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Proofreading and Second Chances
It has never yet happened that, reading proofs, I haven’t found some dreadful if trifling error–often after 20 or 30 error-free pages, when I was beginning to wonder whether the task was, indeed, worthwhile. But there it will be, the third i in the middle of a word, the second however in a row. No…
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The Observer in the Frame
We spent the last days of August backpacking in the Three Sisters Wilderness, one of my favorite places on earth. Camped on a mini-ridge above Camp Lake, we watched the moon rise–fast!–and then the sunset and then, just barely (hurling myself out of the tent toward the pink glow, tangled in tent flaps and sleeping…
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Revision Detours
The beginning Directions were meant to be changed. One definition of a detour, from the OED on line: A turning or deviation from the direct road; a roundabout or circuitous way, course, or proceeding. That’s certainly the kind of trip described in Detours. “Detour” can also describe the revision process. Revision often means reaching…
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Microclimates
Running in an unfamiliar neighborhood, I passed a house, back up against the park, with a banana and two palm trees in the yard. Three blocks later, two more palm trees. It was raining hard, but not cold–around 60 degrees, gray sky offsetting the heavy June greens. For a moment, I was somewhere tropical, on…
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Some River Twice
Because it’s not the same river, right? But it’s a river all the same–another river, or the same pebbled bank on a different day, or the same water, further down stream. I recently participated in a writing workshop with Gary Soto–even better, I went as my daughter’s guest; a workshop spot was part of her…
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Imaginary Weather (running and writing)
I have gone back to a draft of a story that takes place on a hot day. A really hot day. Today is not a hot day, not where I live, and it is taking a strenuous effort to muscle my imagination anywhere near air shimmering over asphalt, t-shirts sweaty around necklines, glare that makes…