On the last morning (of this writing retreat)

The fog rolls down the river, in a thin stream at first but eventually obliterating the mountain behind it. Suddenly the landscape is different, I am someplace different, and for a piece of the morning everything is mysterious sweet.

Then the fog ends, just like that, it has gone on its way, and the mountain is back with its trees, evergreens and those just on the edge of changing colors.

I got to the end of my list yesterday but as is the way of lists of things to be done, finishing doesn't mean anything except the opening to a new list.

There was something missing and I thought of it as a beat in the last act of the novel but couldn't lay my hands on more than that. Talking to another writer in the kitchen I found myself suggesting drawing out the structure and promptly took my notepad to the upper porch and did exactly that.

What I was thinking of as a beat is in fact a chapter, with a number of scenes, and it's a pretty important chapter. I made a page and a half of notes on what this chapter needs to do, and why, and which characters' arcs rely on this chapter.

But then I was caught up short when I came in to start writing it. I did what many of us do when we get stuck - research - and made a quick list of three novels I feel I need to read before proceeding. This is not true but writers do need to read and I'm a bookworm first and foremost, so, with the magic of ebooks and my Kindle app for iPad, I soon had the first novel on my screen and read from then until near midnight The Cartel by Don Winslow. I'm not even halfway through this very thick book, and it's mesmerizing, if violent, and I will tell you how surprised I was that the first chapter is about a beekeeper.

Lest you think I've gone the rest of the way around the bend, the novel I'm trying so hard to finish involves a kidnapping by the cartel. The chapter that needs now to be written is the big action scene that resolves not only the final conflict but the inner conflict for two main characters and two minor characters. I suspect I have subconsciously left this out because I really don't know how deep I want to dip my toe into this action. It's not my usual kind of writing and although there's plenty in this novel that suggests I'm fully capable of pulling this off, I am not totally sure I can.

So I stayed up reading about the cartel and about ten minutes before midnight through the open windows I heard what sounded like a series of gunshots. After the gunshots (or perhaps it was actually something else entirely) there was dead silence and then an odd fluttery cooing bird sound that I am completely unfamiliar with. It is of note that while I found this juxtaposition of noises in the dark of night a bit unnerving, compared to the cartel novel it was Nothing. So I turned off the light and went promptly to sleep.

This morning I am sitting in the piles of paper and books and notepads and my three pair of glasses conjuring a bubble of energy I can transport back with me to November Hill so that once I settle in with husband and daughter and son via the app that allows he and I to watch a TV series together even though he's in the north and I'm in the south, once I hug dogs and snuggle cats and breathe with horses and donkeys, once I take delivery tomorrow of a load of mulch and a tank of propane and address the daily life to do list, I can find a quiet spot and open up the bubble of this novel and get myself to write that scary chapter.

Send some good wishes my way.