What Did It Say?

Hello!

Yeah, I missed my WIPpet last week (found out later it was also the last day of ROW80 check-ins for Round2, so missed that deadline too and posted my EoR Assessment on Sunday). No regrets though. It was our wedding anniversary (14 years!), and it was family time.
Still, I like the WIPpet as a bloghop (I like the people here a lot), and I missed it terribly when I stopped posting over the winter.  Thing was, once I missed a week, I felt bad for doing so, and I moped instead of returning.

This time, I’m just jumping back in.  Everyone misses a week here and there.

Now on to today’s post: since I’m posting this late, on the 30th, I’m giving you five sentences.  The day divided by the month…  30/6=5

This snippet follows directly on the heels of my last WIPpet.  I don’t know if it helps answer the question I asked in the last piece, but…  it may help.  It was really interesting reading what thought about the character in question.

Of course, some “bruises” aren’t caused by violence.  😉

Atyr blinked. That was certainly a description of Val’s brother she hadn’t heard before. Was the awkward gentleness she and Riia discussed only because he’d cared out of fear before?

And, if so, what did it say about last night, his reticence his restraint, his coldness today?

Alanii was nodding astutely. “I’m not going to get between you and your master, Atyriia.”

“He’s not my master.” To her own ears her voice sounded weak. She forged on. “It was just realizing how bad Val was. We needed comfort, Alanii, and there was only each other. It was just mutual comfort.”

Alanii looked over his expression now thoughtful. “That was rather intimate comfort.”

Enjoyed that?  Then head over to the WIPpet linky and visit some our other awesome members. A toast to Emily Witt for keeping this little dance of ours going each week when some of us (*hangs head*) can barely remember what day it is most of the time.

Nothing to See Here

Literally…

I’m posting today to do my final check-in for the ROWnd, but I have very little to say of show beyond that.  There are a lot of pictures on the camera(s—I used the iPhone as much or more than the Canon this week), but they need processing (pictures on the Canon are all in RAW form and need to be converted to something the web can use; the iPhone pictures are… questionable).

Forward through the Narrows

Remember way back when we were just happy to capture a picture that showed the moment?  It didn’t always have to be framed right.  Who cared if the colors were a bit off, over-exposed, etc?

I kind of miss those days.

Of course, when one considers some of my iPhone shots, that’s what one would think was the case.

So since this is about my ROW80 progress and assessment,

let’s do this:

• Goal (#1): working through three chapters weekly of James Scott Bell’s Plot & Structure (including exercises)
• Progress: not much; this past week was our anniversary week and I took some time off from goals; read some at the Writers in the Storm and Jami Gold’s neat set of posts on Unlikable Characters
• EoROWnd Thoughts: a “failure” but also a success— it encouraged regular exploration of writing-related things.  Next ROWnd, will rewrite and adjust accordingly
• Goal: catching up in my local critique group (including submitting something this week)
• Progress:  no change—I’ve done first reads on the two pieces I have to review and have a piece waiting for commentary in the queue
• EoROWnd Thoughts: the group pretty much dies down to a dull crawl during WriMo’s; will rewrite goal to reflect this
• Goal: typing two pages a day of old notebooks in
• Progress: so-so progress for this past week
• EoROWnd Thoughts: this goal has been wonderful for me—instead of filling notebook after notebook of pages that just sit in a stack beside my desk (or worse, scattered about the house), I am now making a second, electronic copy that can sit about the various computers in the house 😉 ; seriously though, just the act of typing these old thoughts and pieces in has provided so many story insights and new perspectives on old ideas.  Definitely keeping this!
• Goal: (VIG) Write new words daily! (the Five Sentences thingie)
• Progress:  a pretty dead week so far, but then I’d planned for this week to be off; I think it bothers me more because this slow week followed right on the heels of last week’s grim progress and emotional backlash.
• EoROWnd Thoughts: even though I know it’s good for my writer’s soul to write everyday, I still struggle with setting aside that emotional space to do some handwritten words; thing is, I also KNOW how much better I feel after doing it.  Keeping this goal and amending it to note it as a handwriting piece as well.
• Added Goal: something creative every day
• Progress: not so good—have been feeling creatively drained
• EoROWnd Thoughts: I need to work on this; I feel better when I play with creative projects, but the key thing is to play.  So having it as goal seems counter-intuitive, but if I don’t, I find myself falling into a slump of weeks and months of just ‘bleh!’ I don’t want that either; keeping this goal, but seeking a better balance
• Not a Goal but Progress Anyway: continued progress  my languages (except Spanish and Russian… dropped the ball on these again)
• EoROWnd Thoughts: will be adding this as a goal next ROWnd, though without any Russian or Spanish; the language of the moment is Latin, which the Boodle and I are working on together in 5min bits daily.  Just pronouncing the language has been fun for us

So here is my post, a bit late.  Just wasn’t here on Wednesday.  But Wednesday came with hibachi and an onion volcano, Thursday came with a cruise on Lake George, Friday was just us as a family time…so I’m totally unapologetic.

On our way out

We won’t talk about Saturday.

Delays and Considerations

After last Wednesday, I needed to step back and slow down a bit.  For the first few days, I did a lot of busy work, just to keep my mind off things, knowing that my creative moments would be filled with thoughts of kitties and loss.  I’m one of those people who rushes into the “make all the arrangements” side of grieving, because to stop and feel that soon, that close to a death of a loved one is too hard.

Let time do its part and soften the edges some.  Let me accept that s/he isn’t around anymore to see, spend time with…  Let the change in presence feel more gradual.

Though he wasn’t referring to grieving per se in his essay Common Sense, Thomas Paine was spot on when he stated:

But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason.

Change is inevitable and vital, but when forced to face it head-on, many of us balk.  We revert to old patterns.  We resist or deny.

I took pictures.

Not pictures of the sweet Mrrp, but of flowers.  When I started trying to develop some real photography skills, I worked mostly with flowers.  They were more agreeable to standing still for extended periods of time while I tweaked ISO settings and adjusted my white balance than my son or wildlife tended to be.

I used my old iPhone because getting out the Canon and kit just seemed to be too much fuss.  These pictures are not high art.  Just a moment captured, an attempt to slightly immortalize a thing of beauty that dwindles all too fast…

Exactly the type of thing that one needs to do at times like these.

So here goes:

Looking down into a Poem of Ecstasy iris

And though definitely less flashy, these classic “Great Lakes” irises have the most amazing fragrance. This page compares it to magnolias. I find them closer to a slightly spicy root beer float.

In the shadow and reddish hues of the tri-color birch, this blue beauty seems almost purple

I love irises. I think I could easily make a yard full of them. These and a carpet of creeping thyme and clover instead of grass…

My ROW80 Check-in and Assessment

Normally I would post a list of my goals.  Being so close to the end of the ROWnd, it seems all the more necessary to consider all my progress (and failures) so more consideration toward next ROWnds plans might be made.

Screw consideration…

I’m writing.  Since Wednesday, my daily total plummeted (I’m squeaking out my 750words a day, but little more) from often over 2500 to around 800.  I’ve only done my Five (handwritten) Sentences twice.  I typed in two pages for the first time last night instead of writing this post.

I’ve puddled in my languages, read books, and played dumb flash games.

And I showed up and put in my time for my JuNoWriMo sprints, but was too distracted to get words of my own most days.  I’m not sure now if it’s a good thing that I have most of this week off (our wedding anniversary is Wednesday, and so I asked for some family time)—as much as the distractions slowed me down, they also kept me involved in writing and people.

It’s not like this December and January where I drifted out of touch with the whole world because there was so much loss to deal with.  Love or not, Mr. Kitty was a cat, and as an outdoor, mostly still feral animal, I always knew he would not only die eventually but likely sooner because of his life.  But I also knew he was happier with his life as it was (except in the winter…  he’d have liked to have stayed inside during the winter) than deal with the other occupants of our house beyond me.

So…  there it is, a day late, but here.