Autumn 2013

With a fat harvest moon and the passing of the equinox, autumn flung a cloak of frost over the mountains and valley. Usually subtle, creeping into summer's warmth day by day, the transition was unexpected and abrupt. We are "putting away" canning soup and juices, spreading out potatoes and onions, hanging herbs on the old kitchen beams to dry. There is wood to be cut, hay to be stacked and just before thanksgiving a new baby will come into our fold...I continue to work on the sequel to True. It is five years later in the Green Valley and the women (and men) are telling me their stories...It is slow going but I am listening intently...

I found a great blog post titled "Why it is good to go slow" here is the link... 

http://www.norulesjustwrite.com/why-slow-is-good/ 

Maybe it will calm down all of us writers with high expectations of ourselves...and following is an excerpt from True...

             Be True, Be Free, Stay Wild and Hold Fast

           MELINDA

     Emma sat in the dining room sipping the bliss of French roast, grateful that it was Saturday, a day with no patients to see. She gazed at the garden beyond the big window. A strong wind blew the branches of the plum tree, and the old window chattered in its frame.
     After coffee, she put on her hooded flannel jacket and went out to the pasture. Mav was inside his little barn, head down, obviously asleep. “Hey, buddy, come and get your flake.” He looked up with a low nicker. “Here, have some horse granola too. It’s going to storm, don’t you think?” she asked, pouring oats over his hay. She leaned into him and he returned the weight of her affection, then began to chew.
     She walked to the garden and steadied the gate banging in the wind. Putting the garden to bed was always such a sad day. The winter garden seemed almost a graveyard, holding memories of the season’s yields and its idiosyncrasies—the volunteer cilantro that had pushed up in all the corners, and the weird-looking hard green squash with little frowning frog faces. She’d thought that the seed packet said “Patty Pan.”
     Zipping up her jacket and putting the hood over her bed-messed hair, she walked the rows, saying goodbye. The rosemary looked as if it wanted to spend the winter on a sunny Greek island. The sunflowers bowed low on their spindly stalks, their hearts an empty geometry of brown disks. The green beans, now a deadened rust, slumped over the trellis as if admitting defeat. The sky darkened even more. An unclaimed melancholy swept over her as she stared at the tomatoes, withered and pleated, deflated like the shriveled balls of old men.

     Above the farm the storm gathered, as wind spiraled inward, circled by warm humid air. Moist clouds rose and cooled; frozen particles found one another and merged. She looked upward as snow fell softly on her face.