Sharon Creech's Blog, page 36

Rocks

Last week I wrote about an accumulation of boxes. This week I noticed another clump of objects that have found their home in our home:  rocks.  I love rocks--their solidity, their texture, their permanence. I love to sit on them, walk on them, hold them.  Usually, I like rocks in their natural habitat–outdoors–but a few special ones take pride of place on my desk or night stand.

The large one above at top left was a present from my daughter when she was four; the rock is from northern Virginia.  At top right is a flattish rock with great bumps and mottling, from Lake Chautauqua in western New York.  Bottom left is a special hunk from southern Switzerland, and the one at bottom right, a gift, is from the coast of southern England.


The above two rocks are particularly special. They're from Maine, gifts from my grandchildren.

I use each of the rocks as paperweights or simply as reminders of all that is simple and perfect. I cannot tell you what kind of rocks they are; I'm no specialist.  Perhaps you will know. . .

Boxes, Part II

The pink gift box with woven top is one of my favorites. I've forgotten what the gift was inside (candles perhaps), but I know who it was from and think of her whenever I see this box (every day). Next to it is a wooden puzzle box from North Carolina that my husband gave me for Christmas one year.

A gathering of little red gift boxes, all of them empty now except for the back center cloth-covered Asian one, which has a perfume bottle inside. That one is also the largest at 3 in. x 2 in.; the s...

The Lure of Boxes

I seem to have accumulated an assortment of boxes. Most have been given to me; some I've chosen. I'm drawn to them. Like books, they suggest treasures within. You might find anything at all.  Mine don't hold treasures, though--or at least not ones valuable to anyone but me; often it is the box itself that is the treasure.
The above three boxes were all gifts. The one on the bottom, with the moons, was from my daughter when Walk Two Moons received the Newbery Medal.  The middle wooden box with ...

Fan Mail

Fan mail, ah fan mail, both a joy and a challenge: It's usually a joy to read and always a challenge to keep up with responding. I especially love coming across beautifully crafted letters, and I am partial to student drawings.  In the above basket, I save 'special' letters. These are ones that are particularly moving or funny or beautifully made.

In a recent batch, I enjoyed these colorful letters from a school in Texas, based on Love That Dog and Hate That Cat and inspired by their creative ...

Lake day . . .

Made major progress on manuscript today! Reward is to play with new Flip video camera and get outside:

Picking up where I left off . . .

I had to stop working on this manuscript a few months ago in order to turn to other pressing matters but had set a date of September 1 to continue at full tilt.  In the past month, I've overhauled my office and cleared the decks. Today is September 1 and I'm ready.  Ready!  
I don't normally like to talk about writing because that can get in the way of actually doing the writing. But what you see above are 260 pages of a novel-in-progress. In an earlier blog post, I explained about the...

Writer at the Window

One great thing about rain is that it makes it easier for me to stay at my desk and work.   The lure to be outside in dry weather--warm or cold--is great.  That my desk now faces a window with a view of lake and trees, of birds and squirrels and chipmunks is sometimes a danger ('Come out, come out'), but just as often, staring out the window seems to realign the tangled circuits of my brain. 
In our many years in England, we lived in charming 300-year-old cottages, but the hardest part of...

The Clean Office

I should have taken a 'before' photo so that you could first see the chaos that was my office these past months: piles of papers, piles of books, piles of notes.  Towering piles. Toppling piles.  Piles from Switzerland. From England. From the States.

In any case, here is the 'after'--after cleaning, purging, ruthlessly tossing or filing:


And my favorite cabinet, with doors that now close:

After a few months away from a manuscript, I'm preparing to return to it, and this is part of the ritual...

Land of the Young

The grandchildren were here this past week.  In photo above, granddaughter is in center, grandson at right.  At left is their friend. Within minutes of arriving they dove into the playhouse (an outlying one-room cottage we renovated several years ago--it's filled with dress-up clothes, art supplies and games) and emerged to perform a skit they made up called Celebrity Beach Party. Very funny, these kids.  I think Celebrity Beach Party was my favorite skit.  I didn't so much enjoy the one with...

Revelation in the Spooky Cupboard (7, conclusion)

Ta da!  At last, I've caught the critters inhabiting the spooky cupboard: