Or maybe that's 1.80 - I never was much of a math type. 

Okay so on to the update business. I am seriously, seriously pleased with the progress. I am officially through Chapter 8 EVEN after getting lost on a bit of a detour. The detour turned out to be a functional one, I have a feeling a lot of it will get wrapped by Chapter 10: Wherein our heroes discover they are not alone on a their new home planet.  I'm writing an average of about 2 hours a day but I'm resisting posting word counts because to be fair not all of the words used are very good and many will probably not see the light of day.

I'm not sure how much writing will be going on over the weekend - camping and all - but I'm VERY excited about the July 10-20 which I'll have my very own writer's retreat  while I housesit for a friend. 10 days, no cable, no internet and a cuddly lap kitty. I expect to be a writing machine. I am not, however, counting my eggs before they're laid. I'm still expecting another two chapters before I sequester myself in writer-land.

Thank you to all of you who are helping me to meet my goals and raise some money for Clarion West - I regret that there's no way to thank you personally, but unless you've actually mentioned that you are sponsoring this gig I have no way of knowing who you are. I do know that Clarion West now has 75 donors which is great progress toward our goal do 200 Write-a-Thon donors.

After a little prompting (cause who can say no to Eileen), I've decided to post a few bits as we go. I am actually kind of sweaty in the palm area at the thought of posting live, naked (and loosely edited) story bits here but it's almost 2 am and the sooner I get this posted, the soon I get get some much needed sleep before I the drive to Lopez in the (later) morning. Without further ado, here’s a sample of some of the words your donation sponsored this week:

Alice’var walked the line, inoculating them against the latest pathogen as she went. For all of the professor’s research and preparation the planet managed to sneak a few hits in immediately, the worst of which killed one of the ‘dars after 24 hours of misery Vinnie'tar wouldn't have wished on his worst enemy.

            The medic looked spent. Her normally olive complexion was pale and her eyes were ringed dark from lack of sleep. Vinnie knew she had been doing double duty since the crashed. His own medic was combat trained with only basic general medicine training and the professor’s training was in theory, not practice.  Linea'tar helped with trauma injuries sustained in establishing the settlement; cuts, broken bones, even a ruptured appendix, and the Professor did much of the strategy and research. For the general acclimating process Alice handled both horses and humans.

            “Roll up your sleeve,” she said by way of greeting when it was his turn.

            “Which one,” he said. “I’ve already gotten punched in both arms twice.”

            She met his eyes without smiling. He considered that an improvement. After he cancelled the search for the cargo beacon she wouldn’t even look at him.

            “Left,” she said. She didn’t wait for him to comply, picking a patch of skin exposed by his torn shirt and pushing the inoculation gun against his sunburned flesh.

            The gust of sterilizer was his only warning. He yelped at the pinch of the needle and winced as she drew away, rubbing the sore spot where a pinprick of blood rose.  She started walking away.

            “Did you use the horse needle that time?” he shouted.

            Alice looked over her shoulder at him impassively as she collared Hersch. Hersche extended his arm without a fuss. With his fair skin and red hair, the sun had taken a severe toll on his exposed skin. He was lobster red and beginning to blister in places.

            “For you,” she said. “Nothing less.”

            “Brilliant,” Vinne muttered. Raising his voice he said, “is this one gonna make me sick too?”

            “Probably,” she said. “Would you prefer dead?”

            “I’m wondering if it would be easier than getting socked in the arm every five minutes,” he said.

            “Alright,” she said, smiling humorlessly. “Next time I won’t bother you. Just let me sleep when you start bleeding out of your ears and can’t keep shit in your guts, ok?”

            “Deal,” he growled under his breath, turning back to the work of raising the shelter walls.

            “Asshole,” Alice muttered. She let Hersch go and continued walking to the gardens.

Srsly. Clarion West is a non-profit organization that thrives on volunteer hours and donations to provide not only an outstanding six week long writer's workshop but, through scholarships and outreach, makes the workshop available to people who might not otherwise be able to afford it. 

For the next six weeks (June 21 through July 31), the members of the Write-A-Thon (all CW alum) will be shadowing this year's class as they progress through the Workshop here in Seattle. 


 The purpose of the Write-A-Thon is twofold:

1. to motivate the participating writers (including yours truly) to make and meet some ambitious writing goals by reminding us of what amazing things we are capable of. After all, we survived Clarion West, didn't we? Joking aside, there has never been a single point in my writing life where I have been more inspired, encouraged and productive than those six weeks in Seattle. Which brings me to #2


2. As participating writers, we are asking our friends and families (that means you guys) to sponsor our progress. Don't worry moms, it's not ‘cause we're starving. The money we raise through donations and sponsorships goes back into Clarion West to keep the workshop running. Your donations are tax deductable and will leave you with a warm fuzzy feeling. Okay, we'll hold off on the fuzzy bit, I know some of you are allergic. 


As past CW attendees we all recognize the important place Clarion West had in our lives and careers. Without it, our writing lives would be much different.  We participate in the write-a-thon so that others will have the opportunity to benefit from the Clarion West experience for years to come. 

So how do you play along? 

Well you can start at the Write-A-Thon main page to find out more about the organization and participants. 

Or if you'd like to sponsor my effort to meet my writing goals and raise $100 for Clarion West (a modest amount I hope to surpass with your help) you can go directly to my Write-A-Thon page. It's shiny and has my name all over it.  It also has a sample of my writing from my week one Clarion West story "Strange" and a big PayPal button for you to make a contribution. 

My goals this year include
1. To finish my YA novel by completing 2 chapters a week. All going according to the outline that brings me to a finished first draft. Sweet!
2. Find a better title than "Horses in Space," cause that's good for a laugh, and very little else at this point. And the horses aren't really in space. Well, not for long, anyway.
3. To complete an overhaul of "Strange," cause it needs some love.

I'll be posting here with a weekly update on my progress.

The Bottom Line: In a way, this is like PBS, cause you can follow along without giving a dime (cheers are always appreciated in the comments section). But like PBS, you will be periodically reminded over the next six weeks that Clarion West can't do what it does without people like you. 

Lovely, wonderful, generous, kind people.
Like. 
You.

Donate here: http://clarionwest.org/events/writeathon/RashidaSmith and I'll get out of your hair. 

Signing off,
Eds

PS. Don’t take my word for it. Lots of other really cool writers are doing it too: http://clarionwest.org/events/writeathon/2009

The cello (aka Cecelia) arrived today. She is right now sitting in her hard case across the room, which maybe isn’t a good idea because my eyes keep reminding my hands that there is a brand new cello that needs some attention. She’s practically begging for it. The sirens themselves couldn’t be any more persuasive.

To make her even more irresistible, she’s fresh from the factory ( and the scent of wood and varnish that wafts up from the velvet lining when I open the hard case is like green apple jolly rancher flavored crack cocaine to my olfactory nerves, I just can’t get enough)so  I can’t just pull out a bow and start making a ruckus. First there’s the bridge placing and the string tightening (all of which some might argue should have been handled by a professional but who needs a pro- when there’s YouTube, MonkeySee and EHow just a click away?) Then to resin the bow, which will also require scoring the fresh resin cube  and finally the TUNING.

It doesn’t matter that I spent the last five hours surfing the interwebs for every scrap of information about cello preparation, then futzing with bridge and strings continually until Kirkland called, then the bow through Prince Caspian, and finally dragging my laptop into bed to watch how to videos when everybody else went to bed.  Now that the lights are off all I want to do is TUNE.

Then once that’s done all I have to do is learn to play.

Did I mention that in spite of fooling around with an electric bass for years (how hard is it to lookup popular music tabs? Cue: the interwebs! I can still play the bass line to 32 flavors in my sleep) I never learned to read music. Heh, heh, heh.  Thankfully, I’m not about to let a small fact like that stop me.

Now this whole night time is not the right time for tuning…that is putting a damper on things. This is better than Christmas. I can’t WAIT till morning.

In other news…

“Beginning, Again.”  (Yes, that is the running title)  Came back while I was in Seattle for the week. It’s a really short little number that I finished before Costa Rica and polished up while I was working on setting the Guinness for “Most time spent in a hammock in Central America.” Thankfully I’m very good at typing while in a supine position; hence this post. I’m debating whether to keep sending it around or take it to the group next time I’m in Seattle for another set of eyeballs. It FEELS pretty tight but, of course, I might be missing something.

“Horses in Space” (Nod to Miss Cambridge for the working title on this one) is coming along nicely. I am actually working off an outline, which means I am going to have to eat crow at some point when it is revealed that I was an hardcore anti-outliner through my stint at Clarion West. The inside joke here is that it probably wasn’t difficult to determine that particular fact when one was subjected to what I turned in every week. SIGH.

Although I resolved to TRY outlining for “Horses in Space,” when it moved from circling my head to taking up space on the hard drive, the point where I actually became a believer happened only this week. Midway through Chapter 7 I forgot where I was in a thick of a "somewhat interesting but ultimately going nowhere" bit of dialogue when I checked back in with my outline (what does happen next, anyway?) and voila – I ratcheted back the massive amount of babble to essential chatter and character 1 departed to do what needed to be done to get us to Chapter 8.

Sweet! It works! Having the outline is working like a much needed breadcrumb at strategic places along the forest floor – I am much less likely to wander off the trail when I can see the next point. And my word count is actually still reasonable.  

AND (it really does take “threes” to make me a believer in anything) when I sit down to write after a break (hours, days, whatever…) and I can’t figure out what’s up I can scan the last couple of paragraphs, then peek ahead at the outline and it’s like my subconscious brain just kicks into story mode and away I go. Holey F*ck, if I didn’t know better I’d think someone sprinkled fairy dust on my writing fingers or I just got a good swift kick in the ass from my muse.  Thankfully I know better. So instead, praise the baby jezus for outlines! Can I get an amen?! I am now an outliner.

Thankfully my eyelids are no longer successfully defying gravity. In a few minutes I won’t be able to see that sexy black cello case resting against the wall. Maybe I can finally get some sleep.

Signing off,

eds

There’s an old country song that says “you can always go home but you can never go back,” and it's right. I’ve officially been back from Costa Rica for a month now and am thoroughly integrated into the space I left behind. I’m looking for work, drifting between two of my favorite cities, and working on the novel I left behind when I boarded the plane three and a half months ago.  Still, the fundamental changes can’t be shaken and I realize now that I’m home, but I’m not back.

I’d like to itemize a list for you to make it easy to understand what’s changed, but I can’t even provide that for myself.  There are some things that are obvious to me: taking time to lose myself in a book don’t feel it a guilty pleasure; I walk more, bike more and need to be outside more than ever;  I’m happy to hop on a bus for destination and confident that I can find my way without hours of pre-trip route negotiation. Then there are the subtler shifts: a return of confidence in my own intuition; a crumbling of the urban life reinforced walls between me and everyone else; and a reduced need to compete with the images that other people present.  Oh and then there’s the pesky fact that I have now, gratefully, left my twenties behind.

Coincidence?  Not if the universe works the way I’m beginning to think it does.

One thing’s for sure. It’s good to be home. I’m excited about the next decade of my life. I’m ready to start planning my next trip.  Okay that’s three things. Forgive me. It’s been a big week.

Signing off,

Eds.

Dear Seattle,

Though traveling, I still managed to get a remarkable amount of reading done. Of course, there was a remarkable amount of time to be spent in hammocks, reading. But that's beside the point... Point is. I read a lot. Here are the stories that I traveled with in Costa Rica, good bad and otherwise.

1.     The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand (big thanks to Kirkland for hauling these here and/or away)

2.     The Corrections - Jonathan Franzen

3.     The Miracle Life of Edgar P. Mint - Brady Udall

4.     A Girl Named Zippy - Haven Kimmel

5.     The Hardest (working) Man in Showbiz - Ron Jeremy (ok, it was a slow week in ST)

6.     A Thousand Acres - Jane Smiley

7.     Colorado's Finest - Sheryl Lynn (Yes, another slow week in ST)

8.     The Old Man and the Sea - Ernst Hemingway

9.     Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life - Wayne Dyer

10.   El Principito  (The little Prince) - My first book in Spanish. I still didn't get it.

Dear Seattle,

Yogurt and granola has become a simple fact of my morning routine. Also fact is that, like hotdogs and buns, I always seem to run out of one before the other.  So it shouldn’t have been a surprise when I woke up this morning and opened the mini fridge to find I had a full bag of granola and not a container of yogurt in sight.

In the last few days I seem to have reverted back to my original Costa Rica schedule – at least now I’m only waking up at 6:30 instead of 5:30. This morning it meant I had a full half hour to wait until Super Ronny opened before I could get my breakfast on. Determined that I would not be disrupted from my routine of sitting on the porch in my pajamas with a cup of yogurt and granola and a book (A Thousand Acres is my latest read) I washed my face, brushed my teeth, waited a bit longer for good measure then hopped on my bike and pedaled the 2 minute ride to the supermarket.

Early mornings are so blissfully quiet here: the road is still dust free and there are only a few people out and about. Instead of dodging cars and quads there is only the occasional wandering dog and early morning surfer to greet as I pass by. In the market I had a singular focus to get yogurt and get gone, so I hardly paid attention to the other customers other than the polite “Buenos Dias” and a smile on my way out the door.

I was making good speed home when I hit a rock at the bottom of the hill and felt the rear wheel bounce sharply under me. When I pushed into my next pedal stroke I was greeted with a total absence of resistance. The chain had popped off. I hopped off and did a bit of cursing and stomping about the inevitability of some problem on the one morning intended to make a quick trip (I was still in my pjs and not even wearing  a BRA for godssakes).

My bike is a hundred year old cruiser with a chain guard so for a few minutes I struggled and puffed, scraping my knuckles and cursing some more. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a man coming up the hill that I recognized from my brief foray into the grocery store. I gritted my teeth, hoping I wasn’t going to get an early morning come-on from a forward Tico, determined to walk the bike the rest of the way before he could catch up to me.

Too late. He stepped up to the other side of the bike, took one look at things and put down his grocery bags. In Spanish, he assessed the chain, then just took over, murmuring “suerte, mami, suerte,” when I tried to help out. It was a moment before I noticed that his left hand, below the wrist was missing entirely. Suddenly I remembered him, I’d seen him around town a lot in the last few weeks, but we hadn’t spoken a word to each other besides a “Buenos” and “Hola” in passing. I was always careful not to stare at his arm because his quiet manner didn’t seem to require pity. In less than a minute he had popped the chain loose from where it was tangled in bolt and re-threaded it on the wheels.  He stood up, smiled and almost before I could say thanks continued walking up the hill.

Humility and gratitude swept me like a six foot wave, and for a moment I just stood there, watching him continue up the road without a backward glance. I didn’t even have a name.

This small kindness – unexpected and without expectation of reward – struck the deepest sense of myself and what I know of the world around me, and has shaken me more profoundly than any other experience I’ve had so far on this adventure. The only way I know to repay that act is to pass that kindness on in a hundred little ways as long as I live.

Signing off,

Eds.