skipping right along

I'm up to pages 149-169 this afternoon. This next section is where I'll have to make bigger changes to expand the subplot I've been researching and incorporating. So far it's working well and I've hit no stuck places.

Keil Bay is also skipping right along. In the arena yesterday, during one of our rainy day play sessions, he was doing freestyle one-tempi changes, which for those of you not obsessed with dressage movements, does look like skipping.

I am not at the level to ride one-tempi changes and to be honest, I didn't even know Keil Bay could DO them. He regularly does flying changes in the arena but this was really fun to watch and exciting to see. His previous trainer told me he could do canter pirouettes (and I've ridden exactly ONE of those on him) and now that I've seen the one-tempi steps I'm thinking he can teach me even more than I thought he could about the higher level dressage movements.

Most importantly to me, he feels good enough and moves well enough to do these things on his own. I love seeing him move so brilliantly.

If the forecast is accurate, the rain should roll out of here tonight and we'll have a number of days of sunshine this coming week, so I can actually RIDE again.

Meanwhile, I'm WRITING, imagining the words flowing in perfect one-tempi beats.

quick update on the writing marathon

I'm rolling along, ahead of myself already. I did this morning's batch of pages early and have now printed out what would have been tomorrow's batch, which I'll get to after lunch.

It always amazes me how quickly the characters I'm writing about, in this case Wendell and her father Scott, get inside my head and take their places at the table. I walk around the house interacting with the rest of my life, but in the midst of toasting bread or looking at photos online with my daughter, something Scott thinks pops into my mind, or the way Wendell would see something hits me, and somehow I hold all that, off to the side maybe, but right there, for when I get back to the page or the screen.

In a way, it's like living parallel lives, which intrigues me. I suppose it's a large part of why I write.

Because of what I'm doing - revision geared to incorporating new material - I'm really pleased it's moving along this way, b/c it's so much easier to do with the whole of the book in my head as I go.

Here's to continued smooth sailing and forward motion - and for any of you out there working on any writing projects, please feel free to share progress, new goals, excerpts, frustrations, anything.

from the novel front...

I started a month-long "marathon" yesterday along with a number of other writers on Backspace, a similar thing to the Nanowrimo that happens in November, except a number of us on the forum wanted to keep that group energy going all year round.

I'm not trying to get a certain word count or the draft of a new novel during April, but I DO want to get through a fairly deep revision of my second novel. I've been doing some research on a subplot for a couple of months and now it's time to weave that into the existing storyline.

So, I started yesterday. I cleared my work areas in the garret, and barely avoided getting sucked into a major spring cleaning, but caught myself - more important to give that energy to the book right now. I printed out pages 1-38, read through my research notes in the Moleskine, and got to work. This morning I typed all the edits and new material into my novel's word doc and then printed out pages 38-76, which I've worked on today.

My plan is to go right through the novel like this, and hopefully have some time at the end of the month to go back and read the entire ms in one sitting so I can get a sense of the whole flow.

So far it's going really well. I had written some scenes in the midst of doing research that slid perfectly into place yesterday and again today, which makes me think I'm onto something with this subplot.

If anyone wants to join with me in this "April showers bring May showers" effort, please speak up!

showers and flowers

Another rainy day, but it's the wonderful, warm, soft-falling rain of spring. I marched the wheelbarrow down the hill this morning in it, and the horses were on the back hill grazing in it. Rafer Johnson is quite enamoured of the copse of trees in back that has stumps and a pile of red clay dirt, and he was climbing around in his own little playground as I passed by.

Stalls are mucked, horses are fed, and the front porch is quite the contrast to the gray skies.

(more) close encounters of the bird kind

ADDENDUM: I completely forgot that there was a very interesting bird encounter earlier on Saturday, when my husband and I went to the grocery store. We stopped by a pet store that happened to be right by the grocery, and were both dismayed to find that it is one of the older style pet stores, with puppies, kittens, and many birds in tiny plexiglass cages.

I hadn't seen a store like that in a long time, and I was walking around getting more and more agitated, looking for the brand of cat food we use and thinking that even if I found it I wouldn't likely buy it. I no longer support that kind of pet store. Near the back of the store I stopped at the end of an aisle and saw a huge parrot on a perch. Immediately I thought "oh, you poor thing, if I could buy you and get you out of here I would."

The moment I thought that the parrot said "hello???" - just as if it were answering me. I had to get out of there fast. My heart was breaking.

Hopefully M. will post a link to some of Rupert Sheldrake's work on telepathy with animals in a comment.


*******

Yesterday on the way to buy cat food, my husband and I had a bird encounter together. We had been talking about wild turkeys - he'd seen a gorgeous male on his way home from work last week - and had been trying to nail down between us where exactly he'd seen it. Yesterday, just as we came to the place I'd described to him earlier (but not where he'd seen the turkey last week) we rounded a curve and there he was!



We pulled off the road and managed to get a photo, since my photographer husband always travels with a well-charged camera.

Shared blessings and harvest, spirituality and the honoring of the Earth.

Further along on our little journey we saw a flock of black vultures on the side of the highway and noted them. We talked about black vultures versus turkey vultures and how we both think they're quite regal. We got off the highway and decided to follow a side road to check out a 693-acre parcel of land for sale, calculating how much it might cost and what we'd do with it if we could buy it. At the end of the side road we came full face with the same black vultures, who flew up and into a tree when we stopped.



The vulture was viewed by the Greeks as a descendant of the griffin, a symbol of heaven and earth. The vulture is seen as a guardian of the mysteries of life and death. In alchemy, the vulture was a symbol of sublimation.

It was quite fun to see more birds after this week's bounty.

On the way home we stopped by the local indie bookstore and I noticed a sign for an upcoming author appearance. Joe Camp will be coming in May to read from and sign his new book out April 29th called The Soul of a Horse.

When we got home I checked out his website, Naked Horsemanship, and was excited to find that his journey learning about living with horses in many ways parallels my own. I'm eager to read his book and I highly recommend his website as a wealth of information and resources for living "naked" with horses.