Shadows and Light

This morning I have the house to myself, and I'm working on a story set on Tau Ceti.  It really needs to be a character-driven plot, since it's primarily a relationship story (instead of being a milieu, mystery, or status-quo story).  I wrote the original Very Rough Draft a few months ago, and I'm seeing the parts where I started to lapse into "Tolkien Hiking Porn for Space Station Tech Enthusiasts."  The mantra to repeat has been, "Advance the plot, reveal character."

On a completely different note, here's some photos from last weekend, when it was much less foggy.


I'd recently seen some back-lit photos of plants Pat Kight did, so during the Mt. Pisgah hike I was on the lookout for light shining through leaves.

 I like the contrast between the pale lime lichen and the orange leaves.

 Western Oregon trees have to support a lot of lichen.

 Some times the lichen is so thick, it's hard to know where a tree ends and the lichen begins.

 The sun came out about a third of the way through our hike.  The earlier rain gave everything a silvered sheen.  My camera is not capturing the brilliant greens everywhere.

The only macro-lens shot I took.  I would have taken more, but that would have required a hike about six hours long instead of two.

Power Lines and Briars

 The other day as we were hiking Mt Pisgah, we came across the power lines.  They dominate the trail, and this time around we were in the right place at the right time so that the lines gleamed golden with sunlight.

The combination of looking through the viewfinder, which doesn't use the same optics as the camera lens (I didn't want to drain batteries with the LCD screen) and trying to shade the lens with my hand to cut down on sun flare meant that I took a lot of shots in the hope that one or two might work.

There were briers growing along the trail, and some of the branches framed the lines -- it seemed like a cool compare-and-contrast and I liked the idea of thorns and high voltage lines. 

Writing:  About an hour's worth of re-working and tweaking a scene.

Mt. Pisgah Trees

The other day we took a hike on Mt. Pisgah.  For once I wore too many layers.  It was about 50F out, and we managed to miss getting rained on.  I think it's been something like two years since I've been last (I'll have to look that one up).

I like taking pictures of the trees, and as we're only about a month after the Winter Solstice, most of the afternoon is filled with magic light.  Also, although we missed getting rained on, there was a lot of mist in the air, which made photos gauzy and almost too bright at the same time.

Early on on the hike it's easy to point and click at every tree.  In any case, I managed to not take too many of the same sorts of pictures I always take (and not slow the hike down too much).

We went through the Incense Cedar trail first, then worked out way up.  I like walking through the cedar grove because the lighting is dramatic and mysterious.

Three trees growing together near their bases looked like conspiring spirits, and as I snapped their photo, I recalled the line from MacBeth:  "The weird sisters, hand-in-hand / posters of the sea and land..."

Writing:  I'm re-working a short science fiction story which was originally a photo prompt story with spooky toy animals.  Got about forty-five minute's worth on it this morning.  I'm hoping to get it into Queers Destroy Science Fiction, and it needs a stronger voice.

Working out:  Wednesday (a week since I last went to the gym) I managed to keep the cal/hour at about 770, and got 180 calories in about 16 minutes (which apparently is good).  I was trying to think about the science fiction story, but it was difficult to work out what I wanted to do and keep my rate up.   I managed to get in a full routine with the free weights (dumbbells, pec flies, weighted lunge, lat pull, triceps pull, and two other free-weight things I don't know the names of...)

Bridge Arches

The Willamette River runs along the north part of Eugene (and the East part of Springfield).  There's a new(ish) bridge over it, which Mark says will be the one that's safe to cross after The Big Earthquake.  I just like the way the arches look together.

The underside looked like an accordion.  

The forces on the bridge arches and spans must be interesting because the road above curves a bit at one end.

Also, it occurs to me that this is a typical grey Oregon January day.  

What surprised us (and which shouldn't have) was how many encampments we saw on the opposite (South) shore between the river and the train tracks.  

Tree and Wires

Last week we went for a walk along the Willamette River, near where I-5 crosses over it.  I managed to notice some broadcast antenna guy lines framing a tree.  It was so arty it demanded I take a photo, so I did.

In honor of the New Moon, I received two story rejections in about five hours.  Thank you, universe.   I suppose since I send out stories in batches, it's not too surprising that I receive rejection letters in batches, too.   It wouldn't be so bad if only all my rejection letters didn't start with "Dear John."  Oh -- wait...

Journal: Rowing Meditation

Monday Workout:  180 calories --I think -- in 16 minutes on the rowing machine.  I'm finding that it helps to imagine that I am rowing a serpent-headed long boat across a wide river or lake under the full silver moon.  650 cal / hour.  There's an older priest, craggy and dark, in the bow of the boat, holding a crescent tipped staff.   703 cal / hour.  He has a full robe engulfing him, with jagged navy and turquoise waves -- like the glyph for Aquarius or the hieroglyph for the Nile -- rippling along the cuffs of the robe's sleeves.  768 cal / hour.  And the ripples of his sleeves turn into the ripples of the boat gliding through the water.  And the boat is a snake, undulating through the water, its body sending waves waking back in widening V's.  812 cal / hour.  And to ease the ache in my back I imagine the snake straightens up my spine and reaches for the moon above me.  886 cal /hour.  And my legs are twinned snakes.  And I'm rowing, the priest in the boat in front of me, his staff leaning against his shoulder, the crescent tip dark against the silvery full moon.  The moon sliding away from the fullness it had hours ago and closer to the first new moon of Winter, weeks away.

And then someone walks by me or the house-flipping show on the TV turns into a dance commercial and I'm aware of my ungloved hands (I left my gym gloves at home) on the plastic grip of the rowing machine and I'm trying not to think too hard about my breath, or I'll mess it up.  I end my rowing session with 45 seconds around 1000 cal / hour.  

I did my usual free-weight routine, with some extra stretches for my back, which has been bothering me ever since my trampoline-fest (Wonder Woman!  Wonder Woman!) two weeks ago.

Writing:  Mostly critiquing, editing, and trying to get a handle on my inventory of stories that need to be sent out and manuscripts in need of finishing or post-critique polishing.