Today I woke up huddled under not one, but two Portuguese flannel (heavy weight) blankets, a cotton blanket, a sheet...and my feet were still cold! Just three days ago it was in the 90's with high humidity and we had the AC going full blast. Today we had torrential cold rain and temps in the 50's. Fickle New England weather is wreaking havoc on my RA (rheumatoid arthritis) this year.
So what's a body to do when the weather is on a rollercoaster pattern, one's daughter is trying to buy her first house at age 26, and one's husband comes across a garter snake in the garage near the windshield washer fluid refill jug (essential for clearing the fuzzy coating of golden-green pollen off the car windshield every morning)...sit down and write. It's a cure for everything that ails you, except writer's block. If you have writer's block the cure is to walk away from the computer and practice deep breathing exercises to try to curtail the waves of anxiety and panic that will crash over you like an exuberant tsunami of self doubt...in the past 9 days I've written 87,093 words. That averages out to about 9,677 words per day. I worked my regular full time job four days of those nine days.
A novel is emerging like a snake from an egg. The head looks benign, but it's the tail that could lash out like a whip and pull the legs out from under the reader. be forewarned.
I received a very nice note in today's mail from the daughter of a woman I met at an author's event for a horror writer that I happened to attend. She and I got to talking in the parking lot after the vent. I gave her a copy of Out. We exchanged phone numbers. We talked a few times, met for coffee and in December she "adopted" me as a daughter, extended family. I visited her home earlier in May and had the grand tour of the antique farmhouse she lives in...which gave me ideas for a future story. She has two wonderful daughters of her own. One of them accompanied her to the house on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend. They brought coffee and goodies and we sat at my kitchen table where the writing magic has happened for decades, talked about a variety of things, laughed, patted the cats who were curious about company since we hardly ever have anyone over other than immediate family members. "Mom" went home with three short stories to read, and my "sister" went home with two signed books. Everyone who visits gets a book to take home...that's a house rule. I've pasted the note in my scrapbook, one page after the card I received from a previous co-worker whose husband stopped by the office to chat. I sent her two books via her hubby and she was thrilled that I remembered her and had sent her more books to read. It was nice to receive her card in the mail.
Yesterday, a Baltimore Oriole landed in the tall oak tree just off the back deck while we were eating dinner. What a bright, cheerful orange he was! I definitely need to charge my camera battery because it takes too long to find my cellphone, swipe the screen, tap the camera icon, find the image I want on the screen and then tap the shoot the picture button. In nature, birds don't sit still and pose. He hopped up and over through branches before diving into the arbor vitae hedge. Zero pictures obtained.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go pull on my heavier sweater because I am NOT going to put the heat on even though it's 55 degrees outdoors, 67 degrees indoors. It's only seventeen days to summer, after all!
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