Posted in Weekly Photo Challenge, tagged Dallas, lao tzu, pat bean, postaday2011, thanksgiving square chapel, weekly photo challenge, wonder on November 13, 2011| 4 Comments »
“From wonder into wonder existence opens.” – Lao Tzu
Thanksgiving Square Chapel, Downtown Dallas -- Photo by Pat Bean
“Wonder rather than doubt is the root of knowledge.” – Abraham Heschel
Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.” – Greek Proverb
Wondering is healthy. Broadens the mind. Opens you up to all sorts of stray thoughts and possibilities.” – Charles de Lint.
Posted in Favorite Places, Nature, Travel, Writing, tagged glen canyon, Highway 95, nancy drew. hardy boys, nanowrimo2011, pat bean, postaday2011, recreation areas, southern utah on November 12, 2011| 4 Comments »
The landscape along Highway 95 in the Glen Canyon Recreation Area dwarfs my RV, Gypsy Lee. -- Photo by Pat Bean
My Favorite Places: Glen Canyon
Highway 95 Bridge across the Colorado River in Utah. -- Photo by Pat Bean
“A writer lives, at best, in a state of astonishment. Beneath any feeling he has of the good or evil of the world lies a deeper one of wonder at it all.” — William Sansom
NaNoWriMo Update – 23,643 words
Continuing with the 5 a.m. start. The writing came slow at first but then it picked up momentum. This one scene, where a self-righteous hypocrite and her lover get caught with their pants down, was a joy to write. I had wanted to put the woman in her place and couldn’t figure out how to do it until today.
After it was written, I wanted badly to go back and polish the writing, But I convinced myself that leaving it alone, at least for now, is a good thing. At the end of this challenge, I want to be excited about going back and doing the necessary rewrite.
I am now seriously thinking what I’m writing could be turned into an actual book. It’s a necessary ego trip that keeps me writing. Otherwise I’d have given up after the first week when the doubts started to slip in.
As an old broad who made her living writing for a newspaper for 37 years, I never doubted my ability to write. What I wasn’t confident about were my ability to finish such a lengthy project, and whether I had enough imagination to write fiction. It’s not nearly as easy for me as writing facts. But writing a mystery, which I love to read, has been something I’ve wanted to do ever since I got hooked on Nancy Drew and the Hardy boys.
Thanks NaNoWriMo for challenging me to actually do it. It’s been a long time coming.
Posted in Books, Writing, tagged in flanders fields, john mccrae, Lord Byron, nanowrimore2011, pat bean, postaday2011, prisoner of chillon, veteran's day on November 11, 2011| 4 Comments »
One of the books I loved growing up was a literature textbook that belonged to my mother. She told me her parents had bought it for her after she had flunked her English course so she could study it before she had to take the class over again.
I must have been only about seven years old, but already reading extremely well, when I discovered it. I fell in love with the book, and especially the poetry it contained. I memorized many of the pieces, including the lengthy “Prisoner of Chillon” by Lord Byron. The poem’s chilling closing lingers with me still: “My very chains and I grew friends/So much a long communion tends.”
But my favorite of all the poems, which I also memorized although at the time I understood it less than Byron’s narrative, was “In Flanders Fields.” I simply liked the rhythm and music of the words.
Today I understand it well. Sadly it’s as timely now as it was at the end of World War I, when John McCrae wrote it.
Field of poppies -- Wikipedia photo
In Flanders Fields
In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the dead. Short years ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders Fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders Fields.
NaNoWriMo Update – 21,497 words
Lot of backtracking during my writing today. What time did that restaurant open? What was the name of the Bed and Breakfast on the beach? What was Jeff’s last name? Etc., etc, etc. Thankfully I was able to find what I wanted through a word search.
I added the information I needed to my character/time frame/place-name notes. It would have been nice if I had jotted that information down when I originally wrote it but how was I to know I would need that information again.
I’m learning, however, and that was what this challenge for me is all about.
And among the things I’ve learned is that I work best if I start my writing at 5 a.m., especially since most of the rest of the world – including my daughter and her husband who got back from their cruise yesterday – are still asleep. The secret to doing this is to get to bed early.
And despite my flipping back and forth through what I had already written, today’s writing went speedily, more so than any day. I had my 2,000 words finished by 9 a.m., despite trying to remember and get up every half hour and stretch my neck and back. .
The “Force” was with me today. Hope it’s with all you other NaNos out there, too.
Posted in Favorite Places, Nature, Travel, Writing, tagged arizonia, deserts, elmore leonard, nanowrimo2011, pat bean, postaday2011, tonto basin, writing on November 10, 2011| 2 Comments »
My Favorite Places: Tonto Basin
I love Arizona's Tonto Basin any time of the year, but it's especially colorful in spring. -- Photo by Pat Bean
“I try to leave out the parts that people skip.” Elmore Leonard
NaNoWriMo Update: 19,476 words
I was up and at my computer at 5 a.m. this morning. It’s much easier for me to write before the sun comes up than after it goes down. I’ve also started using a timer set for 30 minutes. When it goes off I get up and move around for at least a couple of minutes, or a bit longer if my neck feels stiff.
I actually love it when the bell jangles while I’m in the middle of a sentence. Such an untimely interruption makes it easier to get back immediately into the writing.
In this way, I’m surviving what past NaNoWriMo survivors say is the second week slump, a time when you’ve gotten to know your characters a bit and maybe don’t like them. I know my first-person character is coming off too bland, while those with supporting roles seem to have personality up their ying-yangs.
One piece of advice I got today from one of the NaNo blogs was that if you didn’t like what was happening “get kooky.” Gotta think about how to do that. I mean not every one of us can write like Janet Evanovich – and we shouldn’t.
I pick my daughter and her husband up at the airport in a little while. I’m worried about how the writing will go when I have people around me again. It’s been great having a big old house to myself, although I miss writing in my RV where I can I look out at the world. When I’m visiting my daughter in Dallas, I have no place to hookup. It’s been the only place I haven’t slept in my own bed in seven years.
But sleeping in my own bed will happen again when I change home sites next week. I’ll headed to my son’s place in Harker Heights, and he has a great set up for my RV.
The downside there, however, is that I’m going to have to steel myself away from early morning games of Settlers of Catan with a daughter-in-law. She and I are both addicted to this board game, and when I visit we play it a lot. I’ve already warned her I have to do NaNo first.
Posted in Books, Favorite Places, Lakes, Nature, Travel, Writing, tagged Alabama, d.l. dcotorow, Lake Claiborne, nanowrimo2011, pat bean, postaday2011, writing on November 10, 2011| 5 Comments »
My Favorite Places: Lake Claiborne
Lake Claiborne, Alabama, in the fall. -- Photo by Pat Bean
“Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go.: –E.L. Doctorow
NaNoWriMo Update – 17,309 words
Only about 1,500 words today, but they felt like good, words and I feel I’m back on track with places to go in my book. A couple of new plot lines finally hit my brain cells. .
I also don’t feel too bad about the fewer words because I had several errands to run and two hours of physical therapy for my neck. I also did an extra blog to promote Rana DiOrino’s “What Does It Mean to Be Safe,” a children’s picture book, but one that has good advice for adults as well.
The other reality I’m facing is the fact that I can’t sit and sit in front of the computer as I want. It’s most likely what got my neck so horribly stiff in the first place. I need to get up and move about every 30 minutes.
So what I’m now doing is writing my book in short scenes, and then taking a short break. I walk the dog, put a load of clothes in the washer, do my neck and shoulder exercises or whatever. The key is to get right back to the computer and go into the next scene. It helps if I get up in the middle of a sentence so I can get right back into it. A timer’s helping me do that.
I’m also trying to convince myself that I really can write after the sun goes down. I don’t like it, but I can see it’s going to have to happen if I’m to meet the 50,000 word goal without screwing up my neck any more than I already have. Can I say my favorite “S” word right now?
Posted in Books, Lakes, Nature, Travel, tagged children's books, kim bassinger, postaday2011, Rana DiOrio, safety, Sandra Salsbury on November 9, 2011| 16 Comments »
“I feel there are two people inside me – me and my intuition. If I go against her, she’ll screw me every time, and if I follow her, we get along quite nicely.” – Kim Bassinger
When a beautiful landscape is also a safe place for Maggie and me to park Gypsy Lee, life couldn't be better. The Idaho state park campground above was lighted, patroled nightly and located by a scenic lake. -- Photo by Pat Bean
Travels With Maggie
When you’re an old broad who lives in an RV and often doesn’t know where she’s going to spend the night, safety is an issue. There are just too many sunrises and sunsets I still want to see.
I thought about this seven years ago when I sold my Utah home, and disposed of almost all my possessions and became a nomad.
My rules for staying safe on the road began with driving only during daylight hours and making sure I had a safe berth for the night. I quickly realized most inexpensive Forest Service campgrounds, where I thought I would be staying, didn’t quite fit that bill. They were a little bit too lonely and isolated for my comfort.
Written by Rana DiOrio and illustrated by Sandra Salsbury
National parks, state parks and decent commercial parks, while a bit more expensive, have become the mainstay for my nightly, weekly or even monthly stays, as this past summer when I volunteered as a campground host at an Idaho state park.
For additional safety, I have a guardian travel angel, a daughter-in-law who always knows the route I’m traveling when I’m on the road, and with whom I check in with once a day. And when I lock the doors of my 22-foot RV, I actually feel safer than if I were living in a home where I couldn’t see all the doors and windows. For added measure, my canine travel companion, Maggie, makes an excellent alarm system. She barks when anyone comes within about 30 feet of our home on wheels.
I wish when I was younger, and a mom of five kids, I could have felt as secure about their safety as I do today about mine. I was fortunate that my offspring escaped all the pitfalls of speeding cars, unsupervised creek swimming, stranger encounters and teenage foolishness to become adults who now worry about the safety of their children.
I do believe their job is even harder than it was for me, and more complicated for their children than it was for them. Rana DiOrio, author of the award-winning “ What Does It Mean To Be …” children’s book series tackles this situation in her latest offering” “What Does It Mean To Be Safe?”
It’s a book I want my grandchildren and great grand-children to read. One of the best messages of the book, which is delightfully illustrated by Sandra Salsbury, is that kids should follow their inner voices, that their own intuition will tell them when they are not in a safe situation.
I found this interesting because it was my own inner voice that told me I would be safer while on the road if I traveled only when the sun was out and spent my nights where there were people and lights.
I also remember times as a young child when my intuition told me never to be caught alone with a distant male relative. As an adult, I realized how on target my inner voice had been when I was only eight years old.
While designed for children, Rana’s book has a message even for us grownups.
Readers can buy her book by going to: http://shop.littlepicklepress.com/what-does-it-mean-to-be-safe-p33.aspx Enter the coupon code BBTSAFE at check-out to get free shipping and a free poster to go with the book.
Posted in Favorite Places, Nature, Travel, Writing, tagged doubts, edvard munch, Epcot, imagination, nanowrimo2011, pat bean, postaday2011, the scream on November 8, 2011| 4 Comments »
It's hard to improve on Mother Nature, but Epcot sure gives it a shot. -- Photo by Pat Bean
My Favorite Places
Epcot's garden depiction of Peter Pan. I could do with a little of J.M. Barrie's imagination right now. -- Photo by Pat Bean
“The story I am writing exists, written in absolutely perfect fashion, some place, in the air. All I must do is find it, and copy it.” – Jules Renard, “Diary,” February 1895
NaNoWriMo Update – 15,845 words.
Another slow going day. I’m on target to meet the 50,000 word goal, but because of commitments later in the month I had hoped to be about 1,700 words farther along than I am.
I got one difficult scene worked out today, which I had been thinking about for two days. And I went back and filled in a few holes. But I had to keep slapping my hands to keep from doing anything but minor editing to make everything agree.
It’s interesting in writing such a long figment of my imagination that I can come up with what I think is a brilliant idea, but then it contradicts something I wrote earlier. It was much easier when I wrote a long journalistic series. I had everything outlined before I started, That’s because facts are facts, and not something to be played around with, I didn’t have to remember whether my main character had blue or green eyes, and whether another character was in her 70s or her 80s.
I have to tell you that I have written one novel, also a mystery, which took me two years. I finished it, but it had holes and I never went back and fixed them. A hard copy of it still sits in a file folder. The biggest problem with that first book was that my ending lacked drama. So already I’m worrying how to put the drama in the ending of the one I’m writing now.
Or perhaps my biggest problem is that I’ve started questioning myself.
Is my book good enough? Is this what I really want to be doing? Can I continue? Is what I’ve already written just horse pucky? I think it’s these things that have slowed me down the past two days.
I feel like Edvard Munch’s woman in “The Scream.”
Posted in Favorite Places, Nature, Travel, Writing, tagged anne lamott, Arkansas, nanowrimo2011, pat bean, postaday2011, White Oak Lake, writing on November 7, 2011| 7 Comments »
My Favorite Places: White Oak Lake
You can travel far to see beautiful landscapes, or you can stay close to home. White Oak Lake, shown above, was only 20 miles from my daughter's home in Camden, Arkansas. What's in your backyard? -- Photo by Pat Bean
“We are a species that needs and wants to understand who we are. Sheep lice do not seem to share this longing, which is one reason why they write so little.” – Anne LaMott
NaNoWriMo Update … 14,307 words
Still have 700 more words to write today to meet my goal. But I’m currently stuck, mostly because my mind just doesn’t seem to be in to it today. I have to go to physical therapy for my neck in a short while, and so I thought I would go ahead and post my blog and hope I can come up with some ideas while the therapist is twisting my body around.
My book has taken a few odd turns I wasn’t planning on. I guess that’s what happens when you don’t work from an outline. Is this good or bad. Who knows?
The fun part of today’s writing, at least what I’ve done so far, is writing about endangered Ridley sea turtles which nest on the Texas Gulf Coast. It just so happens that one laid a nest of eggs in my mythical town of Sandy Shoes.
OK. I’m going to post this little bit of NaNoWriMo nonsense – it truly feels like that because my fingers are tongue-tied – so I can go back and try to write 700 more words before the day is over. Is there anyone else out there struggling like me today.
Posted in Favorite Places, Nature, Travel, Writing, tagged ernest hemingway, mayfield lake, Mossyrock, nanowrimo2011, postaday2011, Washington, writing on November 6, 2011| 2 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, Uncategorized, Writing, tagged america's scenic roads, grand staircase-escalante, Highway 12, nanowrimo2011, pat bean, postaday2011, Utah, writing on November 4, 2011| 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.
“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters.” — Ursula K. Le Guin
Pat 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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