tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29054999573053500282024-03-12T20:13:44.505-04:00Daily Writing HabitIn which Miss Daily Writing Habit follows her attempts to write a novel.Daily Writing Habithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17915494319720858753noreply@blogger.comBlogger51125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2905499957305350028.post-42274394327229126442011-03-21T12:20:00.003-04:002011-03-21T12:25:13.313-04:00A new beginningEverybody knows their own business, and writing!<br /><br />Here it is 2011, and where is my list of things to do! Aye, a pox on lists, for today anyway.<br /><br />Much to my amusement, Miss DWH finds out today that there is already a novel <em>The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen.</em><br /><br />She won't let that deter her, however, because her book is not really about Jane Austen, but is a love story, and about creativity, and in fact ***ahem*** makes a bit of fun of Miss Janey.<br /><br />Well, it's a start anyway, rah rah!Daily Writing Habithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17915494319720858753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2905499957305350028.post-2009919506257670422009-12-22T13:05:00.001-05:002009-12-22T13:07:15.900-05:00List of tasks for the new year* go through this blog and see what's pertinent for novel<br /><br />* some of the ideas were good - follow up on them - i.e., where are those letters?<br />* keep up the Miss Daily Writing Habit habit - remember: excellence is a habitDaily Writing Habithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17915494319720858753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2905499957305350028.post-78152851012980700852009-12-04T12:40:00.003-05:002009-12-04T12:54:21.569-05:00Our little array of just dessertsFound entry, from July 24, 2009:<br /><br />On our counter is one last pice of raspberry pie, a plastic bag with two remaining strawberry wafers and one cocnut almond cookie, and two slices of leftover angel food case.<br /><br />Are we too polite to eat the last ones; or have we had enough sweets?<br /><br />Now, in December, are we better at cleaning our plates, finishing off the chip bag (if it's within reach and didn't fall back in the cupboard)?<br /><br />Half a Thanksgiving pumpkin pie is on the counter. I finished the Good 'n Plenty. The tiny pink and white box is ready for recycling.<br /><br />Maybe we are just rich...with sweets.Daily Writing Habithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17915494319720858753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2905499957305350028.post-70204190769041646322009-12-03T13:22:00.002-05:002009-12-03T13:27:48.294-05:00Tripping the bannister lights fantasticLast night I wound 3 garlands of lights around the railing going upstairs, and on the mini-balcony. This will work well for our mini Romeo and Juliet series, in which I swoon and ask where Romeo is. <br /><br />Romeo is at the bottom of the steps, as is Mr. Darcy, his first foot on the stairs, holding up his hand. I swoop down, something of a cross between a bat in jeans and a slightly over age Juliet. Just slightly.<br /><br />The lights, blue/green, red, and yellow are merry and it's our first time for them. We leave them on all night.<br /><br />I think about how lovely it would have been to raise children in this house, to provide them this holiday fantasy of warmth and comfort. But yesterday is gone. We enjoy them now.Daily Writing Habithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17915494319720858753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2905499957305350028.post-84833718940061866002009-12-02T12:40:00.002-05:002009-12-02T12:47:47.116-05:00I dream of fruitLast night I opened the freezer and on the top shelf, eye level, was a large clear bag of precious jewels of fruit: black raspberries, peachy cantaloupe, red raspberries, green grapes, strawberries. We harvested the fruit in the summer, and I forgot we had these jewels. <br /><br />This was a dream, but how true it is, isn't it, that we forget our treasures?<br /><br />Last night we put up the snow fence, in the dark. I have on a lime green tank top, a white long sleeve sweater, a green cardigan, a yellow hooded sweatshirt, a gold jacket, and a red overcoat. Two pairs of gloves. Not that it was cold. At least I didn't have a purse.<br /><br />In the dark, standing high on a step stool is my husband, swinging a sledgehammer to drive in the fence rails. He looks like a coal miner. <em>Is it deep enough,</em> he asks, and I shine a light on the ground. We stretch the orange plastic fence along the rails. <br /><br />It takes one hour to harvest our coal. The fence is up, it is straight, and if we're lucky, little snow.Daily Writing Habithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17915494319720858753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2905499957305350028.post-13905800064401886142009-12-01T12:33:00.002-05:002009-12-01T12:38:25.149-05:00What I want when my heart lights upWhen something good happens to me, and my hear lights up, the first thing I want to do is write about it.<br /><br />Writing centers me, I get centered with writing, writing comforts me, provides me solace, is my friend.<br /><br />If writing is ilfe or death, what would you write about to save yourself?<br /><br />To plummet my depths, I need to write.<br /><br /><em>All I have to do is write about it. </em>That's what I tell myself, when I'm tensing up and feel I have to be ... "on." <em>All I have to do is write about it.</em> Nothing else is required.Daily Writing Habithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17915494319720858753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2905499957305350028.post-61657850969171743242009-11-05T12:05:00.002-05:002009-11-05T12:15:34.219-05:00Relive the dayI want to relive last Thursday, the day of my son's graduation. It was one of those milestones that has a radiance, an aura, that transcends the ordinary.<br /><br />He is full of stories.<br /><br />He stands with one hand behind his back, eats with one hand on his lap.<br /><br />He is meticulous about wearing his cover, inside and out.<br /><br />I've made a pan of brownies, and after we're in the car, his fingers wind under the foil, until by the end of the day, the brownies are gone.<br /><br />I know what a field plate is: it's what they get in the field: if luck, 3 oz of ham, a spoon of potatoes. he's hungry: he's tried Brussels sprouts. Well, okay, 2 Brussels sprouts. <br /><br />He wants Steak and Shake, followed by mint oreo shake. And Burger King. He says they are set to deploy in 2011.<br /><br />We visit the Patton Museum, and I buy a "My Son is in the Army" decal.<br /><br />Poignant, that's what it is.<br /><br />This is too short - too short, but sweet, for my daily writing habit.Daily Writing Habithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17915494319720858753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2905499957305350028.post-11943576143669009112009-10-27T12:43:00.003-04:002009-10-27T12:47:48.039-04:00Personal mission statementI was watching a politicial "debate" yesterday, and the candidates were asked what was their personal mission statement? One candidate said it was service to others and to the community. The other candidate said to be the best at whatever he was doing - best dad, best grandpa.<br /><br />I think "dedicated to fostering my creative life and to fostering the creative life of others. We are more that we think we are" about covers it for me. This is my service, my mission! <br /><br />Tomorrow we leave to see my son graduate from military training at Fort Knox!Daily Writing Habithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17915494319720858753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2905499957305350028.post-75559069600642663102009-10-26T12:15:00.002-04:002009-10-26T12:23:53.789-04:00Theater dreamsWhat we did last weekend:<br /><br />Measured west windows for storms<br />Trimmed shrubs (at 2 houses)<br />Cleaned gutters (at 2 houses)<br />Bought insulation<br />Made up guest room for visitors<br /><br />I have theater dreams: dreams in which I am expansive, expressive, and emotive, the three e's. I want to believe everything will be "all right," whatever that means.<br /><br />I look down the sunny street and see my father among the gold sun-lit leaves. He passed away 8 years ago.Daily Writing Habithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17915494319720858753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2905499957305350028.post-8941039718847054782009-09-21T11:55:00.002-04:002009-09-21T12:02:01.714-04:00Name Withheld Upon RequestI haven't been keeping up my daily habit too well.<br /><br />So, an update on the garden: picked the last of the sweet corn yesterday. Some corn borer invaded the late corn. It's not a pretty sight, to be husking corn over the burn pile, and see me discover a worm, I am sure. Probably a <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">squeal</span> and a hop are in order, a kind of corn borer dance.<br /><br />Since we last met there has been a trip to the emergency room, the Hancock County Fair, a few birthdays, a class reunion, a few more recipes!<br /><br />I like writing about things I don't want the public eye to see, they are too deep, too personal! Blah blah. I want to <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">withhold</span> my name, upon request.Daily Writing Habithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17915494319720858753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2905499957305350028.post-45857717881228463072009-07-16T12:18:00.003-04:002009-07-16T12:22:15.229-04:00the business of writingMiss Daily Writing Habit has a recurring idea to cut out the prints from Naomi Lewis' Fairy Tales to Read Out Loud and frame them, hang them in her writing room, and order another copy...for reading, of course.<br /><br />She hasn't been writing profound thoughts or writing much. It occurs to her that writing is a kind of business, in terms of the discipline and product! Where's the product?<br /><br />Started <em>Seal Wife.</em><br /><br />Planted lavender.Daily Writing Habithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17915494319720858753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2905499957305350028.post-14336638429467477742009-07-13T12:31:00.002-04:002009-07-13T12:40:39.694-04:00Miss DWH wants a good storyMiss Daily Writing Habit begins reading Kathryn Harrison's <em>The Seal Wife</em> and immediately picks up <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">subterranean</span> currents in her head. For instance, she seems fascinated by neighbors.<br /><br />What the book jacket says about the writer gives her energy: she has written novels, essays for <em>The New Yorker</em> and <em><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Harpers</span></em>.<br /><br />Again the recurring question: what if Miss Daily Writing Habit devoted genuine time and energy to writing?<br /><br />Call this: one writer's journey into writing, into her craft. Delving where no writer has gone before.<br /><br />Burbs and blurbs, or maxims and <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">taxims</span><br /><br />Harold Bloom: we shouldn't read to understand history or politics or culture, but to understand the human condition. <br /><br />We all get frustrated department: Nelle Harper Lee (<em>To Kill a Mockingbird</em>) spent eight years working on a novel, and when she couldn't get it "to come together" she threw it out her apartment window. All the pages landed in snow. (Her editor told her to get <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">outside</span> and pick up the pages, she did, the rest is, as they say, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">herstory</span>.)Daily Writing Habithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17915494319720858753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2905499957305350028.post-32158637006164013212009-07-09T12:55:00.002-04:002009-07-09T12:59:40.439-04:00Return to spinYesterday I return to spinning. Since the all women private gym I attended closed, it's been <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">nada</span> in the exercise department. Now I go to the student recreation center - it's <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">institutional</span>, but it has good fans. (Four oscillating large fans are mounted in the ceiling's corners.)<br /><br />What is the drive to write about experience? Oliver Sacks, for example, who devoted his life to studying and helping people...then wrote about these experiences. What inner, undefined purpose (besides the obvious ones) does this serve?<br /><br />Short note today, sorry -<br /><br />B.Daily Writing Habithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17915494319720858753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2905499957305350028.post-80825643137279952612009-07-08T12:48:00.004-04:002009-07-09T13:00:50.278-04:00process vs productSo, the blog is about my writing process, it is not "the book" or "the novel."<br /><br />The blog and the book--the bell and the candle--they are two different things, just like the policy and the policy process are two different things.<br /><br />Yesterday I pick up a swing for my granddaughter. It's a tire cut in the shape of a pony, with a red white and blue tassel.<br /><br /><strong><span style="color:#ffffff;">Willing Suspension of Disbelief</span></strong><br /><br />I pick up the audio book <em>Three Cups of Tea</em> and also K. Harrison's <em>The Seal Wife</em> and J. Harrison's <em>Legends of the Fall</em>, books I didn't get through in my earlier foray back into reading.<br /><br />Generally I like non-fiction for audio books, which I listen to on my commute to work. I don't, or am unwilling to, suspend my disbelief in that environment. Not sure why!Daily Writing Habithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17915494319720858753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2905499957305350028.post-73141980493805090592009-07-07T12:39:00.004-04:002009-07-07T12:54:16.208-04:00The left arm does the workWhat if writing is like my golf "lesson": I make it too hard, I try too hard, just need to realize that one thing: the left arm does the work, leads. It's not an act of praying over the club, both hands clasped together at the waist, swinging with both arms, eyes closed, <em>please hit the ball, make it fly above the ground and not be a pantie waist effort, help me be not klutzy this once.</em><br /><em></em><br />I want my writing to be about more than a domestic comedy. I recall that my favorite books have a backdrop of cultural/societal change: <em>How Green Was My Valley, Dr. Zhivago</em>. I want it to be a book I'd wanna read, a page turner, a truth.<br /><br />Stumbled over these two writers with a different process: <br /><br />From Writer's Almanac: David McCullough would find something he wanted to learn more about, go out and see what was written about it, and if there wasn't much or it wasn't good, he would write it himself....To research Truman and Adams, he not only read their letters and visited their homes, but he imitated their daily rituals, read the same books they read, and reenacted pivotal events in their lives. <br /><br />Robert Heinlein took up writing because he needed money and it was safer than stealing and easier than working.<br /><br />But maybe mostly they learned to golf with the left arm doing the work.Daily Writing Habithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17915494319720858753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2905499957305350028.post-55930112751943763202009-07-06T16:41:00.002-04:002009-07-06T16:47:01.739-04:00WritingI read over my last blog entry and it's so long! Who wants to read it, including me?<br /><br />Again, I wonder if I settled down and concentrated, what I'd get done, what truths I would realize.<br /><br />I write until I feel relief: ***oh I have something.*** like a leaf swinging gracefully down a tree.Daily Writing Habithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17915494319720858753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2905499957305350028.post-21026481888610222382009-07-02T12:29:00.003-04:002009-07-02T12:50:13.549-04:00Cooking escapadesWe don't need no <em>Julie and Julia</em>.<br /><br />Last night Mr <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">DWH</span> flames some olive oil, readies vanilla beans, sears some scallops, adds butter - yo ho, caramelized scallops with vermicelli and rice! Mr <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">DWH</span> scans a recipe quickly and moves on. I study it, repeatedly, constantly picking it up and worrying it. <br /><br />We are into oil spatters right now - last weekend we tried the new french fry slicer. It didn't work, but the oil was ready. Hand sliced fries are probably much better, anyway.<br /><br />------<br /><br />Yesterday Miss <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">DWH</span> promised a first line of a book. This morning she grabbed <em>Lost Letters of Jane Austen, Volume I</em> and here it is:<br /><br /><em>I am leaving again</em>. <em>I am throwing away the remnants of my past into a black plastic garbage bag with yellow handles, which sits on the painted hardwood floor like Santa's bag. Maybe it has presents in store for someone.</em><br /><em></em><br />And I examine the presents, each with its own story.<br /><br />And then there's this: ...<em>the overriding question of my life at this point seems to be: will I find love?</em> <em>Maybe I want to find myself in a Jane Austen novel, unfinished. I seem to have moved past the heroine's age even in the autumnal Persuasion, although I am always a sucker for a good love letter.</em><br /><em></em><br /><em>-----</em><br /><em></em><br />And here is my epigraph, my book's guiding principle:<br /><br /><em>For one human being to love another; that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.</em><br />--Rainer Maria Rilke<br /><br />-----------<br /><br />Baby, Miss <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">DWH</span> is <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">cookin</span>' now!Daily Writing Habithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17915494319720858753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2905499957305350028.post-74820612740216635532009-07-01T17:11:00.002-04:002009-07-01T17:27:29.828-04:00Disappearing actMiss DWH is fascinated by ordinary people who disappear - not the ones who are thought to be victims of some ruthless, violent crime - but the ones who seemed to have changed their mind about who they are and where they want to be. And they cannot be found.<br /><br />She used to imagine that if she left for a trip and didn't come back, what would the investigators deduce about her from what she left behind? And where would she be? There was a time when driving out to California in a little red sports car, her long blond hair flowing behind her, was appealing.<br /><br />So it is she arrives at the first sentence of her novel.<br /><br />You know of course some of the best first lines of novels:<br /><br /><div align="left"><em>Call me Ishmael.</em></div><div align="left"><em></em> </div><div align="left"><em></em> </div><div align="left"><em>It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a singe man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.</em></div><div align="left"><em></em> </div><div align="left"><em>Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy it its own way. (My favorite)</em></div><div align="left"><em></em> </div><div align="left"><em>It was the best of times, the worst of times.</em></div><div align="left"><em></em> </div><div align="left"><em>This is the saddest story I have ever heard.</em></div><div align="left"><em></em> </div><div align="left"><em>We started dying before the snow, and like the snow, we continued to fall.</em></div><div align="left"><em></em> </div><div align="left"><em>I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.</em></div><div align="left"><em></em> </div><div align="left"><em>They say when trouble comes close ranks, and so the white people did.</em></div><div align="left"><em></em> </div><div align="left"><em>In the town, there were two mutes and they were always together.</em></div><div align="left"><em></em> </div><div align="left">So tonight Miss DWH will find her first line, in a box, in a drawer, in the woods, in the eggs - and she'll be back.</div><br />Until we meet again<br />Miss DWHDaily Writing Habithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17915494319720858753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2905499957305350028.post-27418894164527230232009-06-30T17:28:00.002-04:002009-06-30T17:34:57.510-04:00Mr. DWHMr. DWH is recuperating nicely, thank you.<br /><br />A word about Mr. DWH:<br /><br />He describes himself as a regular Joe who just works harder than anybody else.<br /><br />That's what he says: <em>I'm just a regular Joe</em>. He shrugs his shoulders a big when he says this, a bit like a Clydesdale settling in at the plow. <em>I just work harder than most.</em><br /><em></em><br />This Miss DWH has found to be true. He seems to have near boundless energy when there are things to be done, ideas to be had, fun to be generated.<br /><br />He says he wants the people around him to have happy lives, that he wants to help them achieve their goals, and that is the way he wants to be remembered.<br /><br />More on the 'morrow,<br /><br />Miss DWHDaily Writing Habithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17915494319720858753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2905499957305350028.post-17680680263835793782009-06-29T17:28:00.003-04:002009-06-29T17:51:01.133-04:00Family Surgery WaitingFriday we wake up at 4 am. I'm not sure if I'm going to Easter sunrise services, driving to Florida, or to Chicago. But no, wait - it's to the hospital for Mr DWH's surgery.<br /><br />During the big surgery, I'm in the hallway reception area, looking through a window at the stark chairs lined up in Family Surgery Waiting, whose space defined by bright red pillars. I see four women, all with long tresses in different arrangements, playing cards. Through the window I can see one player's hand - all low red cards, diamonds and hearts. <br /><br />Behind them a young woman with olive skin and dark hair stands and adjusts her striped tube top. In a few moments she stands and adjust it again. Same place, her thumbs beside her breasts, and then she shimmies like she's getting dressed.<br /><br />A resident in pale green scrubs comes into the hallway and looks up and down, as if he's looking for a rising tide. He doesn't see it. <br /><br />It's about 11 a.m., time for Mr DWH to be finished. The time for meditation is over.<br /><br />I hold my buzzer like I'm waiting for a reservation of fancy scalpels and tongs. When I'm called in to slot number 37, there is adhesive and band aids and a little blood on the sheet covering Mr. DWH's gurney. There are pencilled in numbers, too, 16 1/2 on one side and 32 on the other. Who knows what they mean. A doctor's ruminations?<br /><br />Tony and Debi, the nurses in recovery, stand at computer screens and enter bp, heart rate; it's the after dinner dance of drop down menu, click; drop down menu, click; drop down menu, click. <br /><br />I lift the straw to Mr DWH's lips and later he says this is what he remembers most about this trip, me delicately positioning the white straw so that he can sip. We have been through three surgeries now and about three trips to the emergency room. I am getting better at these trips. I am a "faint at the sight of blood" person. I have never told Mr. DWH this.<br /><br />We all have our secrets.<br /><br />Until we meet again --Daily Writing Habithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17915494319720858753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2905499957305350028.post-37197608626949349592009-06-25T12:14:00.003-04:002009-06-25T12:19:45.775-04:00Coming closer by going awayOne way I move closer to my book and my creative self is by going away.<br /><br />Life is full of such ironies, isn't it?<br /><br />We go to Chicago for two days and being in the midst of towering buildings with filigree and arched windows energizes me. I could stare at the river from our 27th floor for ... a while, anyway.<br /><br />We have dinner on the 95th floor of the John Hancock Building. As the city lights up at night it's as if we are in the heavens, looking down at the stars.<br /><br />I'm at peace, for the first time in a long time.<br /><br /><br />Back at work, I notice two habits I have that are counterproductive to my creativity:<br /><br />1) panicky at the items that need to be done<br />2) creating lists of tasks that should be done but I don't wanna do (not like list below of my book projects)<br /><br />Well, love your hat and see you Friday.Daily Writing Habithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17915494319720858753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2905499957305350028.post-79844345534693756982009-06-22T12:40:00.005-04:002009-06-22T13:03:33.352-04:00Bat exorcismSaturday is a day of small towns: <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Williston</span>, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Graytown</span>, Lindsay, Berlin Heights, Vermilion.<br /><br />We stop at a graduation party near <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Williston</span>; Miss DWH gets hit in the face by a basketball, throwing iced tea from a transparent plastic glass on her left shoulder, as if she's making a wish; we travel to pick up my mother, unnerved by a bat that has flown into her house; then on to Vermilion, for the Fish Festival Parade of Boats with Lights. You'd think the decorations would be nautical, but no: there's Snoopy in his doghouse while "Red Baron" plays, and what looks like Moses Parting the Red Sea with a cross at the bow of the boat.<br /><br />We stop at Granny Joe's for ice cream. Granny Joe's has a historical marker: it was formerly a funeral parlor and one of the first buildings in Vermilion, a low happy yellow house with a white porch.<br /><br />And then back to do a bat exorcism.<br /><br />The bat has sequestered itself in a roll up shade and emerges when Mr. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">DWH</span> rolls down the shade. It's wing span is longer than Miss <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">DWH's</span> hand outstretched and when it flies towards her she thinks of earlier in the day, when she looked up and a basketball was a foot from my face and then slam, dunk. She can't watch.<br /><br />Mr. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">DWH</span> hits the bat with a broom three times and still it flies. Finally he pins it on the floor and it bares its teeth. He flings it outside.<br /><br />It's hard not to think of a bat as some embodiment of evil or a <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">harbinger</span> of bad things. But there it is, it's just a bat.Daily Writing Habithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17915494319720858753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2905499957305350028.post-43809716541079384332009-06-19T18:20:00.004-04:002009-06-19T18:26:17.014-04:00Lemon PuckerWhen Miss <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">DWH</span> arrives home last night she has a Lemon Pucker in hand. It's a lemon fizzy frozen drink from a small locally owned ice cream store in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Haskins</span> called <em><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Buzzys</span>.</em> Sometimes she and Mr. <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">DWH</span> buy a treat and walk down the street to the ball field and watch the little-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">leaguers</span>. <br /><br />But this year they haven't had time to do this. They have planted their garden, and when Miss <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">DWH</span> gets home last night, Mr <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">DWH</span> is circling his pond with his lasso - er, pond skimmer. He's wearing a white short sleeve polo shirt and navy slacks, <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">looking</span> very dapper.<br /><br /><em><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">Goodie</span> <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Goodie</span> gumdrop,</em> Miss <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">DWH</span> says. She is so mushy sometimes. <em>You are home.</em>Daily Writing Habithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17915494319720858753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2905499957305350028.post-48733545425637584542009-06-18T16:53:00.002-04:002009-06-18T17:01:57.394-04:00WateringThis morning Miss <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">DWH</span> cannot find Mr <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">DWH</span> to ask <em>help make the bed</em>? or say <em>goodbye</em> before going to the office. Then she spies him outside, in grey shorts and t-shirt that says <em>CHILL. </em>He's in the garden, watering the corn he heard growing yesterday.<br /><br />Miss <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">DWH</span> opens the garage door and steps out and he comes running, holding his covered coffee cup. <em>Hustle hustle hustle</em>, she laughs, because it's much too lovely of a morning to be hustling about before it's a requirement.<br /><br />And what of the book progress? Miss <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">DWH</span> carries it with her, in a black <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">faux</span> leather bag from Target that has worn handles. The bag gets heavier, but the book doesn't get weightier. Instead there are two pairs of shoes - kitten heels for the office, tennis shoes for walking at lunch.Daily Writing Habithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17915494319720858753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2905499957305350028.post-71803310387044227812009-06-17T12:34:00.003-04:002009-06-17T12:46:53.838-04:00How goes it, how goes it notSaturday Miss DWH feeds chickens for the first time. The neighbors have asked her to put her weeds, sticks, and shrub cuttings through a hole in the fence she can't see. She's afraid of burying the chickens with her thorny greenery and cajoles Mr. DWH into helping her.<br /><br />Later in the dark, Mr and Miss DWH watch fireworks at the state park.<br /><br />Mr. DWH sends a note: <em>This morning, I checked the status of our garden. I believe we are seeing spouts of corn peeking out of the soil.</em><br /><em></em><br />As for the book, how goes it, how goes it not; how goes it, how goes it not.<br /><br />Miss DWH has a fascination with letters, where writers divulge their deepest, most confidential selves. Once upon a time, in a land far far away, she spent Sunday afternoons moodling and writing these letters, herself. Strange things came from her, unexpected, surprising. <br /><br />Tasks:<br /><ol><li>Collect these letters</li><li>Collect my first line - where did Miss DWH hide it? "I am throwing things away..."</li><li>Collect my epigram - Rilke</li><li>Collect old stories and entries, useful as bits and pieces in <em>Lost Letters of Jane Austen</em></li><li>Junk the useless journal entries, built when tired and guaranteed to crash when weight is put upon them</li><li>Write about throwing things away</li><li>Write write write</li></ol>Daily Writing Habithttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17915494319720858753noreply@blogger.com0