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The 7-7-7 Challenge

I was nominated for this by @out_ofthe_fog on twitter. The 7-7-7 challenge is a fun little chain letter thingy encouraging writers to share a little bit of their work in progress. Once you’ve done the challenge you nominate 7 others. I chose 7 folks from twitter that I’m either stalking or find engaging in some way. I didn’t pick anyone that I’ve already bought books from and intend to buy more. I focused of folks who I’d like to see what they’re up to or how their progress is coming (provided any of them / you choose to take that challenge).
One of the motivators in finishing my work or just writing in general is getting out on social media and actually talking about writing and issues. Not only that, reading what others are up to has been helpful for me as well. That said, one of the biggest motivators / tools of encouragement is sharing my work. Even if I don’t get feedback, I still know that a couple people might take a look at what I’ve written and so I look at my own work with a much more critical eye. So, that there was a long-winded explanation as to why I decided to do the challenge.
The challenge works like this: You do this by going to page 7 of your manuscript, counting down to line 7 and then sharing the next 7 sentences in a blog post.
I’ve got two works in a state that I could give this a go. I chose a section of the first chapter of Wine Bottles and Broomsticks. The whole chapter is available over on http://www.channillo.com and the second installment is coming this Friday!

“Not completely. We get her to a place we can corner her and see if we can out her. Once we’ve done that, we bring her in, and work out whether or not we can tie her to anything.”
“This doesn’t sound legal. Shouldn’t we have probable cause? What is it that this woman is suspecting of having done?”
“Being a witch is probable cause.”
“But what if that witch hasn’t done anything -not that I’m saying there are witches.”
“You can’t be a witch, unless you’re a witch.”

So, there it is. Now, I’ve stalled my run long enough. Now, for another challenge: Time to get out there and raise awareness for usher syndrome.

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Writers improvement hell: Building a duck coop

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I bet you’re asking what the hell building a duck coop has to do with writing. Nothing. But it has a lot to do with not writing. In case you’re wondering this is another one of those complainy posts about not having enough time. It’s true though, I don’t, and it doesn’t have anything to do with running every night for the own the equinox challenge this month to raise awareness for usher syndrome (sorry, I gotta plug this, people should know about it, and of course if you can contribute, that’d be great too.) Running is a small part of my day, and I’m glad to be doing it.

The bigger time-sink at the moment is correcting the horrible-awful job I did building the duck-coop the first time. It’s too small, the roof is collapsing and you can’t easily get in to clean it. It’s got to happen because I really don’t want to have another morning waking up to “all the ducks are dead, a dog got them, your son found them and is inconsolable.” That happened last year, but I didn’t have the resources to rebuild the duck house then. I do now.

I’ve got 2 real productive days for me in the week, one of which is devoted to preparing for the next week, and the other day is largely relegated to family stuff – mostly goofing off in whatever manner we’ve obligated ourselves to. So, where does writing fit in? I’m not sure right now. In that over-committed weekend I’m managing to carve out hours to build the duck-house, but not much else. I’m usually pretty good about writing it the evenings, but the last few weeks I’ve been tired and distracted – my version of writer’s block. I know that if I ever want to seem my stuff published I’m going to have to focus and actually spend the time, but it’s a fight even for someone like me who doesn’t do anything but work sometimes. For now though, I’m off to run some errands and gather supplies for this weekend’s crack at the coop. Then, of course, there’s the running.

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Can somebody tell me why it smells like boiled linseed oil in here?

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To answer the question in the title, it’s the sack of grain sitting behind me (don’t ask).

Today I went on a 30 minute jog around the neighborhood as part of a challenge from a friend and colleague in my small effort to help raise awareness and research funding for usher syndrome. For a variety of reasons this week is proving to be a rather emotional one. It has put me in a dour and philosophical mood. Every little thing along my way seemed somehow more acute. Every bit of sensory input was interesting. Perhaps it has to do with the icy dry air descending upon our little valley, and maybe it’s just me thinking too hard, I dunno. It started with sound and sight – something of a tie-in to the challenge itself. Usher syndrome is, after all, the most common cause of combined deafness and blindness, and yet so few have ever heard of it. Early detection is essential which is one of the reasons this challenge is so important – how do you detect something you may never have heard of?

Anyhow, to get on with it: The leaves here are starting to get a bit ‘crispy’ and as the sun drops low on the horizon blasting vibrant golden beams of light through the thin canopy of trees, these little birds, dunno what they are, rustle around sounding thoroughly like tiny elephants. And you know what? Aside from a bit of road noise, from the main road that’s it for sound. We don’t have cicadas or crickets. The few frogs we do have are typically quiet, and the birds, well they’ve mostly said their piece for the year. When you’re running, it’s your shoes, your breath and the wind.

It seems like the quiet would make for a peaceful and relaxing jog, but not so much. It’s too cold. The air just doesn’t seem to hold the sun’s heat this time of year. As soon as I hit the end of the drive, the cold started gnawing. Even with the last gasp of direct sunlight and my own heat of activity, the bite just got worse with every drop of sweat.

About half-way through my run, I was staring down the road into a thick fog of wood-smoke. Not the sweet well measured smoke you get from a fish smoker, but the thick nasty smoke from a poorly kept wood stove with low-quality wet wood. It got me thinking though about how things smell in the fall. When the air gets cold like that, sound travels well and so does smell. I got through the smoke and inhaled as much of the fresh clean air as I could. With that clean air came the sweet, pungent smells of fall, but there was more. Some houses I passed were dark and silent, but others were wrapping up their day. Some people were clearly taking their evening showers. I could smell the shampoo being pulled into the evening air by ventilators. One house was running their dryer and the perfume of dryer sheets hung out in the street too.

To bring this around to writing, smell is one I always forget about. It’s so close to taste that I think I just forget about it. The funny thing is that smell is really linked to memory and emotion in a way that sometimes other senses aren’t. It’s just like the sack of grain sitting behind me that reminded me of boiled linseed oil, which makes me feel like being in the wood shop. Once you get to the linseed oil part, you’re nearly done, but not quite, it’s like the last leg of a marathon.

Anyhow, that was an odd rambling post. But I posted it so there you have it.

Note: In the spirit of full disclosure, I took a bit of artistic license with this – I started writing this post yesterday. It wasn’t quite as clear today, but I ran the same both days