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So, it’s less than twelve hours until my blog on ABBA is due and I’ve given it no thought because:
It’s sunny.
It’s the holidays.
I only have until 31st October to finish my book.
It’s my niece’s birthday and I had to buy her a present.
My mum needs a cataract operation and I spent ages on the phone sorting it out.
There were blackberries begging to be picked.
It took 45 minutes to cycle to where the blackberries were waiting to be picked.
My son is in Bangkok, trying to get to Sydney but the flight has been delayed 26 hours and counting.
It’s still sunny.
My daughter has just come home from a day’s shopping in Bath with her friend.
She bought a camera.
I have annoyed her by saying she should have bought it from a ‘proper’ shop in case it goes wrong.
I’m hungry.
I have no insights worth sharing.
But, I have a commitment so please find below a brain dump of all the things that I’m finding difficult, writing wise:
In a sequel, how much of the earlier story do you need to put in? It’s hard to judge. Too much will bore the reader who already knows the background, too little and it won’t make sense to the disobedient reader approaching them in the wrong order.
How do I refer to my character given that she has several pseudonyms? I keep putting in aka and annoying myself.
I have chosen a structure that alternates between current day and several years ago. Do I need to give the chapters headings to help the reader or shall I assume they are capable of keeping up with me?
I set the first book in Bristol, where I live. The second is set in Leeds. It seemed a good idea as I went to university there, but when I looked at a street map I realised my memory is unreliable. Does it matter?
In between fretting about the plot, I am conscious that I should be thinking about publicity for the first book, out in November. Even the word makes me feel like watching Breaking Bad and eating dark chocolate with dried cranberries. Does the fact that it’s the holidays mean I can shelve those thoughts until September? (Do any writers relish the idea of ‘selling’ their books?)
My character has a trip to Yemen. I have read relevant blogs and spent far too much time on trip advisor. As the work is fiction, how authentic must it be? Do I need to find someone who has been there to check what I’ve written?
(I am enjoying asking all these questions. It’s like having an imaginary friend.)
I have endlessly googled bomb-making, and similar, will there be a knock on my door one day? Do other authors erase their search history?
Would you mind if I stopped now, and went to fry the turkey strips? (I know, what possessed me to buy them?)
Just for the heck of it, I took pics of one of today’s snacks and lunch.
Snack: Crunchy home-made cashew butter on a slice of honey, raisin & hazelnut bread next to a fruit medley consisting of apple, orange and banana segments, topped with blackberries and wild blueberries.
Lunch: Lasagna with a side of seasoned and steamed [...]
0 Comments on Photos: Playing With Food as of 1/1/1900
Sitting here at my desk watching the rain sheet the windows, a hot cup of tea to hand, it seems strange to think that this time last week we were strolling through herds of nervous sheep enjoying the last of the summer. The landscape basked in the gentle gold of the autumn sun and we found a late crop of blackberries, which we hurried to pick. It has been mostly too rainy to pick this season, and they are of no use when they are wet.
We quietly harvested large juicy berries in the company of several fat garden spiders, feasting on blackberry marinaded flies...
...and a young roe buck, grazing downwind and almost oblivious to our quiet foraging.
At last he realised he was not alone, and sloped off quietly into the undergrowth. We picked a crumbles-worth of berries and returned to the main track, where Andy motioned silently to me, pointing to a spot before him, almost within touching distance...who could this be, hiding not-very-successfully behind the drystone wall?
After a few seconds, he realised he'd been rumbled.
Further along the fields, late elderberries were just beginning to fade, and we picked enough to fill a bag (I am turning into my mother; she never went on a walk without half a dozen bags of varying types and usually a shovel too, in case we came across a decent dollop of horse manure).
Andy proving to be the human equivalent of a picking machine; I am attempting yet again to make wine, this time I hope it might be even be drinkable as well as alcoholic. Descending into scrubby woodland, we found a bumper crop of shaggy parasol mushrooms, and picked enough for tea - cutting them with a pen knife, so's not to damage the roots. And taking no more than we needed.
My usual note of caution - we only ever pick what we are sure of. If there is any doubt, we will not eat them. Even if it is a familiar type we have eaten safely before, we double check with our books. I have a variety of identification books, even one I've had since I was eight. But (in reply to Sea Angels enquiry) the best one so far has been 'Mushrooms' by Roger Phillips, which is jampacked with hundreds of species, displaying numerous variations and excellent descriptions to help you sort out your Russulas from your Lactarius. In all my years of amateur fungi spotting, this is by far the best guide I have seen.
Another - inedible - treasure found. Some kind of fossil. Sea urchin, sea anaeome, jelly fish - we don't know. But there are clearly veins running through it, and what looks to be a patterned shell. Fantastic to think that these lush fields were once great oceans, heaving with sea life. (I think...my geology is a bit foggy on these things...)
Onwards, through more startled sheep...
...and up the hill...the shadows lengthening in the deepening gold.
We biked homewards, satisfied with a good day's tramping and hedgerow harvesting. The day could not not possibly get any better - could it?
Oh yes, it could. We stopped the bike just in time to see some fat hot air ballons ascending into the evening sky, with ominous rainclouds blowing in from the West Country...(music courtesy of Mr Camille Saint-Saens)
Feeling replete with memory, our return home was topped off by a foraged supper, courtesy of a roadkill pigeon, as seen in the post below. So farewell to what we had of summer...
28 Comments on Last of the summer..., last added: 10/13/2008
Gretel, what a wonderful excursion and feast to the eye! Amazing, those fossil finds, hard to believe you found them in the grass. Autumn air has taken ahold here too, summer but a sweet memory, but oh what comfort the golden October light!
Hello there, looks like you escaped the rain and how lucky to still have elderberries they all seem to have gone here. Had to smile at your ginger cats as a ginger tom has recently adopted us. In fact we seem to be getting more like you everyday, there is a road kill pheasant in the oven right now!
What a lovely day you had, so different from today's rain & squalls. That is definitely a fossilised sea-urchin - my mother was an avid fossil hunter and we were brought up learning to identify what we found as we pottered round the beaches & quarries of the I.O.W. Lucky find for you!
May I suggest the addition of an umberella to your forgaging kit. I am 'vertically challanged myself & find the by hooking the hook over the higher branches you can double your yield. My parents used to do it with damsons :-)
What gorgeous countryside! Blackberries grow in the US, but they are never as sweet. That’s so funny about the buck. I do miss the English countryside (if not the rain.) Your photos are a lovely reminder.
I love your foraged dinners (and that the cats get to participate). They somehow taste better than almost any other kind.
What a lovely photographic ramble. I'm feeling the need for a Cotswold autumnal wallpaper coming on...:-) Are your trees turning at all yet? We had to take an outing this afternoon in the pouring rain and I was surprised at how colorful the leaves were despite the grey day.
Just beautiful Gretel... what lovely pics and balloons (you must've been chuffed to find them - tho they'd be even better without the advertising on them eh?) and delightful to hear of your successful foragings and roadkill eateries. I have Roger Phillips' books too - mosses, ferns and wildflowers as well as mushrooms... they are excellent aren't they :) We'll be doing more of this wild eating I should think when we are on the move... tho perhaps no pigeons... I think it's great to eat the poor runovers but we might rather be on the look out for roadkill tofu... ever seen any? :) Hugs for autumn xx
What a super photo essay. I was in England for some of those glorious late summer days. My mother used to take the dogs for a walk in the woods in Essex and pick up sticks for kindling. she said children must think she was an old witch!
The blackberries on the south Devon coast are pathetic! Small, rip apart when you pull them off and the branches have over ripe berries mixed with ones that are still green--odd! So I'm very envious that you managed to "pick a crumbles worth"!
Like your new blog banner and especially like the pics of roe buck beyond wall. Been down a couple of hilly lanes on my old bike having been inspired by you. Watch out - crazy old moll on cranky bike going wheeeee...
Oh, Gretel, thank you very much for all these posts. We miss the countryside so much and watching your images it's like being there with you! You and Andy are very lucky!
Well, we made it back from ALA Midwinter! Conventions are always so busy and so exhilarating. I spent breakfasts, lunches, and dinners with librarians this year, and what a wonderful group of people! Those who know our books know what they want from them.
Our breakfast on Saturday was with a couple of librarians . . . and I mean a couple! Malcolm and Martha Fick are librarians who once worked in the technology industry, but have come back to the school library with enthusiasm. Martha works at Moorestown Upper Elementary School in Moorestown, NJ, and her students love our Jake Maddox series. On her website, she uses icons to make searching for books easier. She has added our logo to help her students find our books quickly. Seems like a good idea to me!
Malcolm, who is a librarian at Willingboro Memorial Upper Elementary School in Willingboro, NJ, has very little budget to work with, but has a group of kids that could really use our books. He’s still experimenting, but we’re sure he’ll get his kids hooked on Stone Arch Books too! We gave him a few books to get his SAB collection started.
Saturday night dinner was with Diane Chen and her fellow librarians from Tennessee. What a hoot! We laughed all night.
Photo, left to right: Kathleen Baxter, Maryellen Gregoire, Deborah Ford, and Stone Arch Books president Joan Berge
You can see Joan and me in the picture with our friends Kathleen Baxter, author of the Gotcha books and SLJ columnist (“The Non-Fiction Booktalker”), and Deborah Ford, BER presenter (and author!). We just like hanging out at the booth with them. They always have good advice about our products.
My last visit of the weekend was with Dr. Sylvia Vardell from Texas Women’s University. She is such a wonderful mentor for me. She advised me on what part of librarianship would be appropriate for me to study (I’m starting classes this semester at The College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, MN). Dr. Vardell was on the very first ALSC/Booklist/YALSA Odyssey Award for Excellence in Audiobook Production Selection Committee. She had great things to say about the committee and its chair, Mary Burkey.
All in all, it was a great weekend—and I even made it to see the Philadelphia Museum of Art steps like I’d hoped to.
--Maryellen Gregoire Director of Product Planning and Public Relations, Stone Arch Books
This Friday, we’re off to ALA Midwinter! Joan Berge, Michaela DeLong, and I are representing Stone Arch Books.
The fun thing about our booth (we're in #758) is that for the first time, we are physically adjacent to our sister companies, and we're also communicating that we are all from Capstone Publishers! You’ll definitely notice it with the carpeting and the signage. We did something similar at AASL and it looked great!
On Friday night, come visit our booth and sign up for the sports basket, part of the raffle sponsored by ALA. The drawing for the basket is on Friday night around 7:00. Winners will be announced over the loudspeaker in the exhibit hall. We’re handing out cool Library of Doom posters, too! They’re printed on both sides . . . perfect for windows!
I’m hoping to find some time to visit the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The steps, made famous in the "Rocky" movies, were built with stone from Mankato Stone Company, part of Coughlan Companies (our parent company). After hearing about it for so many years, I can’t wait to see those famous steps in person!
When you come to the booth, make sure you mention this blog and we’ll give you a Library of Doom book signed by the author, Michael Dahl (while supplies last). See you at booth #758.
Hope to see you there!
--Maryellen Gregoire Director of Product Planning and Public Relations, Stone Arch Books
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Gretel,
what a wonderful excursion and feast to the eye! Amazing, those fossil finds, hard to believe you found them in the grass.
Autumn air has taken ahold here too, summer but a sweet memory, but oh what comfort the golden October light!
Just lovely light there; you have a great eye for details. What inspiration will you find in that fossil, I wonder . . .
Hello there, looks like you escaped the rain and how lucky to still have elderberries they all seem to have gone here.
Had to smile at your ginger cats as a ginger tom has recently adopted us. In fact we seem to be getting more like you everyday, there is a road kill pheasant in the oven right now!
What a lovely day you had, so different from today's rain & squalls. That is definitely a fossilised sea-urchin - my mother was an avid fossil hunter and we were brought up learning to identify what we found as we pottered round the beaches & quarries of the I.O.W. Lucky find for you!
What lovely photos - you have really captured autumn:)
Down here it has mostly been raining with wind!
Fall seems to have come overnight. From warm, sunny days, we jumped to cooler temps and poof! reddened leaves.
Again, I so thank you for taking me out doors to a place so far from mine.
Your dinner must have been scrumptious ... well done on the gathering and imagination.
I do agree with an earlier comment that all this surely does feed your eyes as well.
xo
Thank you for sharing the absolutely beautiful country you live in..
I haven't seen such fat blackberries since we left Vancouver Island years ago.
May I suggest the addition of an umberella to your forgaging kit. I am 'vertically challanged myself & find the by hooking the hook over the higher branches you can double your yield. My parents used to do it with damsons :-)
Gorgeous pictures, Gretel! I love it when you share these things with us.
Hi Gretel-- I love those landscape pictures, and the quality of light. (Oh, and the spider, too!) ;-)
Thanks for the walk..I really needed it and it was great fun.
Nice to see Andy too.
(())
What gorgeous countryside! Blackberries grow in the US, but they are never as sweet. That’s so funny about the buck. I do miss the English countryside (if not the rain.) Your photos are a lovely reminder.
My soul. You do live in fairyland, don't you? And, aren't tall men the best? They can always pick the berries up high!
I miss the cotswolds, grew up always wanting to leave, now I've left I want to go back lol!
I love your foraged dinners (and that the cats get to participate). They somehow taste better than almost any other kind.
What a lovely photographic ramble. I'm feeling the need for a Cotswold autumnal wallpaper coming on...:-) Are your trees turning at all yet? We had to take an outing this afternoon in the pouring rain and I was surprised at how colorful the leaves were despite the grey day.
Just beautiful Gretel... what lovely pics and balloons (you must've been chuffed to find them - tho they'd be even better without the advertising on them eh?) and delightful to hear of your successful foragings and roadkill eateries. I have Roger Phillips' books too - mosses, ferns and wildflowers as well as mushrooms... they are excellent aren't they :)
We'll be doing more of this wild eating I should think when we are on the move... tho perhaps no pigeons... I think it's great to eat the poor runovers but we might rather be on the look out for roadkill tofu... ever seen any? :)
Hugs for autumn xx
What a super photo essay.
I was in England for some of those glorious late summer days.
My mother used to take the dogs for a walk in the woods in Essex and pick up sticks for kindling.
she said children must think she was an old witch!
The blackberries on the south Devon coast are pathetic! Small, rip apart when you pull them off and the branches have over ripe berries mixed with ones that are still green--odd! So I'm very envious that you managed to "pick a crumbles worth"!
Lovely photos!
OHHH!!! Sigh!! That was a lovely post. The video was perfect with that music. You are clever.
The scenic vistas of your countryside are breathtaking! What a lovely "walk & ride" you had. The mention of the blackberries has my mouth watering.
It looks so lovely with you Gretel - thanks for sharing a slice of your life ;-)
Gorgeous countryside, very Samuel Palmer.
We have had hot air balloons very low over our garden, all the neighborhood dogs have been terrified, I think it is the sound of the gas burners!
Like your new blog banner and especially like the pics of roe buck beyond wall. Been down a couple of hilly lanes on my old bike having been inspired by you. Watch out - crazy old moll on cranky bike going wheeeee...
Finding your blog was like finding a treasure. I thoroughly enjoyed walking with you and learning about your environment.
Oh, Gretel, thank you very much for all these posts. We miss the countryside so much and watching your images it's like being there with you! You and Andy are very lucky!
I absolutely adore the pic of the deer hiding behind the wall, with just his antlers and an eye showing - gorgeous!
And the view down the valley with the low sun casting long shadows - beautiful!