Still Life with Sky

I forced myself to get up this morning to write.  So far all I've done is make tea and look at the pre-dawn Moon, Jupiter, Sirius and Orion.  In the intervening period, the sky has grown lighter and now all I can find are the Moon and Jupiter (and Sirius if I look where I know it was a few minutes ago.

This has been the week for weddings.  Last weekend my cousin Molly got married in a Washington State Park.  This weekend my other cousin Kevin gets married in his family's vineyard.  

Now Jupiter is looking like Sirius did a half hour ago, and Sirius is a hidden blue spark twinkling above the power lines.  The Moon is a brighish sliver, which was blueish a moment ago, ad the Old Moon in Her Arms has blendied in with the pastel sky.  

The quality of the morning isn't silence, it's the small sounds in the distance.  Before the crows started calling, and the neighbor's hen decided she wanted to sound like a guy.  The whisper of semi-truck tires on the thoroughfare.  The distant thunder of a car engine.  A screen door opening, then closing.  The throb of the box fan in the house, and the flap of feathered wings.  

The sun hasn't rissen, yet; but the light in the sky jumped a notch and chased away any purples lingering in the dawn's pastels.  Now Jupiter is the hidden spark, and Sirius is an optical illusion.  

And now the birds are quiet, and the road noises are quite, and the only thing I can hear out on the deck is the quiet tap-tappnig of my keyboard and the rumble of the boxfan and 'fridge.  Surprisingly, no freight train has sounded its whistle.

I can't see -- no, wait, there's Jupiter, doing Sirius's optical illusion trick now that Sirius is done with it.  The Moon looks warmer, and there's a red tint coming up over the houses to the east.    

There isn't a cloud in the sky. I think today is going to be very warm.  

Hit the Deck

We're getting ready to actually build a deck.  The deck has been a bit of a travail for us.  We were going to have a contractor do it, but that didn't go so well.  The first contractor came out once, then never returned our messages.  The second contractor came out, and each successive estimate for a simple twelve-foot-by-sixteen-foot deck became progressively larger.  The third contractor seemed cool; we put down half the bid so he could buy materials, and then we got an e-mail saying that he had fled the state for the safety of his family and that we could sue his bond.

So, we're gearing up for a week-long project that would take a professional somethnig like two days to do.  I think we'll have to call the deck "Swamp Castle."  

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On the writing front, there've been a few cases of life intervening -- whenever there's a change in schedule, my writing routine gets thrown for a loop.  I've been doing some editing, but not much creative writing.  I've been making up for that by getting back into the swing of submitting stories.   

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Speaking of routines, on the excercise front, I need to start a routine.  I've got the equipment, so I don't have that excuse.  

Spring Update

I was doing so well this morning -- I managed to wake up before 6 AM, make some tea, and finish up a critique. Then I went to The Day Jobbe. This afternoon isn't going so well -- once again between little errands and lunch, I'm finding myself with little chunks of time that are akward. Somewhere between the phone ringing so a recording could try to sell me something and Scrivener suggesting a software upgrade, I realized that I wasn't going to get much done in the way of writing.

Last week I put the finishing touches on a short story that I'd like to send to Sword and Sorceress. It would be so cool to be in S&S. I guess we'll see. I'm resisting the urge to fiddle with the story, but I'll put it away for a bit and re-read it a few weeks before S&S opens and see if I like it as much as I do now.

The current short story I'm working on has been an off-again, on-again affair. I'm a little embarrassed by how long I've had it sitting around. I guess it's not that long a time, and I have gone on to some other projects. Still, there is a little voice in my head reminding me that a better practice would be to work on one thing at a time and finish projects once I start them.

In other writing news, I'm excited to be attending a Clarion one-day workshop in the middle of April. It's focusing on character development. I have about three stock characters that I seem to be re-writing (one who keeps showing up in my published stories), and I'd like to be able to write a variety. I tend to be strong in world-building, language, and in interesting ideas, but my characters don't seem to be as well fleshed out.

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In other news, we hope to be adding a deck to the side of our house.

Last year we replaced a large window with a sliding glass door and spent the summer bouncing out of the house onto a small round trampoline. And into the house off of the trampoline. And in once case bouncing into the screen door instead of into the house.

We're looking forward to the deck. It will make going into the backyard easier--currently we have to troupe through the garage--and it will be nice to have an "extra" room.