Monday, March 26, 2007
Perfect Minnesota Day
Let's just start this off by saying that there really isn't one particular sort of perfect Minnesota day. When you're a Minnesotan, you learn to enjoy the changeability of the weather and you stock up on different kinds of perfect days. Today is perfect because the sun is gazing kindly down upon us from a pale blue sky, the earth is warming and smells wet, the temperature is forecast to reach 70 degrees Fahrenheit, and there are no bugs - and, by bugs, I mean mosquitos. Only the barest traces of snow remain. The snowboard hill is no more than a Nike swoosh on the brown grass. The trees aren't budding yet, but it doesn't matter because it's warm enough to be outside and active. Ahhh! It's basking weather.
Labels: minnesota, mosquitos, nike, snow, spring, weather
Monday, March 19, 2007
It Could Go Either Way
Here I sit at the computer, periodically looking out the window facing our backyard. The snow is melting rapidly and I can see the hole my children dug last summer. They've arranged some old bricks and pieces of cement at one end of the hole in a strangely Stonehenge fashion. Further back in the yard, almost to the alley, they've constructed a snowboarding ramp of snow (what else?). It's a sizeable pile, the most sizeable in the yard, but no longer any good for snowboarding. Our compost heap is exposed and almost looks larger than the snowboarding pile. Spring and winter are mixed in the wind. It could go either way.
The weather perfectly mirrors my writing mood today. I've finished a story and am ready to start a new one for the series I'm working on and I realized yesterday that while I've got a character, I've got no plot yet. So, I've done a little online research and am mentally messing around. No sense in forcing these things. I'm tempted to take a little detour. I've always got several story ideas brewing, but have been setting some of them aside while working on my series. One of them has been poking at me to write it out. We'll see . . . .
The weather perfectly mirrors my writing mood today. I've finished a story and am ready to start a new one for the series I'm working on and I realized yesterday that while I've got a character, I've got no plot yet. So, I've done a little online research and am mentally messing around. No sense in forcing these things. I'm tempted to take a little detour. I've always got several story ideas brewing, but have been setting some of them aside while working on my series. One of them has been poking at me to write it out. We'll see . . . .
Labels: backyard, characters, children, hole, idea, minnesota, mood, research, snow, spring, story, winter, writing
