Category Archives: Writing

Writing

The Groove

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Samhain                                                                Thanksgiving Moon

Usually I break up my day into chunks:  writing, translating, learn something new. Right now that means Missing, version 5.0, Ovid: Lycaon’s story and Dramatica, the writing software. After that I work out, eat supper, watch some TV, usually a British detective show these days and, following Kate’s going to bed, I read.  During the growing season I might plant or tend the bees, do something with the fruit trees, check how plants have grown, spray or put down a soil drench in the Ag Labs program.  And there’s always the garage.

Today was different.  I got into Missing and found a groove, a revisionary groove.  It kept lighting up the aha board in my head, so I followed it, working longer than normal at writing, in fact, working the whole day.  That’s usually hard to do, makes my head ache after a while, but not today.  No idea why.  Still, I’ll take it.  I’m getting closer to the end of this fifth revision.  I want to finish it before the first of December.

Asia, Cooking, Tea, Writing

Tea in the Mail

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Samhain                                                         Thanksgiving Moon

A short morning since I slept in till 8:30.  Not usual.  I usually get up between 7:00 and funincular10007:30 am after a bed-time of 11:30.  Last night I was up until 11:50.  Not sure why I needed the sleep, but I did.  So, I’m alert.  That’s good.

An hour plus working on Missing.  I described Hilgo, a harbor town in the realm of the Holly King.  I used memories of Valparaiso, Chile, (see my photo) giving Hilgo a bi-level appearance with a large wharf.

Got my first shipment of teas from Verdant Tea, a 3 oz. a month club that sends out seasonally apt teas in 1 oz. increments.  They also include brewing instructions.  Since I spend so much time at the computer, the gong fu cha method of brewing works very well.  Today I got a black, and two oolongs along with information about the farmer and their operation for each of them.  All Chinese.

The first one I’m going to try is Qilan Wuyi Oolong.  This picture is a tea farm in the Wuyi mountains, famous in Chinese landscape paintings.

Now I’m back after the nap, ready to hit the Ovid.

Art and Culture, Bees, Garden, Latin, Translating Metamorphoses, Writing

Upset the Apple Tree

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Samhain                                                  Thanksgiving Moon

After the heavy snow a week or so ago, I looked out and saw that the bee hive had snow IMAG0929and some leaves on its top.  Odd, I thought, but didn’t go out to investigate.  Our orchard, where the bee hive is, is visible from our kitchen.

Today I went out to hitch up the cardboard sleeve which had slid down to the ground and attach it firmly for the winter.  That snow and some leaves on the bee hive was one of of our apple trees.  It had tipped over from the weight of the snow and landed on the bees.

(It was the tree beyond the bee hive in this picture.)

I cranked it back to vertical, tied it off to the fence with some plastic coated dog leads and realized it would require some more soil and some compacting before the snow flies, probably this week.

The bees now have their winter protection.  The garage is on the way toward reorganization, too.  I spent an hour and a half or so doing this and that, glad to get out of the chair, even though it is a Miller Aeron.

More Latin later.  Translating Lycaon from the Latin while I push the story through different paces in Dramatica.  That’s fun.

I also started reading Robert Silliman’s Alphabet.  He’s a language poet and this is a series of riffs beginning with each of the letters of the alphabet.  It’s a very big book.

(Zeus and Lycaon in Wedgewood)

 

Writing

Writing

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Samhain                                                 Thanksgiving Moon

Worked a bit more in Dramatica this morning, piecing together a story about Lycaon and his encounter with Zeus from Book I of the Metamorphoses.  Using Dramatica has already given me a new insight into the story itself and using it I have a couple of intriguing alternative tellings part way structured.

After that I worked on Missing, adding some character development and altering a character back into a Norse god.  This whole writing process, all of it, is fun.  Well, mostly fun.

Right now I’m going outside to rejigger the bee colonies cardboard sleeve which has slouched over the last few weeks and then I’m going to some work in the garage.  Later, more Latin.

Weather +Climate, Writing

Planning. Oh, Yeah.

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Samhain                                                                  Thanksgiving Moon

Yesterday I wandered into new territory with Dramatica Pro, a software program aid to writing fiction.  It will help me do the kind of advanced planning that my work almost never gets: character development, plot sequencing, character roles, key scenes, creating throughlines and how characters and action play off against them.

Still in the midst of learning it, will take a while.  It will take the spot of the MOOCs as my current learning experience.

I like these gray, rainy days but the brilliant flash of lightning and the roll of thunder yesterday afternoon brought a bit of seasonal displacement in its trail.

Faith and Spirituality, Great Wheel, Holidays, Humanities, Latin, Poetry, Translating Metamorphoses, Weather +Climate, Writing

Everything You Need

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Samhain                                                                                                         Thanksgiving Moon

“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.”
Cicero

I’m set.  The library surrounds me as I write this and the garden is two weeks into its winter slumber.  Cicero and I agree about life’s necessities, books and a place to grow food and flowers.  Between them they service the body and the mind.

It’s a dull, grey November day. Rain dribbles out of the sky, unwilling to commit.  The temperature remains in a warmer trend, 45 today, a trend our weather forecaster says will remain until early December.  I hope so since we’re headed out across the plains a week from tomorrow, exposing ourselves to the wind driven weather coming down, with no topographical resistance, from the Arctic.

Finishing up ModPo and getting off the Latin plateau I had inhabited for many weeks has left me in a satisfied Holiseason state of mind.  Before them Modern and Post Modern ended and the garden got put to bed, the Samhain bonfire held.  So this is a time of endings, as Samhain celebrates, and festival season beginnings.  The unusual confluence of Hanukkah and Thanksgiving means the whole last week of November will be celebratory. In December then we can focus on Yule, the Winter Solstice and the pagan side of Christmas.

In the coming weeks I look forward to finishing Missing’s 5th revision and getting it off to the copy editor, learning Dramatic Pro and using it as I develop Loki’s Children while I continue to work in the new “in” the Latin style that Greg pushed me towards.  This will also be a time when I consolidate my understanding of the Modern and the Post Modern and do some more writing around that, especially as it changes and informs my Reimagining My Faith project.

Reading poetry more regularly will also be part of the next few weeks, too.  I want to continue my immersion in poetry.  One of the ModPo teaching assistants, Amaris Cuchanski, said poetry is the leading edge of consciousness and I believe she’s right.

 

Dogs, Latin, MOOCS, Poetry, Translating Metamorphoses, Writing

Thank God It’s Frida

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Samhain                                                        Thanksgiving Moon

Latin with Greg this morning.  I felt like I’d made good progress with my work, but in doing the translating with him, I hit a snag.  There was a long sentence, six verses in length, with a complicated structure, hinging on a definition of a verb that was, Greg said, esoteric.  Getting that one out of whack made the entire six verses difficult, entangled. Just when I began to feel incompetent (not a feeling I enjoy), Greg pushed us further into the translation.

Once we got out of that briar patch my work improved.  “Perfect.  You’ve got it!”  “It was just that complex sentence and ferunt (the verb in question) that messed you up.  You kept at it.  That’s the key.”

“Oh, tenacity I have.  I’ve got too much time in this to give up now.”

Kate’s away at a continuing medical education event on pain.  After Greg and I finished I fed the dogs, made lunch and took a nap.  Gertie, who rehurt her leg, came in and snuggled up next to me.  This afternoon she’s moving much better.  Good to see since she’s been down for a few days.

Finished up ModPo with assessments of four other student’s essays and watched a beginning video on Dramatica Pro, the new writing software I purchased.  I plan to use it to build Loki’s Children, but before that I have to learn how to use it.

With Latin on a steady course and ModPo finished, I’ve just got Missing and Ovid to occupy my days.  And they’re plenty.  With, of course, learning how to use Dramatica.

 

 

Friends, Latin, MOOCS, Poetry, Translating Metamorphoses, Writing

Education for Everyone

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Samhain                                                              Thanksgiving Moon

Back from sheepshead.  The goddess let up and gave me some good cards tonight, one very good hand in particular.  A roll of the dice for Fortuna.

Finished the last ModPo poet today, the last video of Al Filreis and the gang doing close readings.  I still have my assignments to write, but I’ll finish those tomorrow.  I chose not to get a certificate in the Modern/Post Modern class, but I’ve earned one in ModPo.  There are 35,000 people in the class.  35,000.  That would be a crowded lecture hall.

The revolutionary impulse of the MOOCs is just beginning to be felt.  The university will have to have a rethink in not too many years with this technology working on the disaggregation of education in the same way the net has disaggregated so many things before it.  This will work to the benefit of many constituencies:  the poor, the geographically isolated, the third phasers, adult learners of all ages, even the traditional college student for whom the cost of four years has become a leaden albatross hung around their neck at graduation, a weight rather than a celebration.

Missing’s fifth revision has begun to open up very exciting possibilities, ones I didn’t see before.  I’ve reentered the story with the same enthusiasm I had when I first wrote it.

Four more verses of Ovid done.  Greg and I talk tomorrow, the first session where I’ll be using the new technique of staying “in” the Latin.  I’m looking forward to gaining more facility with it.

GeekWorld, Latin, MOOCS, Poetry, Translating Metamorphoses, Writing

Still Plugging Along

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Samhain                                                      Thanksgiving Moon

Working through the revisions in Missing, having fun, surprising myself.  About a third of the way into the manuscript, though the later chapters have more work than what I’ve done so far.  Ways of knitting themes and character development with the narrative come more easily at this stage.

Got a new piece of software today, Dramatica Pro.  I’m hoping it will help me deepen my work while making it more exciting.  I’ll let you know how it goes.  It’s supposed to take a long time to learn.

Five more verses of Ovid.  These verses had a textual problem that had me digging around in the Oxford Classical Text’s version.  It’s supposed to be the best manuscript available now.  The Metamorphoses presents certain problems since it’s oldest manuscript dates from the 9th century, seven to eight hundred years after it was written.  The Aeneid, for example, has some fourth century manuscripts, still within the time of the Roman Empire.

And finished up the next to last poet of ModPo. I’ll finish tomorrow and start on my assessments on Friday.  Yeah.

Art and Culture, Latin, MOOCS, Translating Metamorphoses, Writing

Just Glad For Them To Be Over

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Samhain                                                            Thanksgiving Moon

Finished the quick page through of Missing and have decided on key steps to take next. There will be some formatting, substantial rewriting at the end, amplification of descriptions in certain parts and a bit of rearranging.  My goal is to finish before we leave for Denver.

My capacity to translate while “in” the Latin seems to be growing.  In the passage from today Jupiter is very mad and has decided to destroy the mortal race.  Which he will do, later on in the book.  How?  By means of a flood.

I’m down to the last two poets in ModPo, plus the four assessments of other’s writing assignments.  After two and a half months of considerable work in ModPo and Modern/Post Modern, I’m experiencing that end of the quarter blah.  I don’t really want to finish the work, but I’m going to because I’ve invested so much now.  I get this filled up feeling, brought on by choices I’ve made, yes, but it’s still there.

These were two really good courses and worth the time and effort, more than repaying the work.  Just glad for them to be over.