Francesca Forrest's Blog, page 184

Over the edge of the dam

Yesterday, in my continuing search for legal, yet relatively unfrequented, places to practice skateboarding, I went early to the Quabbin Reservoir. The sun had only just risen, and mist was coming up from the lake. It formed an arrested wave, breaking over the edge of the Winsor Dam, poised to spill down the other side.

The water was so reflective of the sky that it was like there was no water there at all. Some orange boom had been placed along a portion of the shoreline, cutting off a tiny c...

sights and stories of August 13

Today I spent time with my father. The road on the way over was filled with clouds and hills.



We talked about electricity and how to make generators and motors. He told me a story of being three years old and sticking a metal hairpin into a socket. It was very early in the morning, and he was wearing fuzzy pajamas with feet. The pajamas were old and the fuzzy part had pilled up. When he stuck the pin into the socket, all the pilled bits of fuzz scorched. He went into his sleeping parents' bed...

hear/here me heart have no bass/base

I took a look at the local skate park this morning. How depressing. It's this little caged-in thing, and several of the ramps are broken.



But I realized, looking at it, that even if it were in perfect shape, I'm not really interested in trick skating; I'm interested in land surfing, in traveling through the landscape on wheels, like this:



I love this YouTube channel ♥

In part it's the great music he picks. That one features "Big City Life," by Mattafix

Still we live our lives
As if all thi...

Super quote from cathshaffer

Writing a book is a process of creating a moving hallucination in another person’s mind.

Isn't that brilliant.

She's got some extremely, extremely sensible words about receiving critiques, too.

Entry here.

signal boost for a friend: JIMMY-DON and PETROL QUEEN

marshallpayne1 recently decided to venture into the wild and wooly world of self publishing, releasing two novels, Petrol Queen and Jimmy-Don and the Texas Hill Country Ordeal , in electronic format.

Since I read at a slug's page and have a to-read list the size of Kilimanjaro, I haven't yet read these books myself, but stillnotbored has an enticing review of Jimmy-Don and the Texas Hill Country Ordeal over here . A down-on-his-luck country singer who gets his hands on (or rather, his feet into...

Asakiyume mita

... So, I went to claim my "author page," such as it is, thinking I could maybe keep it separate from my already-established page here at Goodreads, as a reader, and the answer seems to be, no I can't. So, now, if I comment anywhere on someone's review, the comment is attributed to FRANCESCA, whereas online I only ever feel like Asakiyume.

So, well, this blog here, into which I'm feeding my LJ blog? I'm changing the title to match my LJ blog's title.

Two days of release

Recently--which is to say, yesterday and today--I've taken to bursting out of work like a, like a political prisoner or someone whose life sentence has been overturned or something. Yesterday, I actually started singing--words and tunes just came pushing their way out of my mouth, I was so overjoyed to escape from my desk. I sang all the way to the market (not the evil supermarket; a mom-and-pop convenience store a little further away) and all the way back again.

I got to see the sun setting...

Inkscrawl 4

I love Inkscrawl. I love its beautiful, spare layout; I love that it lets me taste bite-sized poems from so many poets.

Issue 4 is out! It's viewable here .

I have a poem in it ("Across the water")--one I wrote based on one of sovay 's dreams. (If you ever need inspiration, Sovay's subconscious is a good place to look, and fortunately she shares its times and ways in her LJ, so you don't need to resort to nefarious or occult means of accessing it.)

I jumped in to this issue of Inkscrawl and star...

photos, thoughts, and a question about squanderball

Grant us Lord a gracious rain.

It came yesterday, a full rain. I let it pour down on my face, and it felt drenching cool, quenching cool, restorative and generous.

This morning the Queen Anne's lace, all bent over, was strung with raindrops.



And the sun, rising, transformed the mist into glowing gauze. I didn't have my camera to catch the most magical moment, all rose and apricot-colored, but here's something from when it had climbed a little higher:



And some random thoughts:

Slippery-slope argum...

The Child at Sea (but first....)

I was so happy at last to have written my review of Lauriat: A Filipino-Chinese Speculative Fiction Anthology that I went and posted it on the weekend, when lots of people are away or busy. It's an excellent anthology and a chance to discover new voices, writing in a different context, so I want to give it as much publicity as I can, from my very minor pulpit. Anyway, the review is back here a page, so you can check it out if you have a few spare moments. (Cliff Notes version: it's great!)

But...