Sarah Black's Blog: Book Report, page 14
October 24, 2012
Lion on the Yurok Loop Trail
Lion on the Yurok Loop Trail
The thicket was mostly tangled huckleberry bramble. It loomed over my head, throwing shadows across the path. I thought about the novelist Jim Harrison, saying he craved thickets. It seemed to me this thicket would be perfect for a novelist, wanting to hide out, or, even better, for a bear.
I would get trapped in that thicket in seconds, thorns attaching themselves to me at hundreds of bloody points, until I would hang, waiting for the spider. Waiting for the amber.
The path left the ominous tangle and crossed a wide, bright meadow. The wild grasses and ferns were dripping with water, caught in the sunshine and glowing bright as jewels. “This looks like a good meadow for a bear.” My son pulled out his instrument and took a reading. “48 degrees.”
“Just what I was thinking.” After eating berries at the thicket, the bear would cross into the grass to nap in the sun, then down to the Pacific Ocean to eat some seafood. “If we come across a bear, act really big and scary.”
“That’s not what the ranger told us to do.” He pulled out his trail map to show me in writing, but I just shook my head and walked on.
My son had a number of tools to document our hike, though he was becoming less interested in measurements as he grew older. At one time I thought he would become a brilliant scientist. This was after watching him observe the progress of an anthill with his pocket magnifying glass for more than an hour. (In the desert just north of the Mexican border, Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, as I sat in the shade of a dead thorn tree, waiting for him, our water supply evaporating in the heat.) Now he was thinking of a career in the video-game testing field.
He knew our latitude and longitude from the new Nav system in the car. He knew the temperature and the compass bearing. He also had a small ruler and a tiny notebook with pencil, for making field observations, but he had taken these from me with the unmistakable eye of a teenager going along with an idiot adult in order to keep the peace.
We left the meadow and made our way up the trail until we could look out on the grey surf and fog of the north Pacific. There was a small, round black object that appeared briefly in the water at the foot of a large boulder, and we debated if this was the head of a seal, or just, in fact, another rock?
“Banana slug!” He pointed out a number of these important slugs just off the path, chewing their way through the undergrowth. They were Chichita yellow, fat and damp, and about as big as my index finger. Horrifying, really. “We should count them!”
I leaned over to study the ground, fragrant leaf mold, mud and ferns, little broken twigs from the storm the night before. “You know, buddy, that’s what scientists do. They make counts of different species. Do you remember when we lived in Florida and we counted the eggs in bluebird nests? Was that for the Sierra Club? I forget.”
My mention of the word scientist caused him to withdraw all interest in the banana slugs. “Yes, mom. I remember.” I thought I heard a small sigh. I sighed, too. I was getting as tired of him as he was of me.
“I’m walking on ahead.” The path was heading back into the dark woods. “You can stay here and count slugs if you would like.”
No reply. I went down the path, and the light became watery blue-green, like we were underwater. The ferns were enormous, dripping with wet, moss and lichen and toadstools underfoot, probably banana slugs, too. This looked like the sort of place dinosaurs should roam, those mean little raptors with the razor-sharp teeth that could take you from flesh to bone in minutes.
“Mom! Wait for me!” He came barreling down the path, 6’5”, his hair red, down to his shoulders in curls, two-week’s worth of patchy, bright red beard. He was still as awkward and gangly running as he’d been when he was a little boy.
“You’re starting to look like a lion since you’ve been growing your hair out,” I said, which seemed to please him, and he gave a few experimental roars.
“Fourteen,” he reported. “There were probably more, but I didn’t want you to get too far ahead of me.”
“We won’t get lost. This trail is a loop. Doesn’t this look like the sort of place dinosaurs might roam?”
“Dinosaurs are extinct.”
“Thank you for that update, son.”
He wasn’t listening. “Banana slug! Fifteen!”
The thicket was mostly tangled huckleberry bramble. It loomed over my head, throwing shadows across the path. I thought about the novelist Jim Harrison, saying he craved thickets. It seemed to me this thicket would be perfect for a novelist, wanting to hide out, or, even better, for a bear.
I would get trapped in that thicket in seconds, thorns attaching themselves to me at hundreds of bloody points, until I would hang, waiting for the spider. Waiting for the amber.
The path left the ominous tangle and crossed a wide, bright meadow. The wild grasses and ferns were dripping with water, caught in the sunshine and glowing bright as jewels. “This looks like a good meadow for a bear.” My son pulled out his instrument and took a reading. “48 degrees.”
“Just what I was thinking.” After eating berries at the thicket, the bear would cross into the grass to nap in the sun, then down to the Pacific Ocean to eat some seafood. “If we come across a bear, act really big and scary.”
“That’s not what the ranger told us to do.” He pulled out his trail map to show me in writing, but I just shook my head and walked on.
My son had a number of tools to document our hike, though he was becoming less interested in measurements as he grew older. At one time I thought he would become a brilliant scientist. This was after watching him observe the progress of an anthill with his pocket magnifying glass for more than an hour. (In the desert just north of the Mexican border, Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, as I sat in the shade of a dead thorn tree, waiting for him, our water supply evaporating in the heat.) Now he was thinking of a career in the video-game testing field.
He knew our latitude and longitude from the new Nav system in the car. He knew the temperature and the compass bearing. He also had a small ruler and a tiny notebook with pencil, for making field observations, but he had taken these from me with the unmistakable eye of a teenager going along with an idiot adult in order to keep the peace.
We left the meadow and made our way up the trail until we could look out on the grey surf and fog of the north Pacific. There was a small, round black object that appeared briefly in the water at the foot of a large boulder, and we debated if this was the head of a seal, or just, in fact, another rock?
“Banana slug!” He pointed out a number of these important slugs just off the path, chewing their way through the undergrowth. They were Chichita yellow, fat and damp, and about as big as my index finger. Horrifying, really. “We should count them!”
I leaned over to study the ground, fragrant leaf mold, mud and ferns, little broken twigs from the storm the night before. “You know, buddy, that’s what scientists do. They make counts of different species. Do you remember when we lived in Florida and we counted the eggs in bluebird nests? Was that for the Sierra Club? I forget.”
My mention of the word scientist caused him to withdraw all interest in the banana slugs. “Yes, mom. I remember.” I thought I heard a small sigh. I sighed, too. I was getting as tired of him as he was of me.
“I’m walking on ahead.” The path was heading back into the dark woods. “You can stay here and count slugs if you would like.”
No reply. I went down the path, and the light became watery blue-green, like we were underwater. The ferns were enormous, dripping with wet, moss and lichen and toadstools underfoot, probably banana slugs, too. This looked like the sort of place dinosaurs should roam, those mean little raptors with the razor-sharp teeth that could take you from flesh to bone in minutes.
“Mom! Wait for me!” He came barreling down the path, 6’5”, his hair red, down to his shoulders in curls, two-week’s worth of patchy, bright red beard. He was still as awkward and gangly running as he’d been when he was a little boy.
“You’re starting to look like a lion since you’ve been growing your hair out,” I said, which seemed to please him, and he gave a few experimental roars.
“Fourteen,” he reported. “There were probably more, but I didn’t want you to get too far ahead of me.”
“We won’t get lost. This trail is a loop. Doesn’t this look like the sort of place dinosaurs might roam?”
“Dinosaurs are extinct.”
“Thank you for that update, son.”
He wasn’t listening. “Banana slug! Fifteen!”
October 19, 2012
Writing our Way into the Mysterious Hearts of Men
I finished a manuscript recently that had an important female character. I understood her. I knew exactly what she was feeling and I knew what she was going to do. I empathized with her, even while she was sowing seeds she would surely regret. I might very well have sown the same seeds myself, in a similar situation. There was very little mystery for me with this character, and so there was no stretch for me as a writer. I didn’t have to work to uncover her secrets.
Men I don’t understand. They confuse me and many times irritate me past all bearing. They are an alien life form compared to myself, a woman, and this is why I write endlessly about them. When I’m writing about men, I’m writing my way into their mysterious hearts, trying to understand them.
I think people in many professions, like healthcare, develop a degree of empathy and understanding that allows us to care about people we don’t know well. Writers are a different breed. We want to know secrets and motivations and childhood fears, and we want to know the weakness that is going to screw them to the wall. We care about them, granted, but we can observe them from a distance that allows us to let them be hurt, and not try to rush in to save them.
I don’t believe there is any significant difference in how gay and straight people love. Men and women have human hearts. We humans are both sadly predictable and full of fascinating mysteries and contradictions. This is why we recognize characters, and why we become so obsessed by them. We know them, and we suspect what’s going to happen to them. But you never really know. Do you? People will surprise you. We really want to be surprised. We want to know a character intimately, and we want to watch that person surprise us by being so darn human.
Some writers, and I am among this group, write to find out what they want to say. I don’t know what’s going to happen in a story when I start writing it. I usually know what idea I want to explore. And though men are strange creatures who confuse me, I do have some intuition about their behavior. Knowing one’s characters deeply, and this intuition, means I can slowly write my way into the heart of the thing, figure out what’s happening, why it’s happening, figure out what the heck did he do that for? Just explain yourself to me. I don’t understand why you’re acting like this! I’m a woman, explain yourself. This fascination sometimes feels like the fascination one must have, watching a cobra rise slowly out of a basket, but maybe this is part of their unending charm.
Men surprise and charm me constantly. I suspect my interest in writing about gay characters in the structure of a romance is because it gives me two mysterious men to learn about, two men who will gradually open their secret hearts and let me look inside. I don’t want to look at their pretty muscles and little tan lines, and I don’t want to watch them having sex. I want to look into their hearts—to me, I’m asking for a greater degree of intimacy, to learn everything about their beautiful hearts. That’s what I’m trying to do when I write- get down into the bones and blood, find out all the secrets that stain their souls. Find out what makes their hearts yearn and weep and break, and bloom into a million beautiful colors when they fall in love. And the cool part is I’ll never really know. Because men are mysterious and unknowable, and I’ll never understand them. But I will probably keep trying.
Men I don’t understand. They confuse me and many times irritate me past all bearing. They are an alien life form compared to myself, a woman, and this is why I write endlessly about them. When I’m writing about men, I’m writing my way into their mysterious hearts, trying to understand them.
I think people in many professions, like healthcare, develop a degree of empathy and understanding that allows us to care about people we don’t know well. Writers are a different breed. We want to know secrets and motivations and childhood fears, and we want to know the weakness that is going to screw them to the wall. We care about them, granted, but we can observe them from a distance that allows us to let them be hurt, and not try to rush in to save them.
I don’t believe there is any significant difference in how gay and straight people love. Men and women have human hearts. We humans are both sadly predictable and full of fascinating mysteries and contradictions. This is why we recognize characters, and why we become so obsessed by them. We know them, and we suspect what’s going to happen to them. But you never really know. Do you? People will surprise you. We really want to be surprised. We want to know a character intimately, and we want to watch that person surprise us by being so darn human.
Some writers, and I am among this group, write to find out what they want to say. I don’t know what’s going to happen in a story when I start writing it. I usually know what idea I want to explore. And though men are strange creatures who confuse me, I do have some intuition about their behavior. Knowing one’s characters deeply, and this intuition, means I can slowly write my way into the heart of the thing, figure out what’s happening, why it’s happening, figure out what the heck did he do that for? Just explain yourself to me. I don’t understand why you’re acting like this! I’m a woman, explain yourself. This fascination sometimes feels like the fascination one must have, watching a cobra rise slowly out of a basket, but maybe this is part of their unending charm.
Men surprise and charm me constantly. I suspect my interest in writing about gay characters in the structure of a romance is because it gives me two mysterious men to learn about, two men who will gradually open their secret hearts and let me look inside. I don’t want to look at their pretty muscles and little tan lines, and I don’t want to watch them having sex. I want to look into their hearts—to me, I’m asking for a greater degree of intimacy, to learn everything about their beautiful hearts. That’s what I’m trying to do when I write- get down into the bones and blood, find out all the secrets that stain their souls. Find out what makes their hearts yearn and weep and break, and bloom into a million beautiful colors when they fall in love. And the cool part is I’ll never really know. Because men are mysterious and unknowable, and I’ll never understand them. But I will probably keep trying.
October 17, 2012
Writing by the Numbers
I just sent The General and the Horse-Lord off to Dreamspinner for their consideration. One of the characters was trying to explain the basics of Algebra to a fourteen-year old. I did quite a bit of research, trying to figure out an interesting and unique way to understand algebra- for the character and myself- and since then, numbers and patterns have been popping up like daisies in my head. Here are some random numbers from the new story:
Number of words so far: 54,016
Number of cities in which I worked on the story: 9 (Koro Island, Suva, Albuquerque, Flagstaff, Las Vegas, Sequoia National Park, Fresno, Berkeley, Fortuna)
Number of gay characters in the story: 4
Age of the two main characters: 48 and 52
Number of miles I walked, thinking about the story: (est) 37
Number of days from start to finish writing first draft: 47
Number of albums I downloaded to my Ipod during story: 7
Number of pizzas delivered during story: 9
Number of books purchased during the writing of this story: 11 (this number may be inflated by an excited trip to City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco)
Number of airplane flights during the writing of this story: 4
Number of flying machines in the story: 3- 2 helicopters and 1 hot air balloon
Number of new cars purchased during the writing of this book: 1
Number of manuscript pages: 132
Number of minutes after I sent the story to the publisher that I thought of the first revision: 12
Number of illness/injuries during the writing of the story: 2 blisters, 1 sunburn, 2 migraines, 1 near nervous breakdown, 1 bad stomach ache after going crazy at a fruit stand in the San Joaquin Valley
Number of peaches that I ate and dripped peach juice down my shirt: all of them
Number of times I thought about giving up and never writing again because my writing is crap: 1 okay 2 or 3
Number of trees hugged: 6, but they were Giant Sequoias
Number of homeless people spotted on the streets while walking around while writing this story: about 100
Number of miles driven in new car while writing this story: 1556
Number of times someone in the story used the word fuck: 28
Number of fathers and sons in the story: 3 pair
Number of times I tried to force myself to add more sex scenes, just a simple blow job, would that be so hard?: about 100
Number of sex scenes: I don’t remember. Some. More than a few.
Number of words so far: 54,016
Number of cities in which I worked on the story: 9 (Koro Island, Suva, Albuquerque, Flagstaff, Las Vegas, Sequoia National Park, Fresno, Berkeley, Fortuna)
Number of gay characters in the story: 4
Age of the two main characters: 48 and 52
Number of miles I walked, thinking about the story: (est) 37
Number of days from start to finish writing first draft: 47
Number of albums I downloaded to my Ipod during story: 7
Number of pizzas delivered during story: 9
Number of books purchased during the writing of this story: 11 (this number may be inflated by an excited trip to City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco)
Number of airplane flights during the writing of this story: 4
Number of flying machines in the story: 3- 2 helicopters and 1 hot air balloon
Number of new cars purchased during the writing of this book: 1
Number of manuscript pages: 132
Number of minutes after I sent the story to the publisher that I thought of the first revision: 12
Number of illness/injuries during the writing of the story: 2 blisters, 1 sunburn, 2 migraines, 1 near nervous breakdown, 1 bad stomach ache after going crazy at a fruit stand in the San Joaquin Valley
Number of peaches that I ate and dripped peach juice down my shirt: all of them
Number of times I thought about giving up and never writing again because my writing is crap: 1 okay 2 or 3
Number of trees hugged: 6, but they were Giant Sequoias
Number of homeless people spotted on the streets while walking around while writing this story: about 100
Number of miles driven in new car while writing this story: 1556
Number of times someone in the story used the word fuck: 28
Number of fathers and sons in the story: 3 pair
Number of times I tried to force myself to add more sex scenes, just a simple blow job, would that be so hard?: about 100
Number of sex scenes: I don’t remember. Some. More than a few.
October 10, 2012
Planning for my Accidental Death
Planning for my Unexpected Death in Sequoia National Park
I’m writing this on the front porch of cabin number 1 at Grant’s Grove, King’s Canyon and Sequoia National Parks. The cabins are very quaint, with shake roofs and uneven floors. A marble dropped in the bathroom would roll right out the front door. The porch is wide and deep with chairs for those of us who can’t bear to go inside. The sky is getting dark and the Sequoias are…they are just SO BIG. AND TALL. Not sure how else to put it. They are huge, with this delightfully lightweight spongy bark that is exactly the red color of my son’s hair. The kid reported the presence of sap. Is this the time of year for sap? I wouldn’t have thought so, but I was happy he finally put his Nintendo down and went into the woods to look at the trees. So we have sap!
The Sequoias don’t look like anything else on the planet, and this place, high in the Sierra Nevadas, is also unlike anyplace else on earth. Just after the ranger station, we slowed to watch two teenaged bears show off for the tourists- they climbed about six feet up the tree trunk, then bent over, hanging by their legs, looking at the cars and people upside down. If I hadn’t seen it myself, I wouldn’t have believed it. I felt like calling their mother to report what they were up to.
The trees live in groves, and I don’t really understand how they group themselves, since I am standing around like a fool with my mouth open, marveling at how BIG THEY ARE. I did sneak into the forest and hug some trees. My mother claims I wandered away from our family campsite when I was 3 or 4, and she found me hugging a Sequoia. I don’t remember that, but the trees today were in little groups, twos and threes, like they were having a chat. I hugged a group of three ladies, and while I was doing that, my son was peeing on one giant Sequoia he found in the grove all alone. He claimed he could not wait until we got to the visitor’s center, but I have my doubts. I think he was like a little red-headed bobcat marking his territory. I swear, sometimes boys make me want to scream. Tomorrow we are going to hike to Grant’s Tree, the National Christmas Tree, a youngster at 1800 to 2000 years old.
The mountain road was very narrow and twisty, and we climbed so high we were driving through the clouds, and they smelled like snow. My son looked at my legs- bare in shorts and flip flops, as we had spent last night in Las Vegas and I had been driving all day to get here. He suggested I might want to make a better choice next time. To pay him back, I put on his new sweatshirt from the Grand Canyon and that did the job. The air up here smells like snow and pine and redwood, and something about it resonates in my memory and makes me feel like crying. I am starting to suspect my mother’s story is true. I have smelled this smell before. Or maybe this is the air I want to smell when I die. Can we request that we be put out to pasture in one of the distant groves, and let the Sequoias watch over us when we take our final breath? I wouldn’t mind letting my final mineral deposits feed one of these trees. I can’t help but notice that the very nice porch I am sitting on is made out of a sweet-smelling, reddish colored wood. I think it would be a fair trade. I should do some research. There are probably federal laws detailing the administration of deaths in the National Parks, but frankly, King’s Canyon has places only seen by the hawks and the bears.
The kid informs me we are in the wrong place. He shows me a book in the bookstore that details the differences between the Giant Sequoias and the Coastal Redwoods. Duh! I did think they were the same tree! We ARE in the wrong place, since I was supposed to take him to see the redwoods! But I am in love with this place, and these beautiful, quiet, huge old trees with their soft bark, these trees that let everyone hug them, 3,000 years of hugs.
We got our stickers at the gift shops after I read the book that told me I was in the wrong place. We have these suitcases with aluminum sides, very sturdy, and I know it’s corny, but we put stickers on the suitcases whenever we go places. Besides the National Park stickers, which are the majority, I have one that says, “My Life is Based on a True Story,” and the kid has one that says “Boise Zombie Response Team.” He also has one that says, “I heart Key Lime Pie.” But we’ve been going to the National Parks for some time now, usually when I am close to a nervous breakdown, and the stickers range geographically from Big Bend in Texas, through the southwest—Navajo country, Arches and Canyonlands near Moab, Grand Tetons and Yellowstone, Lake Powell, Glacier, Denali, and a few others. Now we’re forging up the Sierra Nevadas. I’ve avoided California for years, thinking there were too many people. That may be a valid point, but wherever the Californians are, they did not face down that twisty little mountain road on a Tuesday in October. The park is wonderfully empty, other than the trees that have lived here for 3,000 years, and some bears that are acting up. And a mom and boy who are, for the moment, getting along.
I’m writing this on the front porch of cabin number 1 at Grant’s Grove, King’s Canyon and Sequoia National Parks. The cabins are very quaint, with shake roofs and uneven floors. A marble dropped in the bathroom would roll right out the front door. The porch is wide and deep with chairs for those of us who can’t bear to go inside. The sky is getting dark and the Sequoias are…they are just SO BIG. AND TALL. Not sure how else to put it. They are huge, with this delightfully lightweight spongy bark that is exactly the red color of my son’s hair. The kid reported the presence of sap. Is this the time of year for sap? I wouldn’t have thought so, but I was happy he finally put his Nintendo down and went into the woods to look at the trees. So we have sap!
The Sequoias don’t look like anything else on the planet, and this place, high in the Sierra Nevadas, is also unlike anyplace else on earth. Just after the ranger station, we slowed to watch two teenaged bears show off for the tourists- they climbed about six feet up the tree trunk, then bent over, hanging by their legs, looking at the cars and people upside down. If I hadn’t seen it myself, I wouldn’t have believed it. I felt like calling their mother to report what they were up to.
The trees live in groves, and I don’t really understand how they group themselves, since I am standing around like a fool with my mouth open, marveling at how BIG THEY ARE. I did sneak into the forest and hug some trees. My mother claims I wandered away from our family campsite when I was 3 or 4, and she found me hugging a Sequoia. I don’t remember that, but the trees today were in little groups, twos and threes, like they were having a chat. I hugged a group of three ladies, and while I was doing that, my son was peeing on one giant Sequoia he found in the grove all alone. He claimed he could not wait until we got to the visitor’s center, but I have my doubts. I think he was like a little red-headed bobcat marking his territory. I swear, sometimes boys make me want to scream. Tomorrow we are going to hike to Grant’s Tree, the National Christmas Tree, a youngster at 1800 to 2000 years old.
The mountain road was very narrow and twisty, and we climbed so high we were driving through the clouds, and they smelled like snow. My son looked at my legs- bare in shorts and flip flops, as we had spent last night in Las Vegas and I had been driving all day to get here. He suggested I might want to make a better choice next time. To pay him back, I put on his new sweatshirt from the Grand Canyon and that did the job. The air up here smells like snow and pine and redwood, and something about it resonates in my memory and makes me feel like crying. I am starting to suspect my mother’s story is true. I have smelled this smell before. Or maybe this is the air I want to smell when I die. Can we request that we be put out to pasture in one of the distant groves, and let the Sequoias watch over us when we take our final breath? I wouldn’t mind letting my final mineral deposits feed one of these trees. I can’t help but notice that the very nice porch I am sitting on is made out of a sweet-smelling, reddish colored wood. I think it would be a fair trade. I should do some research. There are probably federal laws detailing the administration of deaths in the National Parks, but frankly, King’s Canyon has places only seen by the hawks and the bears.
The kid informs me we are in the wrong place. He shows me a book in the bookstore that details the differences between the Giant Sequoias and the Coastal Redwoods. Duh! I did think they were the same tree! We ARE in the wrong place, since I was supposed to take him to see the redwoods! But I am in love with this place, and these beautiful, quiet, huge old trees with their soft bark, these trees that let everyone hug them, 3,000 years of hugs.
We got our stickers at the gift shops after I read the book that told me I was in the wrong place. We have these suitcases with aluminum sides, very sturdy, and I know it’s corny, but we put stickers on the suitcases whenever we go places. Besides the National Park stickers, which are the majority, I have one that says, “My Life is Based on a True Story,” and the kid has one that says “Boise Zombie Response Team.” He also has one that says, “I heart Key Lime Pie.” But we’ve been going to the National Parks for some time now, usually when I am close to a nervous breakdown, and the stickers range geographically from Big Bend in Texas, through the southwest—Navajo country, Arches and Canyonlands near Moab, Grand Tetons and Yellowstone, Lake Powell, Glacier, Denali, and a few others. Now we’re forging up the Sierra Nevadas. I’ve avoided California for years, thinking there were too many people. That may be a valid point, but wherever the Californians are, they did not face down that twisty little mountain road on a Tuesday in October. The park is wonderfully empty, other than the trees that have lived here for 3,000 years, and some bears that are acting up. And a mom and boy who are, for the moment, getting along.
October 5, 2012
Why I Write Romance
Why I Write Romance
Checking the writer’s pulse:
Mood: Gloomy, but with the possibility of reprieve due to lunch.
Music: Bruce Springsteen Devils and Dust
Book: John Gardner On Moral Fiction
Drink: Decaf Coffee
Pulse: 78
Shoe Size: 9.5
I read a list once that stratified writers, with poets floating dreamily at the top and writers of fiction graduated down through mystery, speculative fiction, bloggers, writers of personal memoir that start with a favorite story of grandfather, writers of shopping lists, and romance writers. I’m not one to hold a grudge. I would just like to remind the unpublished writers of very important literary fiction that romance writers are still writers, and that means we throw everything into the pot. We do not forget and we’ll probably use your snotty comment against you at some point in the future. Like now, for instance. And we’ll no longer be doing your laundry or fixing your lunch, either, so go back to your garage.
That first paragraph no doubt caused all but the romance writers to leave the room. Good! It’s just us. We can tell the truth, right? So why are we writing romance? Anyone who is writing money, oops, I meant romance because they want money, you can leave now. I’m not talking to you.
So, how many of us are left? How many of us are writing romance because these are the stories that keep pouring out of our heads when we write? How many of us have written speculative fiction and mystery and literary fiction and even god forbid poetry and have gone back to romance?
We’re down to the hard core, now. We’re the pan drippings when the rest of the world has rendered their pork butt of fictional subjects. Okay, not a really successful metaphor. But that’s writers for you. We try to find metaphors like magicians practice palming coins out of kid’s ears. (And for anyone who plans to use that metaphor against me in the future? Let me just say now I’m kidding about the pork butt, so don’t be an ass.)
When children begin to tell stories, what are they doing? They’re making a safe reality where they can explore ideas. I read an article from Tin House about the first stories children tell. They all follow the same structure. The child is the protagonist. She’s lost and alone in a dark woods. Then she finds a friend, and she isn’t alone any longer. The end.
The dark woods is different, of course, depending on the kid, but they are all dark woods and we all understand what that means. This story structure makes perfect sense to a romance writer. Our characters are alone, and then they find a friend and they aren’t alone any longer. They’re lost, and then they’re found. They’re in danger, and then they’re safe. They’re lonely, and then they’re happy. At the end, they are safe and warm and they have a home and someone to love. This is as basic a human story as exists in the world. Frankly, nothing else matters too much to me. When we get down to it, this is what I care about. And these stories? They’re romance.
What I want for the people around me is the same thing I want for my characters. I want them safe and happy, with a home and someone to love. I look around my clinic waiting room, the bookstore and the diner, and I know this is not reality for many people. But I want this for them and for me and for you, so badly I can feel the desire in every drop of blood moving through my heart. So I write romance, stories where people who are lost can find a friend and live happily ever after.
Of course the world matters. After WWI, literature changed. The industrial revolution changed fiction. War always does. So does totalitarianism and the suppression of free speech. But dig deep down into the bones of human desire? We’re lost in a dark woods, and we need a friend. And my friend, I have a story for you.
But are these stories really romances? This question has come up recently, when some of the darlings who wrote reviews of my last book mentioned I am veering off course even more than usual. Well, I do write romances. I write love stories, and when I write them, I feel a great tenderness and hopefulness for all the sweeties who read my books. I want all of you to be in love, to have a friend, to be at home and safe, to not be lost in a dark woods. And if you are lost, I want you to believe, like I do, that there’s hope. Hope for redemption, hope for a friend so you won’t be alone, hope for a home and safety and love.
Stories should say something to us about being human. They should make us think, make us feel, make us look at the world, and each other, a little differently. Stories should be life-giving. That’s what I’m trying to do. Trying, and not yet succeeding, but I have hope! The next one will be better. I’m working hard. The next story might change my life. It might change yours. I have hope.
Checking the writer’s pulse:
Mood: Gloomy, but with the possibility of reprieve due to lunch.
Music: Bruce Springsteen Devils and Dust
Book: John Gardner On Moral Fiction
Drink: Decaf Coffee
Pulse: 78
Shoe Size: 9.5
I read a list once that stratified writers, with poets floating dreamily at the top and writers of fiction graduated down through mystery, speculative fiction, bloggers, writers of personal memoir that start with a favorite story of grandfather, writers of shopping lists, and romance writers. I’m not one to hold a grudge. I would just like to remind the unpublished writers of very important literary fiction that romance writers are still writers, and that means we throw everything into the pot. We do not forget and we’ll probably use your snotty comment against you at some point in the future. Like now, for instance. And we’ll no longer be doing your laundry or fixing your lunch, either, so go back to your garage.
That first paragraph no doubt caused all but the romance writers to leave the room. Good! It’s just us. We can tell the truth, right? So why are we writing romance? Anyone who is writing money, oops, I meant romance because they want money, you can leave now. I’m not talking to you.
So, how many of us are left? How many of us are writing romance because these are the stories that keep pouring out of our heads when we write? How many of us have written speculative fiction and mystery and literary fiction and even god forbid poetry and have gone back to romance?
We’re down to the hard core, now. We’re the pan drippings when the rest of the world has rendered their pork butt of fictional subjects. Okay, not a really successful metaphor. But that’s writers for you. We try to find metaphors like magicians practice palming coins out of kid’s ears. (And for anyone who plans to use that metaphor against me in the future? Let me just say now I’m kidding about the pork butt, so don’t be an ass.)
When children begin to tell stories, what are they doing? They’re making a safe reality where they can explore ideas. I read an article from Tin House about the first stories children tell. They all follow the same structure. The child is the protagonist. She’s lost and alone in a dark woods. Then she finds a friend, and she isn’t alone any longer. The end.
The dark woods is different, of course, depending on the kid, but they are all dark woods and we all understand what that means. This story structure makes perfect sense to a romance writer. Our characters are alone, and then they find a friend and they aren’t alone any longer. They’re lost, and then they’re found. They’re in danger, and then they’re safe. They’re lonely, and then they’re happy. At the end, they are safe and warm and they have a home and someone to love. This is as basic a human story as exists in the world. Frankly, nothing else matters too much to me. When we get down to it, this is what I care about. And these stories? They’re romance.
What I want for the people around me is the same thing I want for my characters. I want them safe and happy, with a home and someone to love. I look around my clinic waiting room, the bookstore and the diner, and I know this is not reality for many people. But I want this for them and for me and for you, so badly I can feel the desire in every drop of blood moving through my heart. So I write romance, stories where people who are lost can find a friend and live happily ever after.
Of course the world matters. After WWI, literature changed. The industrial revolution changed fiction. War always does. So does totalitarianism and the suppression of free speech. But dig deep down into the bones of human desire? We’re lost in a dark woods, and we need a friend. And my friend, I have a story for you.
But are these stories really romances? This question has come up recently, when some of the darlings who wrote reviews of my last book mentioned I am veering off course even more than usual. Well, I do write romances. I write love stories, and when I write them, I feel a great tenderness and hopefulness for all the sweeties who read my books. I want all of you to be in love, to have a friend, to be at home and safe, to not be lost in a dark woods. And if you are lost, I want you to believe, like I do, that there’s hope. Hope for redemption, hope for a friend so you won’t be alone, hope for a home and safety and love.
Stories should say something to us about being human. They should make us think, make us feel, make us look at the world, and each other, a little differently. Stories should be life-giving. That’s what I’m trying to do. Trying, and not yet succeeding, but I have hope! The next one will be better. I’m working hard. The next story might change my life. It might change yours. I have hope.
October 4, 2012
Mom and Son
Mom and Son
I am punishing my son by refusing to make eye contact. I have the noise-cancelling headphones on, too, so he can’t speak to me. He suspected something was wrong when I cancelled the planned pizza dinner, pushed an empty Styrofoam bowl across the table. There was a can of chicken noodle soup next to the microwave. I left it to him to figure out the next step.
I drove from Albuquerque to Flagstaff while he dozed, his seat reclined. We stopped at Denny’s in Gallup for lunch, and I worked my way through the hidden-word puzzle to celebrate their new make-your-own milkshake. While he designed his milkshake (vanilla, white chocolate chips, and caramel sauce) I found ice cream, strawberry, milkshake, and chocolate chips on the puzzle before the waitress brought my coffee. None of the words were spelled backward; there were not even diagonals. Had they dumbed down the hidden-word puzzle? He looked at it while I drank my coffee. “You couldn’t find vanilla? It’s right here, Mom. Man, this is easy. See, I have this system. I find the first letter and look at all the letters near it. I’ll tell you about my system if you want.”
“I’ll pass.” I could see banana split even looking at the puzzle upside down. My brains were turning into mashed potatoes. This kid, he was going to be responsible for me in the case of early onset dementia.
He yelled at me in the camping store when I tried to get him to try on hiking shoes. He will realize his mistake when he is trying to hike Fat Man’s Loop in his flip flops. The chance, I would say, of my offering any sympathy or first aid to blisters tomorrow is fairly slim. But he was correct in his complaint. I have to be fair. I did interrupt him, which precipitated the yelling.
He told me he was going to find the Coldstone Creamery. That’s when I interrupted him, saying I was not buying him any more ice cream. I was tired, I admit, and I had no patience for his need to track all ice cream vendors in his immediate vicinity. This has always been important to him. I’m starting to think tequila needs to become more important to me.
I have instituted a new family diet, and he’s been off his ice cream and eating salads at least once a day. The additional fiber is making him miserable. He’s producing more gas than a medium-sized Holstein, and he blames me. Screw it, I should just take the Lipitor and stop fighting it, let him have ice cream with every meal.
I don’t like being yelled at and it has been a hard week. A harder month, and a bitch of a year. I lay down on the bed in the hotel, took the headphones off and turned on my side. He turned the TV to football, a gift for me. I ignored the game. He would have watched Cartoon Network or the Disney Channel but I have forbidden all cartoons when I was in the room. He’s chatting online with a friend, a worrisome person whose name appears to be Your Sex Kitten. He calls her Kitten for short. I wonder if Kitten knows he eats ice cream at every meal. Would she even care? God knows what she eats.
I went into Starlight Books after the yelling in the camping store incident, found a copy of Robert Gardener’s book On Moral Fiction. I’ve had this on my list of books on criticism to read. The man in the bookstore asked me if I was a writer. I guess I looked gloomy and desperate enough to be a fiction writer. I told him yes, but I was a writer who was not reaching my potential. He nodded, like he heard this all the time.
The kid’s just come back from the vending machines. “Before you yell at me…” and he holds up a package. Fruit Gummies.
I am punishing my son by refusing to make eye contact. I have the noise-cancelling headphones on, too, so he can’t speak to me. He suspected something was wrong when I cancelled the planned pizza dinner, pushed an empty Styrofoam bowl across the table. There was a can of chicken noodle soup next to the microwave. I left it to him to figure out the next step.
I drove from Albuquerque to Flagstaff while he dozed, his seat reclined. We stopped at Denny’s in Gallup for lunch, and I worked my way through the hidden-word puzzle to celebrate their new make-your-own milkshake. While he designed his milkshake (vanilla, white chocolate chips, and caramel sauce) I found ice cream, strawberry, milkshake, and chocolate chips on the puzzle before the waitress brought my coffee. None of the words were spelled backward; there were not even diagonals. Had they dumbed down the hidden-word puzzle? He looked at it while I drank my coffee. “You couldn’t find vanilla? It’s right here, Mom. Man, this is easy. See, I have this system. I find the first letter and look at all the letters near it. I’ll tell you about my system if you want.”
“I’ll pass.” I could see banana split even looking at the puzzle upside down. My brains were turning into mashed potatoes. This kid, he was going to be responsible for me in the case of early onset dementia.
He yelled at me in the camping store when I tried to get him to try on hiking shoes. He will realize his mistake when he is trying to hike Fat Man’s Loop in his flip flops. The chance, I would say, of my offering any sympathy or first aid to blisters tomorrow is fairly slim. But he was correct in his complaint. I have to be fair. I did interrupt him, which precipitated the yelling.
He told me he was going to find the Coldstone Creamery. That’s when I interrupted him, saying I was not buying him any more ice cream. I was tired, I admit, and I had no patience for his need to track all ice cream vendors in his immediate vicinity. This has always been important to him. I’m starting to think tequila needs to become more important to me.
I have instituted a new family diet, and he’s been off his ice cream and eating salads at least once a day. The additional fiber is making him miserable. He’s producing more gas than a medium-sized Holstein, and he blames me. Screw it, I should just take the Lipitor and stop fighting it, let him have ice cream with every meal.
I don’t like being yelled at and it has been a hard week. A harder month, and a bitch of a year. I lay down on the bed in the hotel, took the headphones off and turned on my side. He turned the TV to football, a gift for me. I ignored the game. He would have watched Cartoon Network or the Disney Channel but I have forbidden all cartoons when I was in the room. He’s chatting online with a friend, a worrisome person whose name appears to be Your Sex Kitten. He calls her Kitten for short. I wonder if Kitten knows he eats ice cream at every meal. Would she even care? God knows what she eats.
I went into Starlight Books after the yelling in the camping store incident, found a copy of Robert Gardener’s book On Moral Fiction. I’ve had this on my list of books on criticism to read. The man in the bookstore asked me if I was a writer. I guess I looked gloomy and desperate enough to be a fiction writer. I told him yes, but I was a writer who was not reaching my potential. He nodded, like he heard this all the time.
The kid’s just come back from the vending machines. “Before you yell at me…” and he holds up a package. Fruit Gummies.
September 27, 2012
My kid sends his grandparents an email about Fiji
Things that have been going on with me, as my mom might have told you. I did fall through a bridge and got badly bruised. When I was stuck in the bridge, three men ran up and they took out the board next to the broken one to free me. Samantha gave me a bottle of Fiji Water to drink when I was trapped. But I'm feeling much better and you don't have to worry about me because that's what my mom is here for.
Tonight when me and my mom went to dinner I had my first sirloin steak. Everything about it was really really good. I even let my mom have the rest of it when I was done. Tomorrow we are going to Bad Dog Cafe in Suva and if they have one we may get a tee shirt. I got a tee shirt in Koro that says Koro Paddle Patrol and the design is a skull with a paddle board and two oars. A man named Joe who lives on Koro made the design and he complimented me that I was wearing his tee shirt design. I tried a little bit of snorkling in the pool and it was a lot of fun. I never knew snorkling would be that much fun. My mom was out in the ocean and I tried to go in but it was too cold. Still, I got my feet wet so that makes 6 oceans I have stepped in.
Last night we went on the ferry at 2 am and we passed out on the beds in our cabin! The ferry got to Suva at 11 am. The ferry is called the Lomoviti Princess and we had our own bathroom in our cabin.
One day on Koro I stepped on a toad! I actually jumped a little. I also ate some banana ice cream and it tasted like taffy! There are a lot of bananas in Fiji. There are parrots and parakeets and land crabs. When my mom first saw a land crab, she thought it was a tarantula! She didn’t have her glasses.
The people I met on the island are Joe. He likes to go paddleboarding around the island. He saw some sharks as big as his arm. There is Neil and Hei Wing. Neil had a birthday and we had a nice dinner of roast lamb. The roast lamb was pretty good. I didn't think I would like it but my mind was changed when I tried it. Neil was 54.
Juanco and Samantha have a small boy who is three years old. We made him a toy out of fabric yo yos that my mom made and they were strung together. Juanco is the cook and he is from Argentina and Samantha is from Australia. Samantha teaches diving classes.
Koro island is very quiet except for the roosters and the parrots and the toads. I like how quiet it is. Tukini is Fijian and he helped us with the house where we stayed. He helped us with the solar power and the water supply when the water wouldn’t come out.
I am wondering how the two of you are doing. With love from your grandson James
(hee hee! pretty accurate picture of our holiday, now I think about it!)
Tonight when me and my mom went to dinner I had my first sirloin steak. Everything about it was really really good. I even let my mom have the rest of it when I was done. Tomorrow we are going to Bad Dog Cafe in Suva and if they have one we may get a tee shirt. I got a tee shirt in Koro that says Koro Paddle Patrol and the design is a skull with a paddle board and two oars. A man named Joe who lives on Koro made the design and he complimented me that I was wearing his tee shirt design. I tried a little bit of snorkling in the pool and it was a lot of fun. I never knew snorkling would be that much fun. My mom was out in the ocean and I tried to go in but it was too cold. Still, I got my feet wet so that makes 6 oceans I have stepped in.
Last night we went on the ferry at 2 am and we passed out on the beds in our cabin! The ferry got to Suva at 11 am. The ferry is called the Lomoviti Princess and we had our own bathroom in our cabin.
One day on Koro I stepped on a toad! I actually jumped a little. I also ate some banana ice cream and it tasted like taffy! There are a lot of bananas in Fiji. There are parrots and parakeets and land crabs. When my mom first saw a land crab, she thought it was a tarantula! She didn’t have her glasses.
The people I met on the island are Joe. He likes to go paddleboarding around the island. He saw some sharks as big as his arm. There is Neil and Hei Wing. Neil had a birthday and we had a nice dinner of roast lamb. The roast lamb was pretty good. I didn't think I would like it but my mind was changed when I tried it. Neil was 54.
Juanco and Samantha have a small boy who is three years old. We made him a toy out of fabric yo yos that my mom made and they were strung together. Juanco is the cook and he is from Argentina and Samantha is from Australia. Samantha teaches diving classes.
Koro island is very quiet except for the roosters and the parrots and the toads. I like how quiet it is. Tukini is Fijian and he helped us with the house where we stayed. He helped us with the solar power and the water supply when the water wouldn’t come out.
I am wondering how the two of you are doing. With love from your grandson James
(hee hee! pretty accurate picture of our holiday, now I think about it!)
September 25, 2012
The Pond gets Honorable Mention at Glimmer Train's contest!
I was very happy to have this flash fiction story noticed by the Glimmer Train staff- they are on my dream list of places to be published. Rather than send this shortie around to publishers, though, I thought I would share it with you.
The Pond
Mother said, you need to try just a little bit harder, and of course I put Janis on the record player and turned the volume up. It was 1972, Janis was two years gone, and I was still mourning. Mother rubbed between her eyes like she had a headache and enrolled me at St. Mary’s.
I took my turtle and went out back to the pond. We’d been in Key West a couple of weeks, and I was already in love with the rank smell, the chaotic tangle of mangrove roots, the rotting slick green leaves that floated on the surface of the pond. My little red-eared turtle was called Janet.
The pond was filled with wild turtles, black water snakes, tiny darting silver fish, strange birds with long legs and eyes like killers. Janet stayed in her plastic bowl, with the plastic palm tree, and we sat on the edge of the pond and watched it all.
I was in trouble with the nuns from the first week at St. Mary’s, mostly for uniform noncompliance. Mother sent me out the door in a pleated pale blue skirt. Where did I get the love beads and the rainbow-striped socks? I was singing Janis is the halls between classes.
The sixth-grade girls stood together, talked about periods and boys. The blood was sticky and nearly black! If you used a tampon, you weren’t a virgin anymore. I couldn’t keep from reaching for that boy who sat in front of me, twisting his red hair between my fingers.
I put some slimy weeds in Janet’s plastic bowl, and she nibbled, walked back and forth until she smelled green and dank. My Key West smelled like the pond. But walk by the old cottages downtown, the roofs nearly buried under the heavy branches of old live oaks, and you smelled Cuban spices burned and smoking in iron skillets, bitter dark coffee. Down on the beach the salty turquoise water was full of sunshine and conch shells with pale pink lips. The bottom would cut your bare feet to ribbons.
My red-haired boy pulled out a pack of Marlboros he’d lifted from his dad’s dresser, and we climbed into the tree next to the playground. The bark was so rough on the back of my thighs I could scarcely breathe. He reached out, touched my bare leg with fingers that smelled like smoke.
The nuns were ready to kick me out. Mother was called, meetings were held, and I sat on a bench outside the office and thought about Janis. When we got home, I picked up Janet and went to the pond.
The wild turtles were tough. They lay in the sun, leaves drying on their knobbly shells, swam in the murky water when they wanted the cool, and the dark. Janet had her front feet on the edge of her plastic bowl, head straining forward. I lifted her up and put her down in the mud. She slid into the water and disappeared, a tiny line of bubbles rising to the surface.
The Pond
Mother said, you need to try just a little bit harder, and of course I put Janis on the record player and turned the volume up. It was 1972, Janis was two years gone, and I was still mourning. Mother rubbed between her eyes like she had a headache and enrolled me at St. Mary’s.
I took my turtle and went out back to the pond. We’d been in Key West a couple of weeks, and I was already in love with the rank smell, the chaotic tangle of mangrove roots, the rotting slick green leaves that floated on the surface of the pond. My little red-eared turtle was called Janet.
The pond was filled with wild turtles, black water snakes, tiny darting silver fish, strange birds with long legs and eyes like killers. Janet stayed in her plastic bowl, with the plastic palm tree, and we sat on the edge of the pond and watched it all.
I was in trouble with the nuns from the first week at St. Mary’s, mostly for uniform noncompliance. Mother sent me out the door in a pleated pale blue skirt. Where did I get the love beads and the rainbow-striped socks? I was singing Janis is the halls between classes.
The sixth-grade girls stood together, talked about periods and boys. The blood was sticky and nearly black! If you used a tampon, you weren’t a virgin anymore. I couldn’t keep from reaching for that boy who sat in front of me, twisting his red hair between my fingers.
I put some slimy weeds in Janet’s plastic bowl, and she nibbled, walked back and forth until she smelled green and dank. My Key West smelled like the pond. But walk by the old cottages downtown, the roofs nearly buried under the heavy branches of old live oaks, and you smelled Cuban spices burned and smoking in iron skillets, bitter dark coffee. Down on the beach the salty turquoise water was full of sunshine and conch shells with pale pink lips. The bottom would cut your bare feet to ribbons.
My red-haired boy pulled out a pack of Marlboros he’d lifted from his dad’s dresser, and we climbed into the tree next to the playground. The bark was so rough on the back of my thighs I could scarcely breathe. He reached out, touched my bare leg with fingers that smelled like smoke.
The nuns were ready to kick me out. Mother was called, meetings were held, and I sat on a bench outside the office and thought about Janis. When we got home, I picked up Janet and went to the pond.
The wild turtles were tough. They lay in the sun, leaves drying on their knobbly shells, swam in the murky water when they wanted the cool, and the dark. Janet had her front feet on the edge of her plastic bowl, head straining forward. I lifted her up and put her down in the mud. She slid into the water and disappeared, a tiny line of bubbles rising to the surface.
September 19, 2012
Soaking it up on Koro Island
Soaking it up on Koro Island
Bula from beautiful Fiji! I’m on Koro Island, and I’ve just come back from swimming in the cold and clear South Pacific. Bobbing, not really swimming; I would swim a few strokes when I got too far from the jetty, but mostly I just bobbed around. No sharks spotted, but lots of coral a long clear blue way down. Joe told me he was out on his paddleboard and some baby sharks swam under the wood, just to keep him company. I’m hoping I can bob around without any baby sharks keeping me company, and so far my wish has been granted.
The ocean has a different flavor from the salt water of the Atlantic. Not sure why- maybe it’s just this small bit that tastes sweet and salty and clean. The air is soft, and when the rains come they are so gentle and quiet you just want to turn your face up to the sky. The one hard rain since I’ve been here was so exciting on the aluminum roof of my bure I sat up against the headboard, hugging the pillow and just listening! Away from the world, weather becomes an event that deserves some attention. I remember when I was a girl being excited by thunderstorms. It’s nice to feel that again.
The island is full of wild parrots and parakeets and some very interesting little bird with a pale blue body and a white head with a small red stripe at the eye. I’ve been meaning to walk down to the resort on the beach and check on this little bird in one of the bird books in the library. So far, I’ve just been keeping my eye on him out the kitchen window. He seems to be keeping an eye on me, as well.
Vito told me about the wild parrots. He said they love to hang around in the mango trees and eat the green mangos when they are still unripe. That’s why you will see so many unripe mangos with a few bites taken below the trees. Just look for the little mangos on the ground, then look up into the tree if you want to see wild parrots.
Vito was walking with me on the path from the beach up to the resort, making sure I did not get lost. Earlier in the week, I was too excited and I set off to walk around the island and I got lost. Tukini, the resort manager, came by in his little truck. He was rushing Vito to the doctor across the island because a large tree branch had fallen and cut his head open. They stopped to pick me up, and Tukini drove me back to the fork where I had made a wrong turn. Now everyone checks on me to make sure I’m not lost.
The wild parrots are bigger than I expected, bigger and more colorful and very loud. They make this strange chuffing sound I’ve never heard before. It almost sounds like a muffled woofing from a dog. I’ve only heard them make this sound when there is a pair in the mango tree, so they are either fighting or making parrot love. They have dive-bombed me a couple of times, but never when Vito was around, so I expect they recognize I’m new here and want to have a little fun.
I’ve been reading Norman Mailer’s book on writing called The Spooky Art. I love that title. He said lots of interesting things, but what really struck me was the idea of soaking it all up into the unconscious. You soak it all up and let it stew. Then you make a contract with your unconscious to write- you say, I’m going to write at 0800, and at that time you sit down and work, and you have access to the experiences your unconscious has soaked up. How cool is that? So I’m busy soaking up all these experiences and will make a contract with myself to write about them later.
In the meantime, Tukini is calling from below. He’s brought the kid back- James managed to fall through a loose board on the bridge. But the damage appears to be minor- More later, and hugs from beautiful Koro
Bula from beautiful Fiji! I’m on Koro Island, and I’ve just come back from swimming in the cold and clear South Pacific. Bobbing, not really swimming; I would swim a few strokes when I got too far from the jetty, but mostly I just bobbed around. No sharks spotted, but lots of coral a long clear blue way down. Joe told me he was out on his paddleboard and some baby sharks swam under the wood, just to keep him company. I’m hoping I can bob around without any baby sharks keeping me company, and so far my wish has been granted.
The ocean has a different flavor from the salt water of the Atlantic. Not sure why- maybe it’s just this small bit that tastes sweet and salty and clean. The air is soft, and when the rains come they are so gentle and quiet you just want to turn your face up to the sky. The one hard rain since I’ve been here was so exciting on the aluminum roof of my bure I sat up against the headboard, hugging the pillow and just listening! Away from the world, weather becomes an event that deserves some attention. I remember when I was a girl being excited by thunderstorms. It’s nice to feel that again.
The island is full of wild parrots and parakeets and some very interesting little bird with a pale blue body and a white head with a small red stripe at the eye. I’ve been meaning to walk down to the resort on the beach and check on this little bird in one of the bird books in the library. So far, I’ve just been keeping my eye on him out the kitchen window. He seems to be keeping an eye on me, as well.
Vito told me about the wild parrots. He said they love to hang around in the mango trees and eat the green mangos when they are still unripe. That’s why you will see so many unripe mangos with a few bites taken below the trees. Just look for the little mangos on the ground, then look up into the tree if you want to see wild parrots.
Vito was walking with me on the path from the beach up to the resort, making sure I did not get lost. Earlier in the week, I was too excited and I set off to walk around the island and I got lost. Tukini, the resort manager, came by in his little truck. He was rushing Vito to the doctor across the island because a large tree branch had fallen and cut his head open. They stopped to pick me up, and Tukini drove me back to the fork where I had made a wrong turn. Now everyone checks on me to make sure I’m not lost.
The wild parrots are bigger than I expected, bigger and more colorful and very loud. They make this strange chuffing sound I’ve never heard before. It almost sounds like a muffled woofing from a dog. I’ve only heard them make this sound when there is a pair in the mango tree, so they are either fighting or making parrot love. They have dive-bombed me a couple of times, but never when Vito was around, so I expect they recognize I’m new here and want to have a little fun.
I’ve been reading Norman Mailer’s book on writing called The Spooky Art. I love that title. He said lots of interesting things, but what really struck me was the idea of soaking it all up into the unconscious. You soak it all up and let it stew. Then you make a contract with your unconscious to write- you say, I’m going to write at 0800, and at that time you sit down and work, and you have access to the experiences your unconscious has soaked up. How cool is that? So I’m busy soaking up all these experiences and will make a contract with myself to write about them later.
In the meantime, Tukini is calling from below. He’s brought the kid back- James managed to fall through a loose board on the bridge. But the damage appears to be minor- More later, and hugs from beautiful Koro
September 7, 2012
Fiji
is a million times better than I hoped, and I hoped big! Hiow does air smell so sweet and clean and warm? Falling over with exhaustion. Very very happy. What a beautiful green and blue paradise.
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