For me at least, writing is like exercise -- the more I make time for it, the more I want to increase the number of hours I devote to it. If my book writing thrives, I am anxious to update Ocean and spend some time here as well (just as when I biked and walked, I was eager to play tennis too).
And today I finally, finally felt enough on top of life's tasks and chores, that after doing a semi thorough farmhouse cleaning, and after a wonderfully protracted breakfast...
...I took out my book project again. Of course, since it's been a while, I had to start by reading (and improving) it. The final draft, if there ever is a final draft, will have been revised probably close to a hundred times. All these years of writing have made me terribly fussy about sentences, paragraphs, chapters.
And still, I am eager to move forward. And there is no better time than now, when the garden beckons me for snatches of time, but never for too long...
(four and twenty black birds...)
(facing the farmhouse)
...and I am content as anything to sit back on the porch and to dive into the text that has been on my mind now for too many years (decades?). Time to get it out and move on to the next thing.
I did pause after a few hours -- dinner preparations for our Sunday meal are not hugely time consuming, but I did feel it was time to bake another cake - mixing this time raspberries and peaches and borrowing bits and pieces from various recipes to create a cake that would speak to the season and, too, would make do with ingredients I have at home. (For example kefir instead of buttermilk.)
(a quick taste with a cup of coffee, as the tomato sauce percolates)
My daughter and husband are here, the air is pleasantly warm, the summer progresses in the most beautiful way and I try not to notice that this weekend we've turned the corner: we're in the second half of August. Not many weeks left when I can live with windows wide open all day and all night.
I'm appreciating every last bit of it!
And today I finally, finally felt enough on top of life's tasks and chores, that after doing a semi thorough farmhouse cleaning, and after a wonderfully protracted breakfast...
...I took out my book project again. Of course, since it's been a while, I had to start by reading (and improving) it. The final draft, if there ever is a final draft, will have been revised probably close to a hundred times. All these years of writing have made me terribly fussy about sentences, paragraphs, chapters.
And still, I am eager to move forward. And there is no better time than now, when the garden beckons me for snatches of time, but never for too long...
(four and twenty black birds...)
(facing the farmhouse)
...and I am content as anything to sit back on the porch and to dive into the text that has been on my mind now for too many years (decades?). Time to get it out and move on to the next thing.
I did pause after a few hours -- dinner preparations for our Sunday meal are not hugely time consuming, but I did feel it was time to bake another cake - mixing this time raspberries and peaches and borrowing bits and pieces from various recipes to create a cake that would speak to the season and, too, would make do with ingredients I have at home. (For example kefir instead of buttermilk.)
(a quick taste with a cup of coffee, as the tomato sauce percolates)
My daughter and husband are here, the air is pleasantly warm, the summer progresses in the most beautiful way and I try not to notice that this weekend we've turned the corner: we're in the second half of August. Not many weeks left when I can live with windows wide open all day and all night.
I'm appreciating every last bit of it!
