HUNKERING DOWN

We're having the damnest weather! 

Due to some horrendous storms (temps in the 70's and severe thunderstorms and flooding in January?), we've lost internet three times. I'm beating a judicious retreat rather than fight to get up the planned blog for tomorrow.

We've got rivers instead of roads and lakes instead of hay fields and an icy cold front moving in behind it all this. Temps were 72 at 2:00 this afternoon but it's 55 degrees right now(8:30 pm) and supposed to drop to 38 degrees before morning. More rain turning to sleet and snow to follow, or so they say. Aren't we so special? Can you imagine what the roads will be like when they freeze? Ugh.

Although I got all the animals fed and winterized I wasn't expect quite so much rain, strong winds, lightning and thunder. I have a dog who likes to dig to China on a regular basis because he likes to sleep in holes--I kid you not. With more rain and standing water than we expected, Hubs and I were out in the downpour trenching his dog pen so the dog house wouldn't flood. Silly dog. He's a chow/retriever mix.  

I'll have a new blog post for Friday. 

Have a great Wednesday!

Sunday Afternoon Delights?

My apologies to all. We've having spotty to NON-existent internet due to a series of thunderstorms that have hit us the past few days. I had no internet access until this evening.

Delight isn’t the first word that comes to mind, but it certainly was…exciting. My heartbeat was definitely elevated. Tornadoes have a way of doing that to a person, as do severe thunderstorms and an ear tuned to our battery operated radio. We were without electricity too.


I will admit I had another form of delight in mind. While I was napping my muse provided me with the solution to a problem I had been having in a scene. You know, one of those you can see clearly but can’t get it right with words. So I was eager to get to work, once I had my freshly brewed coffee. Regardless of the time of day, that first sip of coffee is always wonderful and I tend to savor it. I’m looking outside but not really focusing on what I saw since my mind was already playing leapfrog with ideas. It was about that time the computer weatherbug started chirping which told me something was up.


There were three warnings in a space of three minutes. On went the radio and we hear about golf ball sized hail, tornadoes sited and moving our way, flash flood warning due to the heavy output of the storms. Yikes. So began the mad scramble to batten down the hatches, put my car in the garage and fasten the storm latches, and bring in some of the animals.


My husband remarked, as my son and I came back into the house, “I have feeling this one going to knock out power.” We always have about 70 gallons of water in storage, but we like to put up ten additional gallons of fresh drinking water. He no more than got that done and out went the electricity. We’re always prepared with lighting as we have probably eight lanterns filled and ready at any given time along with dozens of fat plumber candles. We also have a propane cook stove. It was only a little before 4 so there was no need to light anything and the electricity was only out for forty-five minutes. Phone and internet, however, still isn't up.


It was eerie, but beautiful, sitting outside and seeing the trees reacting to rotation winds high above us and hearing the distinctive sound of tornado winds off to the northwest and sure enough one was sighted 4 miles away but coming in our direction. It chose pop over or go around our little valley. We weren’t being brainless by sitting outside as the basement door is only a few feet away. But you could hear it above in the clouds a few minutes later. It was at that point when I gave a to the basement warning.


The topography of where we live isn’t flat. We have tall hills filled with forests all around us. Last year, two tornadoes happened to find the one opening to our valley and roared through, but it’s rare, thankfully.

The aftermath was gorgeous though. About 5 the sun came out in the west behind us and bathed the trees and fields in golden light. The rim of the valley to the east and to the south lightning still flashed against dark blue gray skies. But what a sight to see how very green and gold the trees were in the east against stormy skies and the sun shining behind us. The rain was still falling  softly overhead; the rich smell of rain-drenched earth was a feast for the senses (in the picture above the haze is actually rainfall). The birds came out of hiding, singing and chattering away as they took baths in the mud puddles. They were oblivious to the four cats and two humans sitting ten feet away and watching.

I happened to look up watched a rainbow form. So vivid and stunning. A few minutes later, another rainbow formed. We had fully formed double arches over us and it looked like a faint third was trying to form. I can’t remember the last time that happened. It was beyond words and they stayed in place at least twenty minutes—long enough for me to get my camera and snap pictures. My mind tries to store sights and sounds. You never know when you can use them later in your writing.

I was just fascinated by the variety of light and shadow in this shot of the double rainbows.

I didn’t get much writing done, but I do believe the afternoon was filled with delights after all.

Some upcoming guests: Wednesday is the fabulous Joanne Kennedy. I'll also be interviewing Pamela Palmer this month and Janet Evanovich. Other guests, Loucinda McGary, and Mary Wine to name a few on the list.

Creation, Destruction, And Re-Creation.

~Sia McKye~

Ominous clouds boil up on the horizon and the winds begin to blow. In no time at all, the storm is all around you. Jagged forks of lightning flash against the charcoal skies, and thunder vibrates through your bones and shakes the house.

Storms can be an assault to the senses and even tricking them. You watch in morbid fascination as trees bow in the wind and buffet your house. Above the sound of the thunder you hear a loud crack and you watch in incomprehension as the massive top of a tree breaks off and blows by your window, like a mere tree branch. Your eyes can’t believe it or the shock of watching trees come down like matchsticks. Falling trees close by feel like an earthquake—especially when more than one falls in succession. The blankness of your mind quickly dissipates and you’re running for cover.

Watching the raw fury of nature is, by turns, exhilarating, and awe inspiring, and humbling. It’s also terrifying. It’s the essence of creation. Creation starts with elemental and raw materials and builds something. Sometimes that first involves destruction of the existing, forever changing the visible material and recreating it. Creation, annihilation, and re-creation.

That’s true whether you are doing something as simple as breaking eggs to make a cake. Melting sand to make glass, or dynamiting a granite wall to make a tunnel. When writing or taking a situation, personality trait, building a story, or using words to change the face of a political structure. Words have power. The right words can make things clear or obscure, build or destroy depending upon how you use them.

It’s not always easy to take the raw ideas of a world and make it viable. Creating people for those worlds from a mere thought is both exhilarating and scary. Have you used the raw materials properly so those characters live, breath, and react, in the landscape of your world? Or have created paper dolls; stiff, unresponsive, and cumbersomely move them around your world by telling it all. Is your world real enough, so that the reader feels like they opened a door and stepped into your world seeing the wonders and able to connect emotionally with the people you’ve created?

If you’ve done your job correctly, your readers react become connected to the characters. The reader has moments of fear, worry, and anger. Their hearts speed up trying to outsmart the villain, the heart melts when the hero gets the girl. They feel satisfied emotionally after reading and participating in your world or story.

There are times when you look at your created world and realize it’s not feasible or you look at the paper doll you’ve been moving around and see you need to revise, terminate, and recreate. Painful and frustrating—especially if you understand the world isn’t working as you saw it in your mind, or a character doesn’t fit or is reacting hokey.

Writing is a labor of love. The force of creation requires energy. As we wrestle with our world and characters, choosing the right words and scenes, we feel limp when we're finished. If we’ve done the job correctly we also feel ecstatic. Have you ever gone back and read something you’ve written and feel a sense of awe with how it all came together? That tingle that tells you you’ve done a great job? It’s exciting, it feels good and you’re flying high.

Then comes your critique partner or your editor. Trepidation and excitement reign. Putting the finished piece on display requires courage because in the stark flash of lightning, flaws become apparent. Critiquing is also a form of creation, destruction, and recreation. It breaks apart the raw materials and reshapes them. You watch in morbid fascination as chunks of your manuscript are ripped away.

If done correctly, something better is recreated. If done incorrectly, you feel buffeted by the harsh winds, torn, and broken. You’re looking for shelter from the storm.

What makes you run for cover? What makes you feel buffeted and torn? Critiques? Rejections? Revisions? Deadlines?

Conversely, what gives you the feeling of exhilaration and awe? Pull up chair and grab a cup of your choice and let's talk about it.

***

Sia McKye has spent over twenty years in marketing and promotion. She's written and published various articles on writing, marketing, and promotion. She's a Marketing Rep by profession and also writes fiction. Sia has completed a single title romance trilogy and is busy at work on a fun paranormal series.