What's gone on this week
I went back to work after a week of being sick. This month is a busy time with lots of projects happening all at once. One of the things about having the flu is that the recovery period is longer than you think it is. I got winded just walking around, forget taking the stairs. All I really had the energy to do was go to work, and come home. There was just a little bit left over so I was very limited in my creative activities.
That said, I wrote every day this week. Sometimes just over 200 words a night, but I did it. I had a wonderful pep talk with a couple of my best friends last weekend which helped me find my mojo again. I'm into the muddy middle of the story which makes me want to bang my head against a wall. I can only see a few chapters at a time and even then I often have trouble seeing from one end of a chapter to the other. For a control freak like me it's a very uncomfortable place to be. But it's also exciting. The opportunity for discovery is there every time I sit down to write. I just have to sit down and do it, and let the story go.
Last summer I spent writing a whole draft of a story that I'd started 17 years before. Summer seems to be a good time for me to put words on the page. I don't know why. So, that's what I'm doing this summer. I want to keep this momentum going and get as much of this story written as I can. My goal for this week is to write every day. Even if I only get 250 words each time.
Garden update
Since I haven't had much energy nothing much has happened on this front. My potting bench is still sitting in a box in my hallway. My flower seeds arrived. I have some Roman Chamomile plants coming early this week. I'm hoping to have the energy to get the seeds and plants into pots this week.
What I'm loving
I visited Gamble Gardens in Palo Alto on Saturday. It's a historic home, now available as a rental venue, with a large garden attached. Sweet peas were still blooming, I am in love with these burgundy and white ones.
I also am in love with this variegated red yarrow.
This is a garden that gets a lot of sun, unlike my own, but they use lots of pinks which I also tend to use a lot of. And the layering of plants in the beds, with all of the textures and colors is exactly the kind of thing I want to learn to create.
The other thing I enjoyed this week was The Everlasting Rose by Dhonielle Clayton, the second book in the Belles series. I really enjoyed the first book. It's YA Fantasy about a world where people are born without beauty - gray skin, red eyes, and straw like hair. The Belles are a group of women, sent to Earth by the Goddess of Beauty, with the ability to change people's appearance. Beauty is a commodity. The concept is interesting and the execution is well done. It's one of the few books that I had a hard time putting down recently.
Word Count
3,740
Comments