The Writing Life

My desktop. Sometimes, it's even messier.

It doesn't sound like much, but I've written ten pages this week. Think about it. If I did that every week, I'd have 520 pages at year's end, way more than enough for a book. You have to get into the groove. The important thing is to get something, practically anything, no matter how crappy, down on paper such that you can fix it.

Writing is rewriting. Dunno who said that, but it's true.

I had to do a lot of rewriting, even change the setting for one of the scenes. Surfed the web to become inspired. Looking for a certain kind of campground, and then I found it, and everything finally fell into place. Always aiming for authenticity.

If you have emotion (and you should) in a scene, then you need to dig deep to find the right words to express it. Unhackneyed words, the hardest.

I'm loosing track of the time of the story, and will have to put together a little calendar. That always helps a lot. Need to know if it's midsummer yet, and when would the sun be setting in New York state at that time of year. Even if it's fiction, you still need to get all the details right. Authenticity, remember? Yup.

Now, I'll do one more pass, then onward to Chicago, the boyfriend's nutty ex-wife, the theft of the laptop, and yet another plot point. Keep stringing out the plot like a string of pearls with an emerald stuck in (the surprise) every now and then.

Hard work, is writing. Rewriting not so intense, but also hard, just getting it exactly right. Of course what I think is right not necessarily shared by agents and editors or writing group.

Writing is getting your butt kicked to Madagascar and back.

Off to join Red Sox Nation in Texas, the state of my higher education. I daresay the ball park won't reek of Italian sausage. The smell did go away. Felt like a skunk bathing in ketchup.

So it goes.

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Did I say that writing is rewriting?

Red Sox Nation revisted

Last night, for the first time since May, 2004, we saw a Red Sox game, a big comeback game after the road trip debacle with Tampa Bay and the Yankees. Yeecch.

We tried a new restaurant, Cafeteria Boston, on Newbury St., mentioned in Sunday's Boston Globe as a spot where Gisele Bundchen hangs out. No Gisele, but an interesting crowd, especially the passing throng on Newbury Street where the world marched by, many en route to Fenway Park, a long slog in the 91 degree heat.

However, we discovered it was Restaurant Week, and ordered from the "specials" menu. I had a salad with roasted beets and chevre, with hanger steak entree, and fresh berries for dessert. Didn't wreck the diet, except for the yummy roasted potatos with the steak. Lots of greenery, and I resisted the bread basket.

At Fenway park, we must have been sitting downwind from the Italian sausage and peppers cooking area. After a while the odor becomes a stench, and I envisioned hair and clothing reeking of Italian sausage. May, it was strong.

The game was exciting, with mega-energy when Papelbon came in to pitch at the top of the ninth with the tying and winning runs on base. Yowza! Mega-excitement, too. The sound system plays I'm Shipping Up to Boston (from The Departed soundtrack- the Drop Kick Murphys). They play it LOUD and the crowd goes crazy. The energy really pumps you up.

The only downer was the my Charlie Card stopped functioning, claiming to be expired, still with money on it, and now I have to go to the T HQ to get things straightened out. Couldn't add to the card or anything. Just kaput.

There was a huge mob of people trying to get on the T at Kenmore, and of course the person trying to help me navigate the ticket machines was equally clueless, and we ended up in Chinese. It was ugly, and who knows how many people cursed the ididotic woman who was too dumb to buy a ticket. It was so damn hot in the bowels of Kenmore that one of my dollar bills was too WILTED to feed into the machine.

However, the transportation craziness couldn't dent the fine mood of a Red Sox victory, particularly such an exciting one with a finish that couldn't be beat! :)

More anon,

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The Frost is On the Newly Purchased Pumpkin

Pumpkins are gold-plated this fall, having to do with the wet summer, I hear. Anyway, a nice big one set us back $10.00 at the supermarket. Walmart didn't even get them.

I made Paula's (food network) Mexican style chicken turnovers, and being cheap really paid off. Instead of using the store-bought pie crust ($3.49), I decided to make my own. Browsing thru recipes, in Elena's Mexican Cookery, she recommended putting chili powder in the crust. Yowsa! Did that even rock!

I made more or less Paula's filling except for adding half a chopped plum tomato, and substituting Adobo spice for cummin. I also used pepper jack cheese which gave it extra kick. Didn't remove ALL the seeds from the jalapeno. Yum, yum, yum. We baked, rather than deep-fried, and they were so good, served with salsa.

My pie crust recipe is from a food processor cookbook (Abby Mandel's) and the pie crust almost comes out to be amazingly good and it takes all of 5 minutes from measuring to fridge to chill. Rolls out like a dream. Man, I remember times I had to heave the whole mess in the garbage and start over, but this never fails.

Frost forecast tonight. I dug up my geraniums and put them in smaller pots (they spent the summer outside in a whiskey barrell) and brought inside. Big messy job, but won't I be happy come may when they can be moved back outside and I don't have to go out and buy 10 new geraniums. In this economy, one can take frugal measures.

Feeling smug because I saved $40.00 at the grocery this week and wrote some more of my book, did the estimated taxes and so on. Doing the estimate was not as hard as I had feared. There's something about those IRS forms that intimidates. Yup. I sucked it up and actually did it, and didn't take all day either.

So. . . off to watch the Red Sox game. Wore my shirt today for good luck. Being part of Red Sox Nation is not for the faint of heart. Onward.

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Am I dreaming?

It's been a busy week, no a busy month, and September was crazy, too. The long simmering days of summer are gone and life has come to a boil.

So last night after dinner I was pooped, and with a post-dinner piece of that coffee cake, so comforting, I draped myself on the couch to watch the Red Sox. Ye Gods! Things went to hell in the first inning, and only worsened, until it was 7 zip in favor of Tampa Bay. Significant Other toddled off to bed with the remark that, "when I don't stay up to watch, they always win."

Yeah, sure. I dozed a bit, and woke up with the score still 7-zip and Papelbon was pitching, which means the end is in sight. Ate the last of the Halloween candy, chocolate being so comforting and fell into an apparently deep sleep on the couch.

Awoke and thought I was dreaming, because the score was 7-6, Tampa Bay, and there were two outs, and a man on second and Coco Crisp was batting. Red Sox fans know that there has been bad blood between Crisp and the Rays, rightly so, and how sweet it was, HOW SWEET IT WAS,
when Coco got a hit and tied the game. Wow, was I ever awake!

Thought about waking S.O., and decided that might bring had luck. While the Rays were batting in the ninth, I got ready for bed, and crept back downstairs--by now it was so late the automatic timers had turned off the lights.

The Red Sox got a man on and J.D. Drew batted him in. EVEN SWEETER! Then, of course, I had to wake S.O. up. In Boston, we take our baseball seriously in Red Sox Nation.

So revved up by the excitement and my ill-timed nap, that I had to read some Proust to get my mind and body in the mood for sleep.

Holy freakin' crap, who would have thunk it?

Cat blog day? Forget it. Annie barfed and Thisbe had lovey time and complained about everything. Same old. Same old. The cats are waaayyyy to portly for a hawk or an owl to carry off.

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