Begin challenging your own assumptions. Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in awhile, or the light won’t come in. — Alan Alda
Windows into the past: Mesa Verde National Park, Colorado. -- Photo by Pat Bean
Posted in Nature, Travel, Uncategorized, Weekly Photo Challenge | Tagged Colorado, mesa verde national park, pat bean, weeklyphotochallenge2011 | 4 Comments »
My Favorite Places: Lake Mayfield
Mayfield Lake in Mossyrock, Washington -- Photo by Pat Bean
“I learned never to empty the well of my writing, but always to stop when there was still something there in the deep part of the well, and let it refill at night from the springs that fed it.” – Ernest Hemingway.
NaNoWriMo Update, 12,512 words.
Very difficult writing today. I kept thinking of all the changes I wanted to do to what I had already written. My first half hour of writing yielded only 10 new words, because I went back and did a bit of editing. Since I always overwrite, a lot of words got chopped. I had to slap my hands to stop it.
Part of the problem getting started today was that I ended writing yesterday with a finished scene and wasn’t quite sure where to go next. I finally asked my main character what she was going to do. She then fixed herself a bowl of soup and took it and the local paper out on her ocean-front deck to read and think. I had already established that she talks her ideas over with the dog “of uncertain lineage” that she inherited when her grandmother died.
I now find in addition to establishing a character chart, I also need a timeline chart. I couldn’t remember this morning whether the murder had occurred three or four days earlier.
But when I finally started writing, it went well. I started writing at 6:15 a.m. and had a little over 2,000 words written before noon. And today I left a place to start for tomorrow.
Posted in Favorite Places, Nature, Travel, Writing | Tagged ernest hemingway, mayfield lake, Mossyrock, nanowrimo2011, postaday2011, Washington, writing | 2 Comments »
Balanced Rock in Arches National Park in Southern Utah was shown in the opening scene of "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade." -- Photo by Pat Bean
My Favorite Places
The Three Gossips at Arches National Park
“What I like in a good author is not what he says, but what he whispers.” – Logan Pearsall Smith
NaNoWriMo Update – 10,313 words
It feels odd to be writing by the seat of my pants, so to speak. While I have a vague, and I do mean vague, plot line in my head, there is no outline. I’m just writing from one scene to the next, filling in all the blanks about the characters’ lives as I go.
I find I’m taking a piece here and a piece there of myself and people I know to bring the imaginary people I’m writing about to life. One of my minor characters, the wife of a more major character, is a university professor at Rice. I was pondering on what to have her teach and came up with English literature, and then thought of the professor at Weber State University who taught a class on Sherlock Holmes, and suddenly that was what she was teaching.
Another example is that I belonged to an informal group of friends in Utah, all uppity old broads like myself. One of the member’s son’s called us the Murder of Crows, and we were so pleased with the name that we adopted it. So suddenly I find that three old broads in the book called themselves The Murder of Crows. A murder, by the way, is what a flock of crows are called.
Perhaps all of this will change when I get past the month and 50,000 words and start rewriting, but pulling these bits from memory is certainly helping the work flow. Just about 2,000 more words today. Whew….
Posted in Favorite Places, Nature, Travel, Writing | Tagged Arches National Park, nanowrimo2011, pat bean, posaday2011, southern utah, writing | 4 Comments »
Hogsback Ridge between Escalante and Boulder on Utah's Highway 12, often called America's most scenic road. -- Photo by Pat Bean
My Favorite Places
Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument landscape -- Photo by Pat Bean
“I would hurl words into this darkness and wait for an echo, and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly, I would send other words to tell, to march, to fight, to create a sense of hunger for life that gnaws in us all.” – Richard Wright
NaNoWriMo Update .. 8,326 words
Sitting down in front of the computer for five straight hours today wasn’t going to happen. I was stiff from two hours of physical therapy yesterday to make my old broad body unstiff, particularly my neck and shoulders.
So I did my writing in bits and spurts. I got up to 2,000 new words by 4 p.m., after starting at 6 a.m. Did I mention I was still in my pajamas?
My main character is going to have a dog, and if there’s anything I know it’s a relationship one can have with a beloved pet. So today I wrote a lot about that, along with planting a first clue for my mystery. I’ve always hated it when you read a mystery and there are either no clues – or no red herrings.
Thankfully today, I had nowhere to go and my daughter’s big house al to myself, well except for three dogs, one cat that needs insulin shots twice and day and three aquariums full of fish.
. It also showed me, however, that I tend to get more done on the days I have to do more. I’m finding this challenge very interesting.
Posted in Favorite Places, Nature, Travel, Uncategorized, Writing | Tagged america's scenic roads, grand staircase-escalante, Highway 12, nanowrimo2011, pat bean, postaday2011, Utah, writing | 4 Comments »
I just spent one morning in Maine's Scarborough Marsh, but it was long enough for me to fall in love with its landscape. -- Photo by Pat Bean
My Favorite Places
It was fall when I discovered the Maine marsh -- Photo by Pat Bean
“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” – Henry Miller
NaNoWriMo Update – 6,268 words
I’m trying not to go back and edit as I go, but old habits are hard to overcome. The red-line that my writing program puts under misspelled words mostly takes care of spelling mishaps and typos, but what I’m finding I’m doing most is skipping words. I see them in my head as I want to write them and the fingers often assume they are already on the page. I’ve always done this, but usually catch the mistake before I move on. You don’t get 1,500-2,500 words written quickly enough this way, however.
My writing is also all over the place with verb tenses. I switch them way too often, and making them all agree is another thing I do while editing as I go. Writing so fast is really getting on my nerves, I must say.
Today was the day the dead body appeared in my story, and a new character suddenly introduced himself. I now think I need a character chart to keep all the names and descriptions of them straight. I found I had to go back to discover the name of the husband of one of the characters. I sometimes have problems keeping names straight when I’m reading the books of other authors. I didn’t know I would suffer the same thing with my own book.
Like yesterday, it took me five hours, with a couple of short breaks, to write 2,500 words.
Posted in Favorite Places, Nature, Travel, Writing | Tagged Maine, mysteries, nonowrimo2011, pat bean, postaday2011, Scarborough Marsh | 5 Comments »
An ideal spot at the RV park where I stayed for gazing out over the water and watching birds on Chincoteague Island. -- Photo by Pat Bean
One of the Assateague horses, a rare black and white, which I saw from a boat. Dogs weren't allowed on Assateague Island. -- Photo by Pat Bean
My Favorite Places
“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent.” John Donne
NaNoWriMo Update – 3,736 words.
I was at the computer at 6 a.m. this morning and got right at it. No checking e-mail, no stalling until I had just about 2,500 words written. It was 11 a.m. when the goal was met.
I always write better and faster in the mornings. In order to overcome my need to check out every fact I adopted the procedure of highlighting anything that needed to be verified or researched (like actually how to you clean a fish you’ve caught) for checking later, perhaps even after the story has been told.
I’m trying to keep the story moving, and already I’m surprised what I’m learning about my characters. Now I need to go stretch my neck and back. Ouch!
How’s everyone else coming along?
Posted in Favorite Places, Nature, Travel, Writing | Tagged Assateague, Chincoteague, islands, nanowrimo2011, novel writing, pat bean, postaday2011 | 1 Comment »
New Hampshire's Franconia Notch Flume Gorge -- Photo by Pat Bean
My Favorite Places: Franconia Notch
Waterfall at the top of the gorge -- Photo by Pat Bean
“How hard it is to escape from places. However carefully one goes they hold you – you leave little bits of yourself fluttering on the fences – like rags and shreds of your very life.” ~Katherine Mansfield
NaNoWriMo Update
Things didn’t quite go as planned today. I didn’t get home from my doctor’s appointment until 11 a.m. And at 1 p.m. I went to physical therapy, which the doctor prescribed for the neck pain I’ve been having. It was almost 4 p.m. before I got home from that.
But, despite not having as much time as I wanted in which to write on this first NaNo day, I got 1,307 words written. Nothing is on my schedule for tomorrow so I plan on doing better.
Meanwhile, I’m hoping my night-time thoughts and dreams will be filling in a few more blanks in my holey story. How’s everybody else out there doing?
Posted in Favorite Hikes, Favorite Places, Nature, Writing | Tagged Franconia Notch, nanowrimo, New Hampshire, pat bean, postaday2011 | 4 Comments »
I took this photo of the train I was riding on as it went about a bend on the journey through Royal Gorge. -- Photo by Pat Bean
My Favorite Places: Royal Gorge
Looking up at the span across the gorge from river level. -- Photo by Pat Bean
“I feel as though I have lived many lives, experienced the heights and depths of each and like the waves of the ocean, never known rest. Throughout the years, I have looked always for the unusual, for the wonderful, for the mysteries at the heart of life. – Leni Riefenstahl
NaNoWriMo Update
Still thinking, with trepidation, about the novel I will start tomorrow. My night-time thoughts solved one problem that’s been worrying me. I came up with a motive for one of the characters to approach my main character.
Looking down on the Arkansas River from the top of Royal Gorge -- Wikipedia photo
It’s a little thing, but it’s part of the opening scene that still exists only in my head. And at least I now feel more confident about that first blank page.
I’m worried, however, because mornings are my best time for writing and I have a doctor’s appointment at 8:30 a.m. tomorrow. The visit has been planned for a month, and since I only have a short time before I’m off on the road again, I have to keep it.
In the past, I’ve let other plans like this keep me from even starting the challenge. So I’m almost glad that I will be facing this simple one on the very first day. It should help me know I can overcome interruptions – just like solving the first travel difficulty in my RV gave me confidence that I could handle anything the road threw at me.
Is this bravado speaking. Yup! But I’m depending on it to help pull me through the next 30 days and 50,000 words.
Posted in Nature, Travel, Writing | Tagged Arkansas River, bravado, Colorado, nanowrimo, pat bean, postaday2011, royal gorge | 6 Comments »
Three things can not be hidden long: The sun, the moon, and the truth.” Buddha
A wide awake cub hidden among the foliage near a half-dozen other cubs and their mammas, all fast asleep in the heat of the noon day sun. --Photo by Kim Perrin
Posted in Nature, Travel, Weekly Photo Challenge | Tagged buddha, lions, pat bean, weekly photo challenge: Hidden | 7 Comments »
Palo Duro Canyon, located south of Amarillo, Texas, is awesome, but travelers don't have a clue until they get to the rim and look down. -- Photo by Pat Bean
My Favorite Places
A landscape carved by water and wind. -- Photo by Pat bean
“Should you shield the canyons from the windstorms you would never see the true beauty of their carvings. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
NaNoWriMo Update
One Day, 14 hours, 20 minutes – and counting down
In a comment I made on a blog this morning – Galen Leeds Photography http://tinyurl.com/3bakmuv – I meant to tell the author to keep crossing “roads” to take pictures. Instead I wrote, and posted before I proofed – keep crossing “words.”
I guess I have NaNoWriMo on the brain. Hopefully that’s a good sign.
I read a quote this morning that inspired me for the coming challenge: “Having a dream to chase is what makes life worth living.” I’m not sure who said it, but it spoke to me. As does Helen Reddy when she tells me I “can do anything.”
What inspires you?
Posted in Favorite Places, Nature, Travel, Writing | Tagged helen reddy, inspiration, nanowrimo, Palo Duro Canyon, pat bean, postaday2011, Texas, writing | 1 Comment »
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“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters.” — Ursula K. Le GuinPat Bean is a writer, avid birder, hiker and passionate nature observer with wanderlust in her soul. She spent nine years living and traveling in a small RV. She now lives in Tucson with Scamp, a rescue who was supposed to be a Schnauzer mix but turned out to be a Siberian Husky-Shih Tzu mix who is as stubborn as his owner, her granddaughter says. She was also a journalist for 37 years, and can be reached at patbean@msn.com
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