Francesca Forrest's Blog, page 130

a cool book that's waiting to debut

csecooney is looking for an agent for a **very** cool-sounding book. Take a look-and-listen to this beautiful book trailer (click on the picture to get there)--are you intrigued? Don't you hope an agent picks it up?

book trailer for Miscellaneous Stones: Assassin

If we were walking together . . .

Every year I marvel over the tiny flowers of grass. Every year I can't resist taking pictures of them.



And every year I want to rub soft rabbit-foot clover on my cheek:



And make crowns of bindweed:



And I have nothing to say or tell you about these things, but if you were with me, I'd pull your arm and make you look at them, so here they are.

And then I'd say to you, do you know what I found out about, from khiemtran ? Fishing with helium balloons, and before there were helium balloons, fishing wi...

a log entry

There isn't an entry for June 29 in Pen Pal, but there's an entry for June 28. It's from the ship's log of the captain of a boat employed by Loop Current Charter Fishing Tours--the first person to find Em's message in a bottle. Here's a fragment of his log entry.



And for fun, since there are lots of lovely images if you search "ship's log" in Google image search, here is an image of a ship's log from a page on the Royal Canadian Navy's website:

Today is also the start of Pen Pal

In addition to being catalpa day, today is also the day Pen Pal starts. On this day, Em and her friend Small Bill row out into the Gulf of Mexico, and Em throws her message in a bottle into the water.

Here's a (very amateur) picture to commemorate that.



In the next few months, I'll post pictures and things that go along with the letters and diary entries of Pen Pal--but without spoilers. I'm hoping to do a book giveaway on Goodreads, month by month, too, but I'm waiting for word from them, beca...

Catalpa

You know personal ceremonies or festivals, things you end up celebrating, year after year, just as an individual (or maybe, say, as a group of friends, or a family)--in other words, something that's not a broader cultural thing?

One of mine is the blossoming of the catalpa. SUCH A GLORIOUS TREE, with blossoms that look like they belong in tropical garlands (well, they are a bit pale, but so **fancy**), that rain down onto the street.

Here is the tree--can you see it is twice as tall as the room...

Ordinary folks doing good work

That title applies to most people. Most of them don't get celebrated much; most of their good works are too under-the-radar even to be noticed in articles about people whose good works are under the radar. Like, there's this guy at the checkout of the nearby supermarket--he's so engaging and friendly whenever I go through. I always come away smiling. He's definitely doing good work.

But these women in Rhode Island are doing slightly bigger-scale good work, but still not the sort of thing that...

goals for the week; peanut butter and ?

My time management skills are getting worse as I get older.

I have a writing goal and a nonwriting goal for the week. The writing goal is to finish this thing about bridges that I'm writing. It's short! I should finish it.



ISIS, the new smash hit in the alarming-geopolitical-news department

Who *are* these people who suddenly have control of a huge chunk of Iraq? How many people comprise their leadership? How did they all meet? I realize part (most? all?) of my ignorance comes from not paying a...

Solstice bells

Solstice bells were ringing when I stepped out this morning--



Everything was glowing





Across the way and elsewhere, rosa multiflora was in all its glory, bullying in its beauty--"you can't resist me; you know you can't. You love me--so don't complain about my thorns and the blood and pain. Remember this."






Happy summer solstice from the northern hemisphere!

male and female heroes in video games (being thoughts on a quote I saw on Tumblr)

“It seems that when you want to make a woman into a hero, you hurt her first. When you want to make a man into a hero, you hurt . . . also a woman first.”
--Leigh Alexander, “What Did They Do to You: Our Women Heroes Problem.”

I was going to argue that although this is powerful rhetoric, I don’t think it’s true, but I realized I was thinking of the realm of literature, whereas the writer was talking about video games. Sadly, I think she’s pretty correct about video games.

What the article descr...

fairy jacket

I found a fairy jacket, hanging on a bush, and thought of "Scarborough Fair."



Tell her to make me a cambric shirt,
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme;
Sewn without seams or fine needlework,
If she would be a true love of mine.

Tell her to wash it in yonder well,
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme;
Where never spring water or rain ever fell,
And she shall be a true lover of mine.

Tell her to dry it on yonder thorn,
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme;
Which never bore blossom since Adam was born,
Then she...