• Tag Archives Missing
  • Unchain My TP

    Winter                                         Garden Planning Moon

    Second (and last of this class) photoshop class tonight.  Boy, is this a complex program and it’s only one in the Creative Suite.  Lot of cool things but they will require a good bit of fiddling with before I get good with them.  A lot of fiddling.

    (granddaughter Ruth and lightning)

    As I walked to the parking lot from the huge Champlain High School building tonight, it hit me that this is the future for many of us over 65.  Classes, taking up space in buildings occupied by kids during the day.  And what a great deal that we have this kind of learning available.

    Last week I used one of the second floor bathrooms.  In the men’s room the toilet paper was on a heavy, padlocked metal chain.  The janitor was there and I asked him about it.  He said you wouldn’t believe the condition of the restrooms at the end of many school days.

    Best news.  My cousin Leisa, in a coma for a couple of months following a stroke, has begun to speak.  Stunning and happy news.

    A productive day, another 1,500 words on Missing, some tentative stabs at the first essay in Reimagining and a long workout with little knee pain.  Yeah.

    Since I’ve shifted to this new work schedule, life seems fuller and busier.  Seems odd, but it’s true.  I guess I’m stuck with an internal engine that will just keep humming along until it can’t work anymore.  There are much worse predicaments.  In fact this may not be a predicament, just life continuing.


  • Gooseberries and Bees

    Spring                                                                                 Waning Bee Hiving Moon

    Yet more work on Missing this morning.  Still at play in the Winter Forest, up in the Dark Range, around the shores of Lake Arcas and on the waters of the Winter Sea.  It is so difficult 640cranes-photographto know what the quality is of your own work.  Very difficult.  Some say impossible.  May well be.  This one feels, however, like the best work I’ve done to date.  But, hey, that’s just the author speaking.  What does he know anyhow?

    (photograph by Tom Crane)

    This afternoon Mark and I transplanted four gooseberry from their shade sheltered residence along the west facing side of our hour to an east and south facing slope in the third tier of our perennial beds.  As we worked digging the holes to receive the shrubs, then digging the gooseberry plants prior to placing them in their new homes, bees buzzed around the deck, drawn, I imagine, by the residue of last year’s honey extraction.  Now long over as far as we know, last August, fall rains have pounded the deck.  Snow has piled up it over two feet high and that has washed away with spring rains, yet the delicate sensory apparatus of the honeybee knows that something was done here, something relating to honey.  Perhaps bees have their own CSI crews.


  • Habitus

    Spring                                                                   New Bee Hiving Moon

    The dogs, that is, Sollie and Rigel, still have energy for the fight.  Damn it.  I’ve not yet figured out a foolproof strategy for keeping them away from flashpoints.  I will.

    Kate called and she says both Ruth and Gabe have had a change in habitus.  That’s pediatric speak for body change.  Gabe is taller and thinner.

    Ruth’s face has begun to elongate, moving from pre-school to school age.  This means, Kate says, that Ruth will hit puberty early.  Uh-oh.  She’s already lost a tooth.  This is stuff that usually happens around 6 and she was still 4, turning 5 on Monday.  Ruth is bright, athletic, blond and blue-eyed.  Can you imagine that combination in junior high?

    Meanwhile I have a quiet weekend to devote to the novel and to Latin.  Novel first, then Latin.  Probably a trip to the grocery store and definitely another go at seed starting.  I still have some tricks.

    A conference call at 5:00 pm about making a Sierra Club endorsement in a special election, the seat, Senate District 66, vacated by Ellen Anderson when she took a position on the Public Utility Commission.


  • Story Problems. More Story Problems.

    Imbolc                                                        Waxing Bloodroot Moon

    OMG.  I can’t count!  I did about one-third the number of words at Blue Cloud as I thought I did.  A silly arithmetic error.  Have you ever seen that Gary Larson cartoon with Hell over the door and a bookcase containing books titled:  Story Problems, More Story Problems, Story Problems the 11 edition?  That’s me.

    It doesn’t change how hard I worked, not at all.  Or, the value of getting back to the writing.  Just deflates my overall sense of accomplishment.  Which, come to think of it…

    On my last night at Blue Cloud I met an unusual guy, Lawrence Diggs.  Lawrence is a bald headed Africa-American about my age, a Buddhist and refers to himself as the Vinegar Man.  Lawrence and I had a two hour long conversation about reality, economics, racism and writing.  It was strange to meet a fellow flat-earther as far as divine metaphysics go on the last night of my stay at this Benedictine Monastery.  Strange and exhilarating.

    When the Woollys go back to Blue Cloud in September, I’m going to set up a visit to the International Vinegar Museum in Rosslyn, about 40 miles to the west on Hwy. 12, toward Aberdeen.  I mean, how many chances will you get to see it?

    As I now calculate it, I have about 60-65,000 words done on Missing, counting the Blue Cloud work.  That’s about 2/3’rds of the way.  Just gotta keep plugging away.


  • Home Is Where the Garlic Is

    Imbolc                                       Waxing Bloodroot Moon

    This journey has begun to bend toward home.  I”m more eager know to go home than I was to come here when I left.  That seems good to me.  Home is the place you know you’re away from when you’re gone.  No place else on earth has that lodestone attraction for me.

    Home is where the heart is, yes, and my heart is with Kate, with Vega, Rigel and Kona, with the raised bed and the garlic, the asparagus, the strawberries, with the bees and the grandkids play house, with the flower beds and the woods, with our house which, in exactly the same way a church is sanctified, has become sacred.  The life and the love,, our history there, has made it a sacred realm, a realm of the heart and a sanctuary for our life.

    I have two yellow pads, one full, the other on its way, scribbled with this story of another world and these people I’ve come to know over the course of writing it.  Brag, Constance, John, Aeric, Gullen, Arton, Isaac, Cern.  Well, maybe a couple of these are speaking animals and one is a god, but they’ve come alive for me over the months I’ve spent on Missing.  Their journey, I see now, has only just begun, will only finish its first phase as this novel draws to a close in another 30,000 words or so.

    This writing is and has been such a strange act for me, virtually solitary save for Kate, who has stuck with me in my up and down moments, my more confident moments and, most important, in my melancholy.  Otherwise, I’ve written these novels, these short stories and they go in a  file or in a box and sit, George Plimpton once called an unpublished work of his, A Monster In A Box.  This will be my sixth or seventh monster.

    Not complaining just observing that’s been strange.


  • Heading Home Tomorrow

    Imbolc                                     Waxing Bloodroot Moon

    Snow has begun to come down in earnest.  I like the view out of my window here in the Bishop’s room.  Snow falls between the two pines that frame the central pane and I can see across the service road toward what I now know is the Monastery orchard.  This is a wonderful piece of land, wooded in parts, with two lakes and ample space for agriculture.  The Monastery did have a large farm at one time.

    I’ve decided I’ll head home tomorrow afternoon.  I’m a bit lonely here now and I want to see Kate and the dogs.  Since I get my writing done in the morning, sometimes a bit after lunch, I can write tomorrow morning, eat lunch and head out.  That way I can be back at my desk on Tuesday morning, ready to keep on writing.

    So ancientrails will hit the road around 1 pm tomorrow, driving east on Highway 12, then north on 494.

    Breakfast today is at 8, not 7:30.  Feels pretty soft, writing here at 7:50 instead of dining in silence.  The Monastery is a great place to focus on writing and I think I’ll return when it comes time to revise one of my earlier works, perhaps in January.  Once I finish the first draft of Missing, I’ll have Kate read it and comment on it, perhaps Lydia, then I’ll set in a manuscript box on the shelf in my study.  6 months or so later, I’ll take it out and read it like a stranger, making the first cuts and revisions.

    Though I’ve not practiced it, they say writing is in the re-writing and I believe it.


  • An Expansiveness That Opens The Heart

    Imbolc                                                New (Bloodroot) Moon

    Immersed again in the history of ancient Rome, that interesting period when the Republic gives way to the reign of emperors, night has fallen, a clear night.  I’ve wanted a clear night because I want to see the stars here on the prairie, away from city lights.  That’s next.

    Brother Dusty (James) Johnson has lived out here under the big sky of South Dakota for several years now and fell in love with it.  I can see why.  There’s an expansiveness that opens the heart, yet somehow too points back to the very spot where  you stand, a sort of universal and a particular in one moment.

    In Andover due to tree cover our focus is resolute and local.  We see our yard, our neighbors, our woods, our gardens, our bees.  Out here you can see  your neighbor’s pasture, your neighbor’s cattle and their neighbors.  The weather doesn’t sneak up on you here, as it can in Andover, coming up over the woods to our west, it announces itself far in advance, scudding clouds, lightning, wind.  All out there.  There’s a frankness and an honesty in that.

    I only have two more writing days left, Sunday and Monday, but I’m very pleased with the amount of work I’ve gotten done.  In fact, as I hoped, this intense focus on Missing has let me see what I’ve been missing, this anchor to my day, the writing anchor.  I’ve let the ship slip its moorings and float away on the winds of Latin, art, politics, bees and gardening.  I need to bring this ship of daily writing back into harbor, keep it where its protected.

    It means, I know, a change in my schedule, an earlier rising and an earlier bedtime, but to be honest with who I am, I need to make the change.

    This has to be done while not losing the gains I’ve made in those other areas, that will be the trick.


  • Walking and Talking

    Imbolc                                        New (Bloodroot) Moon

    Took a walk along the road that goes around the Monastery.  A beautiful day with a blue sky and sun.  The sun has, like me, been on retreat this last week, and it seems to have returned bright and shiny, ready to get on with its job of sending us truly elemental energy.

    While walking, I talked to Kate.  Cell phone reception is fine outside the Monastery, but inside, nada.

    It’s rare for a person to find someone whose life and lifestyle fit so well as Kate and mine do.  At least I think it’s rare.  We both enjoy time alone and we enjoy being together.

    She says the plants, the dogs and herself are doing well.  The dog are outside and  have been nearly all day.  She’s been sewing and made grandson Gabe a new shirt, this one with trains.

    Today I finished writing early, still putting out about 6,500 words.  I tried to go further but the well was dry so I’ve been reading Conspirata, the Robert Harris novel about Cicero’s Consul  year and his life immediately after.  Cicero is a favorite of the conservative classes, but he seems more pragmatic than conservative, at least as Harris portrays him.  It might be his deep suspicion of populist politics that gains their favor, but that seems more complicated in this fictional biography.

    Just as I was in a Chinese phase last summer, I’m in a Roman phase right now, learning Latin, reading Roman novels, translating Ovid.

    If our plans for a fall cruise congeal, at some point I imagine I’ll turn toward South America and its ancient and contemporary history.  Read a few travel books on various ports of call.  We’re leaning toward a 37 day cruise that starts in NYC and ends in Rio, passing through the Panama Canal and traveling around South America through the the Straits of Magellan and Cape Horn to Buenos Aires and Rio.

    My lunch table  today had Hoosiers, monks from South Bend, north Terre Haute and Indianapolis.  We talked about the old home place, Wabash College, Indy, the crazy time change rules.


  • Writing on Yellow Pads

    Imbolc                                Waning Bridgit Moon

    After all the effort last night to acquire a new keyboard, I decided this morning to start writing on yellow pads.  I’ve never written a book this way, but I wanted to try it.  Don’t know how many words, but I filled 4 and a half pages this morning.

    I’m not sure there’s much difference for me since I type as fast as I write, but it is easier with this chair that I have here.  Much better on the back and eyes.

    Breakfast and dinner are in silence.   I asked Brother Benet about the rationale for silence.  He thought for a while, “Tradition.”  He said they used to read at lunch, too, but stopped that a while ago.  We talked about monastics for a while.

    He mentioned getting over to Aberdeen.  I might just do that.  It’s about 80 miles he said.  Have to see how the writing goes.

    The computer gets turned off now.  I have to nap, yes, but more than that the electricity will be turned for half an hour, Brother  Paul said, “At least that’s what I’m expecting.”


  • A Novel. Again.

    Imbolc                                           Waxing Bridgit Moon

    Signed up for 8 nights at Blue Cloud Abbey, Feb. 28 to March 8.  My goal is to push Missing at least to the 2/3rds mark for a rough draft, maybe more if I get on a roll.  I’m considering getting up into time for the early morning prayers, 6:45 am, just to get the day started and feel that living connection with the 5th century.  Since Missing has a medieval feel, an abbey carries a lot of that time in its essence.

    Missing is the first novel I’ve written that could, conceivably, be a series.  It has a range of characters and its rationale will make it easy to introduce new plotlines and new characters. In the world of fantasy the series has good traction, a way to build an audience.  Who knows?  Maybe this is the one.

    I do have two other novels, Superior Wolf and Jennie’s Dead, that are a good way along, too.  If this process works, maybe I’ll head out to Blue Cloud from time to time.  We’ll see.  There are, of course, those other novels:  Even the God’s Must Die, The Last Druid, The God Who Wanted It All and, believe it or not, two whose titles I can’t recall.  Each one could use a revisit, a revision.  So much work to do.  Glad I still feel excited about everything.  Life could get long otherwise.

    I’ve been at this, more and less, since 1992, so it should be no surprise that I have some production.   Several short stories along the way, as well.  Still, I’ve not pushed them out there, perhaps its fear, perhaps its indolence, perhaps its reluctance to discover my ability outside my own head.  None are compelling reasons, though all are, at least to me, understandable.  I’m back to the writing, wonder what it would take to get me marketing?