winter light

Bacchante, William Bouguereau

Last week, one morning as I sat down at Mac to write the day’s Nano pages, my brain was dry as the inside of an old well. I could see calcified mud on the sides, but there I sat, a little after 4 in the morning, wondering what the hell was I doing. Still, regardless of my empty mind, I found the words and soon I had my 1667 and a bit more. Oops, I did it again.

This year’s Nano novel, The Key to Chaos, I’m calling it, is going down haphazardly, absolutely no sense of direction to it. It’s a discovery draft–by the time November 30 arrives, I hope to have found the story. I had a story in mind on October 31, but somewhere between midnight and the dawn of November 1 that story fell back into the chasm and a whole different story tapped out on the glowing white page. Now I’m more than 20,000 words in, and I’ve got some good stuff, lots of not so good, and a dash of hope that it’ll all shake out right in the end.

Yesterday was Nano break day. Michelle and I joined another friend and took a day trip to the Temecula wine country. We stopped at The South Coast Winery. Unfortunately I forgot my camera so no picture of the Tuscan villa design of the winery amid its vineyards. At the tasting bar I enjoyed several wines that I’d never had before, and bought a bottle of Old Vine Zinfandel–berry-rich, a bit spicy–absolutely delicious. Of the wines I tasted that one made me dance a jig. Thought of having a glass of that when I get home will surely ease the irritation of the nightly zombie run.

Then we scooted up the road a ways to the Temecula Olive Oil Company where I stocked up on olive oil goodies. Last night’s dinner was a salad of mixed greens with thin circles of leeks and tomato crescents drizzled with California Balsamico and Roasted Garlic Reserve olive oils. Some crusty Italian bread would’ve been nice, but I didn’t have any. Dessert–a glass of that zinfandel, and I managed to confine myself to just one.

The break was wonderful; today I’ve got to catch up with the words, but first a trip to the Sunday farmer’s market at the marina ’cause that green salad was the end of my edibles. It’s bright white winter light outside this morning and the air’s snappish so I’m dressing warmly for those snippy breezes at the marina.

woohoo!

Just a quickie post, as I’ve got to get to the writing. Back from the World Fantasy Convention in San Jose–it was fabulous. The panels were excellent. I took many notes and walked out of each one with much food for thought. I got to speak to Chelsea Quinn Yarbro who writes the Saint-Germain vampire series and she kindly autographed my copy of A Dangerous Climate. I was so delighted to see her I couldn’t raise my voice above a whisper! I attended a panel where Ellen Kushner was one of the speakers, but I had not brought my hardback copy of Swordspoint, unfortunately. It was great to put faces to the names of the movers, shakers, and lights of the fantasy genre–Ellen Datlow, Ellen Kushner, Peter Straub, Michael Swanwick, Anne and Jeff VanderMeer, Guy Gavriel Kay (whose intricate historical fantasies are wonderful reads), Jane Lindskold, Tim Powers, and so many others. I’ll post a bit more later, and I’ve got a couple photos too.

San Jose is a charming city with a more artistic than business air about it, and Michelle and I had fun getting slightly lost in the streets while looking for this or that restaurant, but everything was relatively close so it was just a matter of turning in the right direction–a bit of a problem for the direction dyslexic.

Congratulations to the winners of the World Fantasy Award.

Today is Day 2 of Nano, and the last day of my vacation, and I’ve got to get busy with the November novel–soon as I have another cup of coffee and rustle up some sort of breakfast.

Day 1 count: 2,059.

July 4!

Up before the sun on the morning of the fourth, set up the auto-feeder and water fountain for Taffy and Levi, schlepped my packed bags to the car, and pointed Junior’s Barcelona red nose north, 405 to the 101 Ventura, Santa Barbara on the far horizon. By daybreak, I’d crossed into Ventura County, the drive up smooth and uncluttered. The freeway swooped toward the coast and I cast happy glances at the ocean, flat and nickel-blue all the way to the thinnest curve of land eastward. A fine start to my birthday.

It was 7:30 when I exited into downtown Santa Barbara, very early for my 3 pm check-in at A White Jasmine Bed & Breakfast Inn. At that hour, the roses were still dozing. I parked Junior near the B&B, and strolled fearlessly through Santa Barbara’s easy-to-navigate neighborhood streets in search of breakfast. Found a Carrows on the corner of Carrillo and De La Vina. The waitress was cheerful, the coffee was good, my over-medium eggs were properly over-medium. Yep. A happy day.

Downtown was bare and quiet. After breakfast I walked about in the sun, taking in Santa Barbara’s standard architecture: white adobe buildings and red-cobbled roofs, embraced by bougainvillea, date palms, ficus trees, rose bushes, blue-violet agapanthus, and lots of other flora.

I fetched Mac from the car and settled myself at a Starbucks to get some work done. The first glitch in my day happened when I couldn’t get T-Mobile’s HotSpot to let me surf the net. Don’t know what the hell the problem was but T-Mobile owes me $9.99 for a daypass I wasn’t able to use and I intend to get my money back. (I didn’t have a registered Starbucks coffee card with me so I couldn’t take advantage of the free two hours, and beside, I needed more than two hours. And since I couldn’t surf, I couldn’t register a card. Most annoying.) I couldn’t sign on with AT&TWiFi either. Disgusted and irritated, I left Starbucks and found a Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, signed on with AT&T–no problem–and got back to work.

Preoccupied with Loose Daddy (as well as preparing Janet’s interview for posting), I missed the 4th of July parade down State Street. That is, I didn’t go out to watch, but I heard the music. I still had time before check-in so I enjoyed another stroll down State Street, found the Barnes&Noble and worked on Sweet Taboo.

My room was at the top of the stairs. Named Wild Rose, it was decorated in Country Victoriana–roses, roses, roses. Breakfast was delivered to my door this morning and there’s free Internet. I’ll post more photos when I get home.

Friday night I followed the rest of Santa Barbara on a long walk down State Street to Stearn’s Wharf where we all milled about and waited for the fireworks show to begin. Strolling through the tunnel people screamed, yelled, hooted, howled like banshees on crack for the joy of it, just to hear their voices bouncing off the stone.

The fireworks were spectacular–once they got it going. There were a few hitches and halts but then–long white blossom tails hissed skyward and burst into sparkling white showers, blooming scattershots, white, red, blue, and gold, chased each other against the smoky dark like glittering firebugs, lingering gold and white shimmers, huge balls of crackling brights–amber, sapphire, emerald, ruby.

The percussive blasts excited the crowd even more than the show itself. In fact the louder the boom, the happier the crowd. At the end, the firemasters set off a sequential burst of cascading stars, blossoms, spirals, showers, and brilliant sunbursts that hung shimmering in the sky, radiating golden needles, overlapping each other. Everybody was stunned happy and cheered mightily, taken back to childhood glee. It was too much fun!

The holiday weekend was my personal mini-writer’s retreat–my birthday gift to myself (one of several actually)–so I had an agenda:

1. Two pages on “Loose Daddy”
2. Get Janet’s interview ready for posting at pendrifter
3. Research agents for “Loose Daddy”
4. Work on “Sweet Taboo”

I worked on LD, but didn’t write my two pages–yet. I did get Janet’s interview ready and will post when I’m home. I did compile a list of ten agents for LD (a good start), and work on “Sweet Taboo” is going well.

The birthday girl is still smiling.