These Certain Musings

So I'm waiting for my parents to arrive, and hoping they either beat the line of icky storms or choose to hang out at a coffee shop until it passes.

In the meantime, I'm tinkering with the NaNo project. I've decided to focus on the urban fantasy--Crossroads of America--because I (a) have the research at my fingertips, and (b) grew more excited the more I thought about it.

I love the characters. There's Jacqueline, who prefers to go by Jack--an early-thirties Californian geocaching her way across the country to escape the demons of her past. There's Luke--an early-thirties martial arts instructor who hangs out with an informal group of folks interested in and/or with an affinity for supernatural matters. There's Wyatt--a farmer and medium--and Carrie--an intuitive who works with the Indiana Geological Survey And there's Duncan--Jack's best friend, who knows the secrets she wants to forget.

On the other side, there's Mark--a young man who isn't entirely stable--and the Ditch Devil--who takes full advantage of Mark's ambition and ego-fueled gullibility.

And I throw all those people into museums, war memorials, old catacombs, and planetariums. And there might be wolves.

I've been in love with this concept for years. I want to make it happen!

Familial and work obligations will take the first few days of the month, but I have decided it won't matter if I "finish" NaNo with 50K words. The who idea of NaNoWriMo is what's driving me to finally--finally!--give this novel the time it deserves.

Oh yeah... I should probably finish the Sand revisions, too.

This time, I'll be gone for a week--a few days in the mountains above Monterey, a couple days on the Central Coast, and a day on either end for travel.

That assumes, of course, I can get out of the state.  Last week's snow resulted in a day's worth of air traveler's bumped from their flights.  Today things are just caught up.  My flight leaves early tomorrow morning... by which time there will be a couple inches of NEW snow on the ground.  I'm planning to get up at 3:30am in expectation of messy roads.  Then, I'm planning to sleep on the plane after giving those seated near my permission to wake me if I start snoring.

Dev will be spending his first night at home, all night, alone.  He's pretty stoked.  I have made him lists of this and that, let a couple nearby friends know Dev is on his own, and reminded myself sixteen is plenty old enough to demonstrate independence.  I suspect he will eat just about anything in the house that resembles snack foods, stay up nearly all night to watch movies and play Xbox, and drag himself out of bed the next morn with barely enough time to get ready for work.

Alas, I would feel better (and so would he) if the dogs were here.  But since Dev won't be at the house all week, and there is no one else to take them to the kennel, the pups must head out this afternoon.  At least we know they're well-loved at the kennel.  They act just as excited to arrive there as they are to go home.

I haven't written a thing in days, and decided that was just fine.  It seems I have a difficult time settling in to write when I don't have the activity of karate.  Good to know.

The only obligation strong enough to drag me from bed this morn was fetching the pups.  After two hours of running a circle around the house, running circles in the house, and demanding attention every moment, Ty and Bit have collapsed on the couch to snooze in canine bliss.  Dev and I missed the pups so much, we were reduced to approaching random strangers walking their dogs on the street, and begging them to let us just pet the dog--just a quick pet, please!

The production of Romeo and Juliet was outstanding.  Special attention was paid to the development of non-kin families, and how the young lovers were set adrift by losing those ties.  It was less about teenage love at first sight, and much more about young people seeking a place to belong and a person to belong with.  Also layered in were the servants' roles--lines and interactions usually cut, partially or completely, from productions because they seem to distract from the central story.  All were kept, and the servants were played by young actors of an age with R & J.  Their onstage, background reactions to the story of their age mates, and the dual suicide, provided a deeper generational aspect.  Very cool performances.

We spent the next day playing in Santa Barbara, topped off with yet more Italian food.  Sunday Dev and I headed to Anaheim, and met queenoftheskies for lunch.  Writing talk!  Hooray!! 

Then two days at Disneyland that managed to exhaust us both utterly.  I even made Dev paddle a canoe, and rewarded his willingness with an Indiana Jones hat.  (He's a little bummed it's almost 90 today in Indiana, because that means he can't were the hat with his leather jacket. :)  We splurged for a lunch in Blue Bayou, the restaurant inside the Pirates ride, because I've always wanted to do that. 

Lastly, I amused Dev greatly when we went on the Soaring over California ride.  It's mostly a visual experience--some motion and wind effects coupled with an IMAX-type screen.  I thought that meant you sat in a seat, like a theater.  Actually, that seat hangs from above and your feet dangle in midair.  I loved much of it, even though I kept my legs curled under the seat for fear my sandals would fall off.  Even though I kept saying, "I would go slower here!  I wouldn't go that fast here!"  I was much better the second time around, though.  I put my sandals in the under-seat bin and kept my eyes open. :-)

Flights home were, thankfully, uneventful.  I much prefer the (most often) smooth approach and landing in Indy to the E-ticket ride that is Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Midway. 

And now, back to the grind, and the hope it will feel less grind-ish in the coming months.  It's been tough to be happy here the last six months, because so much of my heart has already returned to California.  But I've decided I'm going to do my best to leave a positive mark on my current community, choosing to build something that is worthwhile rather than simply do what I must to get by.  The hope is it'll make the time pass more pleasantly, while at the same time making a difference.

Tomorrow, it's back to writing with a focus.  Patricia was wonderfully motivating on that front, and chatting with queenoftheskies was a needed push.  The moment I finish the karate book, it's time to give Chant what may well be its final polish.

In wildlife news, I spotted a bald eagle sitting in the stubbled field south of our house, just standing there looking around.  It was huge!  When we lived on the farm, we'd see them in flight now and then, but I'd never before seen one on the ground.

Traveling has become so much easier, from a financial standpoint, because my sister now works for an airline.  That means I'm able to get really inexpensive flights.  The downside is that I'll be the first bumped off that flight if a full-fare customer wants my seat.  That makes perfect sense on all sides, but kinda sucks when I'm trying to get home. 

So after spending the day at LAX hoping to get an flight, I ended up spending the night at a hotel, flying to Chicago quite early the next day, then driving from Chicago to the Indy airport (had to drop off the rental and pick up my car) and finally to home.  Gah.  After talking to my sis, I now know how I can avoid that happening again by airport-hopping my way home.  It might have meant four flights instead of two, but it certainly would have been the better option.

Anyway.

The trip was fantastic.  Patricia and I spent every available moment filling each other in on our lives over the last five years.  We talked until we were nodding off to sleep, and got up early on my last day to talk some more.  In between, I made some excellent contacts with some folks in the wellness field, and identified businesses I need to contact for future meetings.  Patricia also helped me talk through the specifics of my goals--the essential element of planning and success.  With work, and a little luck, I'm hoping to have workshops set up in the area 12 to 18 months from now.

But before all that happened, I took a little drive through parts of the Santa Ynez Valley I hadn't seen when Dev and I were there in December.  While standing at the base of Nojoqui Falls (which should be named Nojoqui Trickle this time year...), I made two decisions.  

First, I will indeed write a SY Valley tale set before the Indy tale.  Considering the amount of backstory I was building for the Indy novel, and how interested I was in that backstory, this won't be a big stretch of new creation.  My two visits to the valley stirred up all sorts of memories of places and incidents and little local stories that can be woven in. 

Second, I'll be writing these with an eye to self-publishing.  That doesn't mean I won't pursue traditional publishing with Chant and related novels.  But the SYV/Indy novels are present-day paranormal while the others are quite firmly other-world fantasy.  They are different enough that I feel comfortable placing them on different paths.

Alas, as much as I'd like to run back to Santa Ynez this week, it'll be three months before I can swing it.  In the meantime, I've a story to write.

On Dev's first day in California, we drove north on Pacific Coast Highway in a Mustang convertible, top down, and had lunch in Malibu.  Then we walked onto the beach and waded into the ocean, splashing around like the tourists we were until the cold water numbed our Indiana-pale legs from the knee down.  We finished the drive to Santa Barbara with the top down and the heater cranked all the way up.

I nearly cried as we topped San Marcos Pass and dropped into the Santa Ynez Valley that evening.  I only lived there three years, but it is home to me as no other place has ever been.  Did you see the film Sideways?  That's the place.  But I lived there when the area was about horses and cattle and tourists--not wine and tourists.

Today we took the not-quite-two-lane road up into the mountains.  My mountains!  The hairpin turns, steep drops, and blind corners made Dev a little tense, though the views were spectacular.  We did some hiking, and Dev gets to say he climbed to the very top of a mountain.  The winding road back down to the valley floor took us past and through cattle ranches.  The huge oaks sported signs: "Posted: No Hunting" and "Drive Slow: Cows Calves On Road."

It made my chest ache, seeing this place again.  It is indeed my heart's home.

We spent the afternoon in little shops.  I bought too much chocolate.  Dev bought sharp pointy things that we must ship home.  I kept commenting on what was different and what was the same.  Farmer's Market happened this evening, so we picked up some nuts, berries and bread.  Tonight, we're very, very tired.  A quiet evening in our hotel room, eating Chinese food and snacking on earlier purchases, sounds just fine.

Tomorrow, northward to the "happiest" city in the U.S.--San Luis Obispo, where Dev was born--and to meet up with Dev's Godmom.