Remembrance for a good cat

 

Lily died yesterday.  Her absence I notice more keenly than I did her constant subtle presence.  She was not a cat who curled on laps.  She hid whenever company came.  But her independence was not the aloof and haughty kind of which cats are commonly accused.  Instead, she behaved like the best of old friends--sharing moments of affection and finding happiness also in solitude. She parceled her companionship, sidling up to my chair as I worked and standing prairie-dog style to rub her head against my hand.  Satisfied, she always sauntered just out of reach to watch me for awhile.  Every night she appeared a half hour before bedtime to stare at Jim and I and jump up on the couch for the passing attention she relished best.  When we rose to settle in, she would beat us down the hall and bed down on my husband's side.  Each morning she had shifted to snuggle alongside my legs.  I'd blame her for my hitting snooze too many times and linger to pet her soft head before diving into a day.

This morning I didn't want to open my eyes.  This morning I had no reason to linger in bed half-awake, all alone.

After six gray days, the sun shined today--brightness bursting through my unwashed windows.  If Lily were here, she would be basking in the swatches of sunlight.  I would stop to pet her on my way to re-fill my coffee cup.  She would roll on her back, her front legs stretched up in surrender, and she'd purr while I rubbed her furry chest.  Eyes half-closed, whiskers twitching, she'd share with me that contentedness she captures better than anyone in this home. 

Thirteen years we've shared our daily routines.  In her small, quiet way she filled empty moments and sunlit patches of carpet.  I miss her.

A Little Romance

A visual writing prompt for Valentine's Day:

 Some questions you might want to explore in your exercise:

• Who are these people and what is their relationship?  
• What are they thinking/feeling at this moment?
• Where are they and why are they there?
• Why are the streets empty?
• Who is watching?  Why?

Scrivener for Windows

Scrivener, a software designed to help writers not only format but also generate content, was only available for Mac users when one of my writing buddies started using it last summer.  Reading her review and listening to her describe using the program, I had a twinge of software envy.  I have a PC.  I compose in Microsoft Word with my own formatting settings, and I use Microsoft OneNote for compiling outlines, character sketches, and research.

The software gods must have heard my prayers.  Scrivener released a beta for Windows, and although it doesn't have all the features of the most current Mac version,  the software is impressive.  Project templates are included for various types of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and scriptwriting as well as miscellaneous and blank templates.  I've been using the short story template and find myself using the text view more than the corkboard or outline views as I'm free-writing.  I anticipate using the other views more as I edit.

What I like most about the software:

• Research, character and setting sketches, outlines--basically everything that goes into my story--can be kept together as a specific project.
• Scenes can be described in notes, and it's easy to move the scenes around or simply exclude them from the final compilation.
• The snapshot feature allows you to capture a version of the manuscript before you start making changes, so if you don't like what you've done during editing, you can go back to the un-mucked-up version.
• The search feature makes it easy to find specific parts of the manuscript.

I wish I'd been using this software when I wrote my novels.  Editing would have been much easier.  So far the only thing I've had a problem with while working in Scrivener is eye fatigue.  My keyboard's zoom feature doesn't work with the program, and I haven't looked into how/whether I can enlarge the text without actually changing the font.  For now, I'm just taking it as a signal to step away from the screen and get a fresh cup of coffee or toss the rope bone for Sadie . . . maybe built in breaks are another of the things I like.

I've hardly touched upon the software's features.  For more information, take a look at this introductory video.

The End . . . Or is It?

Over the weekend I finished the rough draft of a book I've been working on for more than a year, and yet this morning feels like every other Monday.  No great sense of accomplishment or closure or loss.  Finishing the rough draft of my first novel, I'd mourned for days--missing the characters, the story, the experience of writing and daunted by the idea of editing.  It seems odd to feel nothing upon finishing this manuscript, but I suppose I've come to realize the ending of a rough draft is no ending at all.

I'm planning to let the manuscript rest for a couple weeks (or a month if I can hold off that long) before I start reading it.  In the meantime I'll be working on short stories, a form I haven't worked in outside a few college assignments long ago.  Writing shorts should be good practice, and I'm hoping it will help me tighten my plot pacing.  I'm really looking forward to a few weeks of something different.

Photo by Alex Basnett

Since it's a Monday like all other Mondays, I'm bound to offer a writing prompt.  Imagine a scenario that, in life, you'd consider an ending and begin your writing exercise there.  You might take the narrative backward and show how things arrived at that end, or you might re-think the "ending" as a beginning of something new.  Play around with the idea without too much directed thought and see where it takes you.  

Joshua Bell

Yesterday I attended a performance by Joshua Bell.  My last-minute tickets landed me in the second row, where I could see his shifting expressions--the almost grimacing tightness around eyes melting as the cadence mellowed.  I could hear his breath flow into the music.  Sometimes I'd realize I wasn't seeing him at all but I'd gone off somewhere, following the music into dreamed-up worlds.  Sometimes I'd wonder what he experienced as he played.  I supposed he was wholly in the moment--in the music--just as I lose myself in writing on those days when the writing flows.

 Though it's very different from yesterday's performance, I like this take on "Eleanor Rigby".  Have a listen and jot down the images that come to mind.

Found phrases as story starters

Stories surround us, but sometimes, drawn deep into our work, we lose touch with those lively inspirations.  The imagination needs fuel.  If you neglect filling it for too long, you'll wind up with the dreaded empty page glaring back at you.  Personal experience is an excellent catalyst for writing, but I often prefer to search for ideas outside myself.  One technique I've found useful is glancing through newspapers or online sources to find phrases that spark my curiosity and call to mind a character or setting.

I've pulled a few posts from craigslist as examples :

Regarding wolves:
My grandfather, a Native American from Browning, ranched in the area near there. He told me that the occasional cattle killed and eaten by wolves was an honor- a very small sacrifice for stealing the land from them. 

Woman's ruby ring:
Beautiful dark ruby ring surrounded by diamonds selling for half the value due to financial needs.

Sunbeam Faces:
Let Sunbeam Faces put a smile on your face - young and old alike. You can be made into a fairy princess, a puppy, a tiger or even a super-hero. 

Lost Shepherd Husky Mix Male:
Lost dog, about a year old, big and friendly! He is not fixed and has a tan mask. Our children miss him dearly. He goes by Ollie. Please help us find him; he looks like a wolf and is very healthy. He does not bite and has had his shots. Please do not mistake him for a wild animal and shoot him.  

Feeling inspired?  I sense stories waiting in each of these . . . And I'm thinking I might call Sunbeam Faces about being made into a super-hero.  It can't hurt, right?

Tarquinia

Way back in September I promised I'd post some photos and blog about the Etruscan sites I visited this fall.  Rather than overwhelm you with everything at once, I'll focus on Tarquinia today.  Because of its unique tombs, the Estruscan necropolis at Tarquinia has earned recognition on the UNESCO World Heritage List .  I first learned about the Etruscans in an introductory art history class, and the tomb paintings from Tarquinia began my fascination with Etruscan culture.   For over a decade I've been learning about ancient Etruria, the setting of  some of my fiction and homeland of my favorite character.  Setting foot in places that have occupied my thoughts and imagination for so long was exhilarating, and looking back, the experience hardly seems real.   

 

Landscape view from Tarquinia's necropolis

My husband and I hopped on an early train from Rome to the small town of Tarquinia.  A short shuttle-bus ride took us to the city center and the Tarquinia National Museum, which housed an excellent collection of artifacts, sarcophagi, and restored wall paintings.  From the museum we hiked about a mile to the necropolis.  Situated on a hill, the necropolis overlooks the sea in the west and rolling hills and valleys like the one pictured above to the east and south.  The day we visited, the wind roared, dragging low gray clouds and rain over us.  We hurried from one tomb to another like gophers popping in and out of holes to avoid the wet, chilling gusts.

Each tomb is covered by a bunker-like structure with steep stairs leading down to its burial chamber.  The chambers are protected by a plexi-glass barrier, and timed lighting features insure that the paintings are exposed to light only when they are being viewed.  Although houses of the dead, the tombs conveyed a sense of life's continuity.  Music, dancing, feasting, sex--those activities depicted by Etruscan artists more than two thousand years ago remain central sources of human delight.  Examining those tombs, I didn't wonder about religious symbolism or the mysteries of Etruscan culture.  I thought about how alike people are.  The distance of decades or miles or ideologies doesn't alter the basic attributes and experiences of being human.

Detail from Tomb of the Leopards