Lifescapes

Pecan Creek

I'm thinking water thoughts this morning, because we've had so much of it in the past few days: over six inches of rain since the last time I wrote to you. And although the trees and plants are doing their best to soak it up, the ground is saturated and the water is draining into Pecan Creek.

Pecan Creek is the name we've given to the little all-weather creek that flows through MeadowKnoll. Well, not quite all-weather. It's gone dry three times in the 20 years we've lived here, to the consternation of the red-eared slider turtles and stranded striped bass and bluegills and the great joy of Rocky Raccoon and Nostradamus, the great blue heron who lives in South Meadow.

In the photo: Long Pool and Canyon Falls (the name of the falls is sort of a joke, since it's only about a foot high). The tree to the left is Freya, one of the six bald cypress trees we planted the year we came. The creek banks are thick with ferns, Louisiana iris, cattails, goldenrod, coreopsis, and honeysuckle (an invader whose enthusiasm we try to restrain). If you'd like to see where you are, here's a map, which appeared in the Herb Quarterly several years ago. Long Pool and Canyon Falls are out of the margin to the lower right, along the edge of Lazarus Meadow--so called because when we came here, it was the home of a large mesquite tree that had obviously died and resurrected itself several times until finally it gave up the ghost for good. In its place, a young and thriving pecan tree. Life goes on, in different shapes and different species, but it does go on. 

All this water (there's a lot of it just now, overflowing from the over-full lake just to the northwest of MeadowKnoll) streams south through Ripple Run, under more cypress trees and through more ferns, to Iris Pool and under the Crescent Pool footbridge, which you can see in the background of the photo below. (Click for a larger view.) From there, it flows into our neighbor's small lake, to Bear Creek, the San Gabriel River, the Brazos, and finally the Gulf of Mexico. Yes, the Brazos, not the Lower Colorado--and those of you who know your Texas rivers may be surprised. We're fairly close to the Highland Lakes along the Lower Colorado, but there's a mini-continental-divide somewhere along Route 29. The sloping lay of the land sends our surface water north and east and puts us into the thousand-mile-long Brazos River watershed. (Do you know what watershed you live in, and why it matters?)

Work notes. Bill is in New Mexico for a few days, so I've been working in the evenings. There's been a ton of conference details, and I've started a new MySpace page, at the urging of the foks at Berkley (my publisher). I'm not sure about MySpace, but a gang of mystery authors seem to hang out there, so I'm joining in. And of course, there's The Tale of Briar Bank, which is chugging right along, with better than a third of the book done. I am in love with the badgers, and I'm pretty crazy about the dragon, too. (Maybe I've missed my calling. Maybe I should be writing books about animals and fairies and dragons who live in Edwardian England and serve scones and marmalade with their tea. The "Miss Read" of the animal world!)

Reading note. It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him--J.R.R. Tolkien

Swallowtails, Fennel, and the Food Chain

These guys are the reason for fennel in my garden. It's not that I don't like fennel--it's a very beautiful plant, especially this bronzy variety, which is now some four or five years old, very healthy and wise. And wealthy, at least just now, in swallowtail caterpillars. I'm just not a fan of fennel's taste--a little bit goes a long way, as far as I'm concerned.

Don't tell that to the caterpillars, though. They find it extraordinarily tasty and nutritious. If past performance is any guide, in a day or two the eight caterpillars I counted on this plant will have it chewed down to mostly bare stalks. (Okay by me, guys.) Unfortunately, that doesn't factor in the wasps, who love to snack on the caterpillars. While I was taking photos, I was fending them off, although they were much less interested in me than in these tasty striped morsels. What we have here is a good example of the food chain in operation: the caterpillars chowing down on the fennel, the wasps nibbling on the caterpillars (truly--they seem to take them, live, a bite at a time), the swallows and bluebirds that feed on the wasps. I'm hoping, though, that a few of these stripy fellows will survive to become butterflies, rather than lunch for wasps.

I tried to write today, but not very successfully. The conference is coming up, and there are a million trillion details. But Paula (my co-chair) and I have lots of help, and we'll get it all done. We have to, don't we? It's just two weeks away.

Reading note. And what's a butterfly? At best/He's but a caterpillar drest.--John Gay, "The Butterfly and the Snail"

My weeds

These are my weeds. The current crop, that is. The February-May weeds. And only some of them, at that. Before this wheelbarrow-load, there were six others, each representing about an hour's hard labor. There's Johnson grass here (read "Mr. Johnson's Curse"), and goldenrod (which qualifies as a weed when it starts shouldering the roses), and garden bluebonnets (no, not a weed, but ready for the compost), a couple of square feet of rowdy southernwood, and some stray Englemann daisies that were just about ready to give up the ghost anyway. When this wheelbarrow was empty, it got filled again, and I'm on my way out there tonight, as soon as I finish telling you about it.

I'm a casual gardener. That is, I like to grow plants that like to grow and don't make a lot of fuss about it. I don't mind weeds, either, in the natural course of things. Most of the time it's so dry here (we're at the 98th parallel, where the West is said to begin) that the weeds mind their Ps and Qs. As long as they keep their heads down and don't call attention to themselves, I don't mind if they hang around. In fact, I've never been comfortable with the sanitized, orderly gardens I see in Horticulture. I like a garden that's full of the tumble and tumult of plants going every which way, the artemisia happily rubbing shoulders with the Jerusalem sage, the daylilies creeping through the daisies. The wild bunch.

But there's a limit. It's when the weeds get big and boisterous, like a crowd of middle-school bullies with no manners, that they bother me. And with the rains we had in February and March, my weeds have been on the rise, which is why I've been out there pulling. They're off to a new beginning: life on the compost heap. The garden looks a little cleaner, and I like to think that some of the less robust plants--the red bee balm that came from Indiana, and the Tagetes lemonii, the lovely perennial marigold--are happier because the Johnson grass isn't elbowing them for breathing room and the goldenrod isn't breathing down their necks.

If you click on the photo, you'll see a larger version, where you can spot the weeds I haven't pulled yet, behind the wheelbarrow. And in the background, unmown grass full of firewheel and daisies and dandelions and paintbrush. That's the way our "lawn" looks at this time of year--an unkempt invitation to wild turkeys to come and help themselves to grasshoppers and beetles. We mow a path to the creek and around the flower beds, and let the rest grow wild and unruly until the spring flowers have gone to seed.

When I'm not pulling weeds, I'm writing, or cooking or doing the laundry and the other daily doings that keep life here at MeadowKnoll moving on an even keel. But mostly writing, I'm glad to say. Beatrix and her friend Sarah Barwick sat down to breakfast in a chapter today, and their catching-up on village life kept me happily typing away most of the day. This book is set in the winter, and Beatrix is marooned by a snowstorm in the little village she loves, which means she can't go home to London, which she hates. This makes her very happy, and makes me very happy, too.

Reading note: People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth.--Thich Nhat Hanh

Mother's Day gift

Sunday was a day of phone calls, with all three of my kids checking in with Mothers' Day wishes, each one special and pretty darn wonderful in his or her own way. Bob (in Reno NV) is a single dad with three kids, two in college. Robin (in Woodland Park CO) gives most of her free time to the Boy Scouts, where she is a dedicated volunteer, but still manages to find time for her own college work. To honor Mother's Day, Michael (my Juneau son, married to Sheryl, with children Becky and little Michael) posted a couple of old photos that I thought you might like to see. They're here, on his blog.

Top left is a Christmas photograph, probably 1967, when we lived in Champaign, IL (The giveaway clue is that desk in the background, which at one time belonged to my grandmother. I wrote my first short story at that desk, when I was about eight years old. We sold it when we moved out to Berkley.) Michael is obviously thrilled with his present, isn't he? Looks like a record, maybe "The Grinch," which the kids got about that time. The lower right photo was taken a year or two later, also at Christmas, in Berkley.  The other two photos are of Sheryl and her mom. A great Mom's Day gift, guys--thanks!

And here's another very nice thing, Michael's first published newspaper column in the Juneau Empire! Some day, when he has written a dozen novels or books of non-fiction, you can say that you read him first here. He says that I once declared that my life's ambition was to see one of my children's work published. I don't remember saying that, exactly, but anything's possible. Anyway, I'm thrilled--wouldn't you be, if one of your children broke into print? Michael, I'm pretty darn proud of you.

Reading note. Writing is not hard. Just get paper and pencil, sit down, and write it as it occurs to you. The writing is easy--it's the occuring that's hard.--Stephen Leacock

Sister Turkey

In a meadow bright with firewheels

and yellow daisies and paintbrush and bluebonnets, here is Sister Turkey looking for her breakfast. She always comes up from the woods and meadows to the south, where it is wilder and less settled and home to a great many deer and raccoons and possums. Likely, she has a nest nearby, where she's brooding five or six eggs, leaving them alone, carefully covered with grass, only to eat. She stalks thoughtfuly through the grass, unhurried, unflustered, not bothering to look up when I come out onto the porch to take her picture. Breakfast has her full attention.

We saw Brother Turkey the other morning, just after sunrise, his distinctive red wattle like a bright necktie at his blue throat; often we hear him gobbling, in that high-pitched, fluttery gabble that makes me smile but no doubt warms the heart of his lady-love--or loves, plural, since he is such a splendid fellow that he undoubtedly has a harem. Once, in another year, we saw a pair of them coupling, two brown shapes in the shadows of the tall grass, coming swiftly together and then apart. And two years ago, one of the hens brought her five turkey chicks--poults, they're called--to this same meadow, where they darted here and there on their lightning feet, feasting on grasshoppers. I came too close, and they rattled up from the grass, all five and their mother, and flew off in a noisy clatter and whirr of wings.

No writing today, but yesterday was good, and Saturday was very good. Today, Story Circle's Reading Circle, in Austin, where we read and talked about Sue Bender's Plain and Simple. Lovely book, lively discussion. Writing tomorrow, I hope, and the rest of the week.

Reading note, from Mary Oliver's poem "Moss":

When I see the black cricket in the woodpile, in autumn,
I don't frighten her. And when I see the moss grazing
upon the rock, I touch her tenderly,

sweet cousin.

Audio books and other thoughts

I lurk on a couple of mystery list-servs, just to see what people are saying about the mystery business. There've been a couple of interesting things lately, having to do with the growing availability of audio books through library downloads. I've followed this with interest, because when I was on tour, a reader told me that her library made the China Bayles books available as an MP-3 file for free download to her computer. (Check with your library to see whether that's available to you.)

But there seems to be a widespread misunderstanding out there about the way audio rights work. Recently, one person wrote something like this: "I wish more authors would let their books be recorded, because there are lots of times when I'd rather listen to a book than read it."

I agree. I love to listen to books, too, and a good reading brings out aspects of a book that even the author may not have understood. (I certainly feel this way when I listen to Virginia Leishman reading The Tale of Hill Top Farm.)

But the author usually has nothing to do with whether her/his book gets into audio. Either the publisher records the book (if the house has an audio division) or the publisher's sub-rights department sells the audio rights on behalf of the author--if they can. Many (most?) books are not deemed popular enough to warrant any audio recording. This has nothing to do with how "good" the book is--it's a bottom line, just-the-numbers-ma'am kind of decision that is made by the bean-counting department, rather than by editorial. I am sure that all authors would LOVE to have their books sell to the audio market, but it just isn't always possible. For instance: China Bayles and the Cottage Tales are available in audio, but the Robin Paige books that Bill and I used to write are not. The decision to record the book has nothing to do with quality, just quantity. Period. Paragraph. End of story.

Is this a bad thing? Well, probably. It's always sad when a good book goes unread or unheard or unwritten because the accountants are calling the shots. But we live in a market economy, and in the end, a book's success (or failure) is up to its readers. Readers vote with their dollars--and not on the used book market, either. (Used books don't get counted.) Vote for a good book by buying it, and that book is more likely to be available more widely (in large print, audio, film, and foreign translations) and will stay in print for a longer period of time. Don't vote, and the book will go away.

And yes, the bad sometimes drives out the good, doesn't it?

That's my rant for the morning. Here's something much, much prettier.

Reading note. If you want to get rich from writing, write the sort of thing that's read by persons who move their lips when they're reading to themselves.--Don Marquis

Simple lovelies

The Zepherin Drouhin draping pink blossoms across the trellis. The patch of coreopsis, bright as spilled sunshine, along the creek. The last of the bluebonnets, brave and tall among the grass. A shaft of morning sun lying across the meadow wet with diamond dew, and the delight of the dogs as they race through it, showering themselves and me with drops of pure crystal. A single purple martin looping elegantly against a bright blue sky, a Cooper's hawk swooping low, an Inca dove perched on a wire, singing his dawn song, low and throaty. A trio of flashy bluegills in the creek, and a large, mossy-backed turtle. Things I saw when I was out with the dogs this morning, just as the sun came up. A spring day here in the Hill Country, nothing special, nothing exciting or thrilling, just simple lovelies.

Last night, one last gig for Dagger, with romance author Evelyn Palfrey at Borders new store in Austin. It was a nice turnout (thanks to Toni Packard of the local Sisters in Crime, who got us together and publicized the event, along with other Texas Mystery Week activities), but Borders is going to have to relocate its speaking/signing area before I'm willing to go back. We were right next to the coffee bar. Hard to be heard over the various machines (grinders, whippers, blenders), not to mention the conversation and music.

Today, a few things to do for next month's conference, including some program reorganization. One of our presenters (the only guy, unfortunately) has disappeared (do you suppose being the only guy had anything to do with it?). As a substitute for him, I'll be offering a workshop called "Personal Maps and the Meaning of Place." (To read the description, hit the link, scroll down to the 3:15 slot and click on the title.) This is something new for me--a bit of my own personal exploration of place--and I'm looking forward to it. To the whole conference, as a matter of fact. I'm excited about meeting Kathleen Moore, our keynoter. And in my field-writing session, we'll go to the little town of Gruene, south of San Marcos, where we'll eat some good Texas food, then do some thinking and writing about place, authenticity, fantasy, and commercialism. (Questions: How do we feel about a place that tries to look "historical" in order to persuade us to spend money? When does a town stop being a town and become a theme park? Not to denigrate Gruene: it's a lovely place and an interesting experience, and I've spent some memorable nights (and wee morning hours) boogying in the dance hall there. But it's also a good place to raise questions like these.)

The writing didn't go very well today. I got sidetracked with conference stuff, then spent too much time reworking material I've already reworked a couple of times, instead of moving the story forward. Tomorrow will be better. Tomorrow, I'm going to skip ahead and write a chapter with Bosworth Badger, who is one of my very favorite characters. It's a chapter that will require me to develop some backstory, and that should help get me going.

Tonight, I'm reading Sue Bender's Plain and Simple, for next Monday's Story Circle reading circle.

Reading note. When you write, you lay out a line of words. The line of words is a miner's pick, a woodcarver's gouge, a surgeon's probe. You wield it, and it digs a path you follow. Soon you find yourself deep in new territory. [This is only the way it's supposed to work. Doesn't always. Some days you are stuck in old territory.] Is it a dead end, or have you located the real subject? You will know tomorrow, or this time next year.--Annie Dillard

Bee-licious

When I saw this pair of bumblebees, headfirst in a thistle at 7 a.m. on a cloudy morning, I couldn't help thinking of the old drinking song we used to sing in high school:

Show me the way to go home
I'm tired and I want to go to bed.
I had a little drink about an hour ago
And it went right to my head.

I imagine that these guys (one of the nearly 500 species of native Texas bees) were so happy to find their delicious, nectar-laden thistle that they just dove right in, got tanked, and decided to spend the night rather than fly home. I'm sure the thistle didn't mind a bit.

Linda asked (in a comment) what happened to the junior Beatrix bio project, and wondered whether I was working on more than one book at a time. Re: the bio proposal, it's out there, being shopped around to seven or eight publishers by an agent who knows that particular market very well (having recently worked as an editor of children's non-fiction for one of the big NY houses). Oddly, I'm not feeling nervous, or even very curious about it. If there's a market, somebody will be smart enough to want to publish it. If all I get are rejections, I'll figure there's no market. If it goes on this first round, we'll know in maybe 3-4 weeks. If there's a second round, it may take another 2-3 months.

Re: one book at a time. Yes, basically. However, those of you who were hanging out here back in January might remember that I was staying in New Mexico working on a memoir--working title: Landscapes of Solitude. I brought back about 55,000 words with me, some 10,000 short of the planned length. There are some problems with the book, though. It's set in two places: here at MeadowKnoll and at a silent retreat community in South Texas. As a result, it feels as if it's chopped into two separate pieces that aren't held together very well. Or at least, that's how I felt when I stopped writing, sometime toward the end of January. I'm hoping that when I get back to the book (probably this fall), it won't feel that way. Or if it does, that my subconscious will have figured out a way to bridge the two sections. Or something. We'll see.

Anyway, I'm working on only one project right now, The Tale of Briar Bank, the fifth of the Cottage Tales. I got a bit of a start on it in March, before I headed out on book tour. Which is good, because it means I have something to work on. Today and yesterday, I wrote a scene between Beatrix and her mother that serves as a prologue to the book, setting up part of the conflict. I've now tacked the new prologue onto the opening chapter I'd already written. Not entirely sure where I'm going, but it's a start.

Reading note. In writing, you can make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, but first you have to create the sow's ear.--Charles Parnell

Malice Domestic

I'm a homebody at heart, but last week's trip to the D.C. area was something special. Thursday and Friday, there was the visit with Linda and John and our library program. Then I took the Metro from Chevy Chase down to Arlington (I know, I know--everyday stuff for some of you, but something new for this country girl), arriving at the Crystal Gateway Hotel just in time to meet Bill at the check-in desk, back from his afternoon sightseeing around the Mall. We were there to attend Malice Domestic, the annual mystery convention that's always held this time of year.

On Friday night, our publisher (Berkley) hosted a dinner for the Prime Crime authors (some 35 of us) at Ruth's Chris Steak House in Arlington. Here's the just-before-sunset view from the eleventh-floor restaurant window, with planes landing at Reagan International and the capital dome across the river.














We lingered long over dinner, what with wine and good fellowship and dessert and all, and we were feeling pretty rowdy by the time our stretch limo showed up to take us back to the hotel. I think even the most blase among us were impressed (although they tried not to show it). Some of the rest of us might have been just a teensy bit embarrassed (we didn't want to show it either), but it was fun just the same, riding in a limo with fairy lights in the ceiling and dancing lights in the floor and everybody giggling and being generally happy. (The photo is not exaggerated. This baby really WAS this long. One does not want to inquire about its MPG.)











The next morning was my panel--"Homocide in the Garden," or something like that, followed by a book signing, one of those gang affairs where thirty authors are arranged at tables around the perimeter of a large room and people crowd in with books to be signed. I think I might have appeared to be lucid but I can't quite remember (there really was a lot of wine the night before). Then Bill and I had lunch with our editor--a combination business/pleasure sort of thing, a highlight of the weekend--then went off to visit Bill's brother John and wife Gini for a family talk-fest and a visit to a nearby garden. The azaleas were incredible, huge mounds of flowering shrubs flowing in showy sweeps across the grass, and I discovered these lovely little Canterbury bells Spanish bluebells (Hyacinthoides hispanica--thanks, Leslie for the correction!), modest and sweet, blooming in a hidden corner.



















And now back home, where I'm finally settling down to work on the next Beatrix Potter book, The Tale of Briar Bank. Ah, feels good. Feels very, very good.

Reading note. By the time you read these words, the I that wrote them will have forgotten what it was, though the it lingers on, haunting the paper, unheard until you happen across it and your energy field activates it.--Margaret Atwood

Blooming in Bethesda

                                                         

I know that you know that this isn't my peony. I can't grow these beauties in the Texas Hill Country. These are Linda Lear's tree peonies, in her Bethesda (MD) garden, each one more gorgeous than the next, with layers of delicately ruffled petals cupping the heart of the flower like layers of softly ruffled lace, so thin as to be almost transparent. Linda and John were gracious hosts, and their gardens and house were lovely, not to mention their four terriers, the "girls" with whom they share their home and their hearts. What a delightful bunch!

Sharing the podium. Linda and I did two library programs last week, at the new Rockville Library and at Chevy Chase. Our topic: "Two Authors in Search of Beatrix Potter," an unusual program, with a biographer and a fiction writer, both pursuing the same subject. The programs were just an excuse, of course, for the two of us to get together and do some serious thinking out loud about the ways we've tried to represent Beatrix's life, Linda with the biographer's documented facts (the results of eight years of research and writing) and I with the fiction writer's imagination. Between the factive and the imaginative, we hope we've created something approaching the shape of Beatrix Potter's life. We're grateful to the fine audiences who came to listen to our explorations, and to the librarians who made the arrangements. Thanks, everyone! (And special thanks to John and Bill, for sharing these events with us.)

Reading note. Nobody sees a flower really--it is so small it takes time--and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.--Georgia O'Keeffe