I don’t have a problem with any of this, by the way. It’s OK to be tucked inside today. After all, I have many long-neglected writing “chores” to attend to, and there’s really no place we have to be today anyway. So I’ll launch Scrivener, knock the cobwebs off my work in progress, and spend a few hours seeing if I can make some headway on the revision/rewrite of a story that just continues to hang on and beg to be finished–for better or worse!

Recently, I have read a couple of very good blog posts by blogging friends that have rekindled my desire to “hit the keyboard” again. There’s nothing quite as nice as reading how others cope with getting their writing jump-started. A special word of thanks goes out to Francis Guenette at her wonderful blog Disappearing in Plain Sight for her inspirational posts.

After spending time writing away the morning and into the afternoon hours, and after this current snowfall abates, I’ll go out and see about clearing the driveway and sidewalk. The current temperature of 25°F isn’t so bad, and the wind is minimal. The fresh air will be good. For now, though, let it snow, and let my fingers find the right words on the keyboard!

A Great Read…

On another topic altogether, I’ve been reading—and enjoying—Bob Drury and Tom Clavin’s book, Valley Forge. I suppose, given our current weather, it’s quite easy to “get into” the overall tone and point of the book about that miserable winter of 1777 George Washington’s Continental Army spent there. But it would be truly unfair to compare anything of what we have to “endure” today with what these people suffered through during our Revolutionary War. Under supplied with food, clothing, ammunition, and shelter, they still managed to hang on and do what was necessary to achieve what they were fighting for–our independence.

The book is very good at illustrating how critically close to the brink of extinction Washington and the whole of the revolutionary forces were. As students and readers of history, we often gloss over the entire picture of the struggles and perils the Continental Army went through. Read this book to re-connect with the overall truth of that moment in our history. And even though I’m warm and snug as I read it now, it doesn’t hurt to have it cold and snowy outside—as a sort of tribute to those hardy souls who persevered–starved and half naked–at Valley Forge.

What’s Ahead…

Other than our seemingly daily battle with the on again-off again snow, we’re at a pretty calm period of the year. It doesn’t look as though an annual late-February trip to Florida is in the offing this year.

I guess I can live with this, given that we had a marvelous January cruise to and thru the

Enjoying the sunshine on the Lido Deck in January

Panama Canal. The memory of those glorious warm days of shorts, short sleeve shirts, and sandals will have to suffice until spring arrives around here in late March/early-April. I had hoped to take in a spring training game or two this winter down there in the Florida sunshine, but I’ll have to plan for that next year.

Time spent right around the old homestead is never a bad thing, and that’s where I’ll be. Happy rest-of-winter to everyone. Until next time, stay warm, all!

 

 

Treadmill, Jeopardy! & blogging fun

Blogging 101-Day 13

Today’s task: pick a blogging event from the Community Event Listings, and participate in the next round.

With that in mind, I have spent a good part of the day looking in the Community Event Listings trying to find a fun and worthwhile blogging event in which to participate. Despite my efforts, I couldn’t seem to find one with which I would feel comfortable.

After a while, I took a break from my search and spent nearly two hours with Scrivener rewriting another chapter of my ongoing novel–Birchwood’s Secret. As a result, I avoided frittering away the day and not accomplishing some writing. And I was pleased with how that chapter turned out, by the way. Can I repeat the same tomorrow morning?

Then there was the thirty-minute walk on the treadmill while I watched yesterday’s Jeopardy! just before noon. (Love that new fifty-eight inch flat screen with the nice sound bar). Good heavens, it’s only taken us a hundred years to realize that it’s easier to hear when the sound is directed toward us rather than out the back of the TV!

Are we really two old fogeys after all? At any rate, the walking time seemed to fly right on by as I competed with the contestants and listened to Alex scold and/or cajol the players.

As a result, I killed two birds with one stone: 1.) I exercised my mind in answering the clues; 2.) I exercised my body and got the heart working, after which I was ready to get back to finishing the Blogging 101 assignment. Besides, Jeopardy! was over and I needed a shower.

Soon after I was cleaned up and back in a writing frame of mind, I resumed my search for the perfect blogging event. Back to the Community Event Listings I trekked.

And then it hit me!

Right there in front of me, in the Community Event Listings, was one titled Write Anything Wednesday. Now that sounded exactly what I have been looking for.

It’s located on a blog named WRITERISH RAMBLINGS, to which I immediately journeyed. In reading the details of how the event would work, I was at once taken by the low-key flexibility of the event. It definitely seemed to be a place that encouraged having fun with writing: No pressure. No word counts. No deadlines. What I liked best, though, were the words that follow:

 Make Wednesday your weekly no-matter-what writing day. If this isn’t a good day then pick another. The important thing is to simply write.

In other words, we are to write anything! With that in mind, and feeling much better about how today’s assignment was going, it was very easy to create this post. Better still, I didn’t have to wait around to jump right in, either.

After all, it’s Wednesday!

April in the wings, an elusive ending, and Deep Down Dark…

Roused from my work on my novel, I just realized that the blustery month of March is just about finished, which means that the annual guessing game as to what kind of weather we’ll be having around these parts is soon to begin. Will we be able to have morning coffee on the deck before much longer? This is critical, you know!

Yep, the calendar says that it’s officially spring, but we in northern Illinois know better than to put much stock in April’s arrival ushering in warm days full of blooming flowers and trees and lawns magically greening up. Instead, we can be sure that heavy jackets and hats will be necessary at times, which makes it rather difficult to become inspired to get out there and spread the first treatment of weed-n-feed or tend to the cluttered garage. But I’m steeling myself to get my spring tasks completed despite what Mother Nature will throw at us.

But, hark! April is waiting in the wings to give us at least an illusion that we’re through with the brunt of winter’s wrath and that those shorts-and-tee shirt-days are on the way. How soon, though, is the real question. The common saying around here is that the one thing that is predictable about spring weather is that it is quite unpredictable!

Now, I’ve done enough harping about the weather, so I’ll let it go and get back to work on that elusive conclusion to Birchwood’s Secret (originally titled Sandbar’s Secret). I’m resigned to the fact that a massive rewrite is in order for the conclusion to develop. And so it goes…

* * *

My writing struggles aside, I’ve also been reading a very stirring non-fiction book about the thirty-three Chilean miners who were trapped in a copper mine over 2,000 feet below ground in 2010. Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine, and the Miracle That Set Them Free (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, October 2014) is one of those books that is good—yet challenging—for a claustrophobic such as I to read. Knowing that the outcome is a good one makes it a bit easier, yet author Héctor Tobar has created a good deal of nerve-racking tension throughout as he brings to light the stories of these unfortunate brave Chilean miners and their families. I recommend that one not read this book prior to going to bed, although it’s hard to put down.

How about you? Is there a book you’ve read that you’ve enjoyed, but yet made you squirm a bit?