It’s the peak of the fall leaf-changing season, and the mountains around us are a riot of color. This morning they seemed especially brilliant thanks to a combination of dark, rain-laden clouds broken by patches of bright, warm light (it’s in the mid-70s today, typical Indian Summer warmth for late October). The sugar maples, always my favorites, look like they could light up the Las Vegas strip.
I took my camera with me when I took the dog out for a walk, to try to capture some of the color and the character of this place. I’m one of those stubborn holdouts who has yet to invest in a digital camera, however, so I won’t be able to post any pictures until after I’ve had the roll developed. In the meantime, here’s a picture of the Blue Ridge Parkway in fall snagged from Google:
Blue Ridge Parkway in Fall
In other news from the Mill, an old camp up the road a piece was put up for auction last weekend. I was worried some developer would buy the land with the goal of converting it into a gated community with overpriced McMansions, but fortunately that didn’t happen. According to the local paper, the buyer was a woman who has a horse farm in eastern Virginia and plans to move her horses here, then fix up the site for hunters to use in winter and, in time, re-open the camp. I really hope she succeeds – not only does it continue using the land as it had been, it may also provide my son with an excellent summer job opportunity, as he’s often expressed an interest in being a camp counselor. The place is close enough that he wouldn’t even have to worry about having a driver’s license.
The woolly bear caterpillar! These fuzzy little guys are all over the place. I haven’t seen one in ages – not since we last lived in Roanoke, I think.
It always cheers me to see one undulating its way across the road; something about the brown-and-black coloring makes it look as though it’s “rippling,” like an eel gliding through water. They’re quite large, too – I can usually spot one from my car in time to steer around it.
According to folklore, if a woolly bear’s coat is mostly black, then there’s a bad winter coming. Judging from the ones I’ve seen around here, winter will be mild. Meteorologists seem to be saying the same thing, though their predictions are based on El Niño forecasts rather than caterpillar-spotting. Even so, after 3 successive Michigan winters, I doubt our first winter back here can seem anything but mild.
Three months ago today (7/20) I handed in my Master’s thesis and all its accompanying paperwork to the Grad College. The final deadline for handing in theses and dissertations in time for December graduation is one month from today (11/20). I have not yet heard anything from the Grad College about my thesis – whether it’s been accepted as is, needs changes, nothing. I don’t know if this is because they hold on to all submissions until the deadline and then read them all at once in a marathon session or if they’ve lost it (please Lord, don’t let that be the case), or… what. I also don’t know if I should e-mail the Grad College to find out what’s what or simply cross my fingers and hope for the best.
As may be apparent from the additions to my left-sidebar, I’ve decided to take part in NaNoWriMo this year. It’s the first time I’ve done NaNo since 2005 and the 3rd overall, though I didn’t reach the magic 50,000 in previous years.
Without grad school (or a job *cough*) to keep me busy, I’m hopeful I’ll be more successful this year. I’m sure it’ll help that I’m actually doing some advance planning this time, rather than starting off on November 1 with a vague story idea and then just waiting to see what unfolds. After polling my LiveJournal friends with several scenarios I’d come up with, I settled on a murder mystery with a little bit of historical fiction mixed in (the two are linked by a manuscript written in the 12th century – the mystery is set in the modern era, while the historical bits will reveal the story of the manuscript’s creation). I’ve spent the past couple of weeks developing profiles for my three lead characters which in turn has helped clarify some aspects of the plot; now I’m trying to iron out an outline for the story itself.
I’ll post about my progress here throughout November. Here’s to 50K!
Avidbookreader asks, is it worth it to skip to the end of a book or read the last page/chapter first? I can’t say if it’s truly worth it or not, but I am a habitual skip-to-the-end reader. My usual custom is to read the first chapter (and prologue, if there is one), then go to the end and read the last few pages, then go back and read everything in between.
For me, the true pleasure in reading a good book is not reaching the destination, but the journey it takes to get there. Even in genres such as suspense or mystery that depend on a grand reveal near the end, knowing in advance that it’s Mrs. Peacock in the conservatory with a candlestick who committed the murder doesn’t affect my enjoyment of the unfolding story at all. In fact, I’d argue the opposite, because knowing how the story wraps up lets me look for clues as to how that happens, and concentrate on how the author develops the story.
I don’t know how, where, or when I picked up this habit. I first became aware of it about 10 years ago, when I was reading The Red Tent by Anita Diamant. I had loved the first half of the book, but the 2nd half, after the Shechemites are killed and Dinah flees to Egypt, didn’t hold up to the promise of the beginning, and my interest quickly waned. Finally, in desperation, I skipped to the end and read the final chapter, then shelved the book. The Red Tent is, to my knowledge, the first book I never managed to finish reading.
There’ve been more books since then that I never got through, though it always pains me to leave a book unfinished. I have no guilt about skipping to the end, though.
Now that I can no longer use grad school as an excuse not to post here very often and because I’m trying to develop the habit of writing every day, I’ve been trying to come up with topics to write about.
The Typist at age 3, at an unidentified Virginia State Park campground
The Mill is a wonderful place to live for those who enjoy exploring. I would have been in seventh heaven had I lived here as a child; some of my happiest memories are of my grandfather’s back yard and the woods behind it and the lake nearby, and all the adventures I had there. My son, in contrast, has never cared for the outdoors – too many bugs, he says. It’s probably no wonder he only lasted a couple of years in Scouts, whereas I was camping before I was even walking.
I really need to be more industrious about sketching out story ideas when they come to me, either as a rough outline or a few sentences summarizing the idea. I’ve got 3 stories-in-progress sitting on my hard drive that I started a few weeks ago during a burst of creativity, then interrupted for one reason or another. They’re good beginnings – for first drafts, at least – but I can’t for the life of me recall where they were headed when I first started writing them. One cannot build a portfolio on good beginnings. Follow-through and equally good (if not better) finishes are crucial as well.
I also need to review the folder of articles I downloaded from JSTOR this spring. In addition to story ideas, I’ve got a few possible journal article topics that came to me while I was working on the manuscript catalogue that I should follow up on, to see if they can be turned into something worthwhile. Even though I’m no longer in academia doesn’t mean I should put it all behind me; I put far too much brain sweat equity into the past 3 years for that.
Three months ago today (7/20) I handed in my Master’s thesis and all its accompanying paperwork to the Grad College. The final deadline for handing in theses and dissertations in time for December graduation is one month from today (11/20). I have not yet heard anything from the Grad College about my thesis – whether it’s been accepted as is, needs changes, nothing. I don’t know if this is because they hold on to all submissions until the deadline and then read them all at once in a marathon session or if they’ve lost it (please Lord, don’t let that be the case), or… what. I also don’t know if I should e-mail the Grad College to find out what’s what or simply cross my fingers and hope for the best.
