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Odds and Ends
Aug. 12th, 2006 01:21 pmI had what must have been one of the worst nightmares of my life this morning, which woke me about 8:00 a.m. My dreams have been unusually calm this trip, but that one more than made up for lost time.
Poppy and Christa commented recently on how blogging wasn't taking time from them that they might otherwise use for writing fiction. I wish I could say the same. For example, I spent more than four hours on yesterday's entry, having begun it about noon and finishing at (I wrote down the time) 4:17 p.m. That is an extreme case. On average, an entry takes me an hour and a half to two hours, between composition and editing and crossposting and such. I started this journal in November 2001 (over at Blogger, where it is now mirrored), just after the publication of Threshold and just before I started writing Low Red Moon. Since then, I've written about 2,000 entries. Originally, I'd only intended to chronicle the writing of LRM, but it just kept going and going and going. Anyway, yes, four hours yesterday, so I didn't begin the story I'd wanted to begin.
We stayed in yesterday, and will likely do the same today. Thursday's drive and the rushed tour of Cape Ann left us both feeling a bit pooped. The weather here is very nice, almost autumnal, and it's actually cool enough to remain indoors sans air conditioning. We did get ambitious late yesterday and drove to Narragansett for dinner at Iggy's. Afterwards, we drove down to Point Judith to watch the sunset, but there were far too many people. Spooky took me up to Bonnet Point, just because, and then we head back here. An astoundingly uneventful day. Very late we watched Gene Tierney, Rex Harrison, and a very young Natalie Wood in Joseph L. Mankiewicz's The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947).
For all the entries I've written detailing the more interesting bits of this Very Long Trip, I've managed to miss a couple of things:
7 August 2006: We returned to Watch Hill and walked down the narrow, winding road that leads out to the lighthouse at Watch Hill Point. No tourists. Only a few fishermen on the rocks. The sun was a great orange fireball sinking in purple clouds, and we sat down in the grass near the lighthouse and watched it setting behind Napatree Point and Fisher's Island (NY). Watch Hill Point has to be one of the most beautiful things we've seen this whole trip. The solitude was wonderful. The sea crashing against the breakers. A flock of swallows circling the lighthouse tower and a lone robin hopping about. There were dead horseshoe crabs here and there among the schist boulders, broken by the waves and picked apart by gulls. I just wanted to lie down and sleep in the cool, sea-damp air. Here are a few photos (behind the cut, of course):
( photos )
31 July 2006: I set up my temporary office here in the cottage. Very late in the day, we drove to Moonstone Beach, just east of Green Hill, the site of a catastrophic heating-oil spill in 1997. The state has poured millions of dollars into enviromental restoration in the area, and most of the beach is still roped off, nesting area for birds from the Trustom Pond sanctuary. The sand is scattered with moonstones (orthoclase), from which the beach takes its name. They must be weathering out of a submarine exposure of igneous rock just offshore. There was also an extraordinary number of mermaid's purses, and we spotted three young Fowler's toads (Bufo fowleri) climbing back up towards the grass at the tops of the dunes seperating the beach from the marshes. The dirt road leading to the sea was lined with wonderful thickets of beach roses, the rosehips huge and ripe. The whole place seemed alive with a sort of wild magick. It made me giddy (and that's saying something). Photos behind the cut:
( photos )
Okay. Now I really must do something that isn't related to this journal...
Poppy and Christa commented recently on how blogging wasn't taking time from them that they might otherwise use for writing fiction. I wish I could say the same. For example, I spent more than four hours on yesterday's entry, having begun it about noon and finishing at (I wrote down the time) 4:17 p.m. That is an extreme case. On average, an entry takes me an hour and a half to two hours, between composition and editing and crossposting and such. I started this journal in November 2001 (over at Blogger, where it is now mirrored), just after the publication of Threshold and just before I started writing Low Red Moon. Since then, I've written about 2,000 entries. Originally, I'd only intended to chronicle the writing of LRM, but it just kept going and going and going. Anyway, yes, four hours yesterday, so I didn't begin the story I'd wanted to begin.
We stayed in yesterday, and will likely do the same today. Thursday's drive and the rushed tour of Cape Ann left us both feeling a bit pooped. The weather here is very nice, almost autumnal, and it's actually cool enough to remain indoors sans air conditioning. We did get ambitious late yesterday and drove to Narragansett for dinner at Iggy's. Afterwards, we drove down to Point Judith to watch the sunset, but there were far too many people. Spooky took me up to Bonnet Point, just because, and then we head back here. An astoundingly uneventful day. Very late we watched Gene Tierney, Rex Harrison, and a very young Natalie Wood in Joseph L. Mankiewicz's The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947).
For all the entries I've written detailing the more interesting bits of this Very Long Trip, I've managed to miss a couple of things:
7 August 2006: We returned to Watch Hill and walked down the narrow, winding road that leads out to the lighthouse at Watch Hill Point. No tourists. Only a few fishermen on the rocks. The sun was a great orange fireball sinking in purple clouds, and we sat down in the grass near the lighthouse and watched it setting behind Napatree Point and Fisher's Island (NY). Watch Hill Point has to be one of the most beautiful things we've seen this whole trip. The solitude was wonderful. The sea crashing against the breakers. A flock of swallows circling the lighthouse tower and a lone robin hopping about. There were dead horseshoe crabs here and there among the schist boulders, broken by the waves and picked apart by gulls. I just wanted to lie down and sleep in the cool, sea-damp air. Here are a few photos (behind the cut, of course):
31 July 2006: I set up my temporary office here in the cottage. Very late in the day, we drove to Moonstone Beach, just east of Green Hill, the site of a catastrophic heating-oil spill in 1997. The state has poured millions of dollars into enviromental restoration in the area, and most of the beach is still roped off, nesting area for birds from the Trustom Pond sanctuary. The sand is scattered with moonstones (orthoclase), from which the beach takes its name. They must be weathering out of a submarine exposure of igneous rock just offshore. There was also an extraordinary number of mermaid's purses, and we spotted three young Fowler's toads (Bufo fowleri) climbing back up towards the grass at the tops of the dunes seperating the beach from the marshes. The dirt road leading to the sea was lined with wonderful thickets of beach roses, the rosehips huge and ripe. The whole place seemed alive with a sort of wild magick. It made me giddy (and that's saying something). Photos behind the cut:
Okay. Now I really must do something that isn't related to this journal...
