Summer Slacker

No, it's not the beach, though I can be tempted. Or the pool.  Or weeks and weeks of travel.The eternal issue for me as a writer is the siren song of the garden.  During the winter, I'm tempted to tackle the big house issues, like closets and attic, but the temptation isn't overwhelming. Summer, however, pulls me into the yard like a piece of  death-by-chocolate cake. My very own triple layer cake, with one fork.  I see where the beds need work, plants that long to be moved to other spots, bushes crying out for a trim. If I don't get in a bit of outdoors with my snips or a shovel, I'm one unhappy writer.

Nature doesn't play a big role in my writing. I don't use plants or fauna unless they're clues. Place can be a character and often is.  I love to use atmosphere based on location. Think of a moss-draped tree hiding a house, barely covered with remnants of white paint. The possibilities are infinite and often can be based on clichés. But don't clichés carry kernels of truth that everyone recognizes?

I'm going to make my fanny stick to my desk chair this coming week, even though there's a rose bush that needs spraying. It'll have to fight the buggies by itself for a few days, at least.

Hmmmm...Nails and Pearls

 I have this small sterling whatever sitting on my dressers, and today it fell over. I realized I've been collecting small  nails (I have no idea why) and pearls in it. The pearls belong to a bracelet I'd worn for years.  Unfortunately, they've seen better days. Why I dropped the bracelet in there and added nails seems like a detail for a novel. Somewhere, I'll be able to use it.

Red Shoes and the Inexplicable

I don't know where I got this fetish for red shoes. Heaven knows, I grew up wearing sensible oxfords black patent leather Mary Janes for church.  Once, I begged for a pair of penny loafers, but my sensible mother shot that one down. Anyone as active as I was, needed shoes that would stay on her feet, and loafers wouldn't cut it. I would come home from first grade, stopping at a grassy slope to slide down several times, with grass stains all over the back of my skirt. (In those days, girls had to wear skirts to school.) My mother finally had it, and informed me in no uncertain terms that I'd get spanked the next time I pulled that stunt and ruined another dress.

Anyway, I looked in my closet and stared at my rather embarrassingly vast shoe collection, and once again, I chose a pair of red ones.  I have no idea how red shoes became embedded in my consciousness as the basic shoe color, but I've given up fighting it. Besides, they make me feel happy. So red shoes it is.