I’m beginning the last day of being in the north of Texas with my friends. I’m both looking forward to home, my husband, my children, and my bed, in that order. Of course, hearing the news from home yesterday that schools were closed, the First Reader was working from home, there was a half-inch of ice on everything, and oh, yes, the cat is sick and the hot water heater being wonky. Well, I’m glad I’m here? Also slightly - very slightly! - guilty I’m not there.
However, being here is stoking the fires of writing for me. I’d been all fired up after LibertyCon, which slowly died out, and now this will likely cool off in a few months, just in time for me to go to LTUE where I will be presenting and on panels and getting excited again. As a writer, I don’t need to fuel my brain every single day. But I do find that if I run out of fuel, it’s so easy to starve the writing almost into extinction. At home I do little things that help - reading, staying current on certain scientific topics, podcasts that fit well into my niche interests, online chats with friends - and any of those can spark a story. A funny conversation with my daughter a few months back where she misread a street sign led to the genesis of a new Amaya Lombard story, with the misread sign being the title Possum Creek Massacre. This immersive experience, on the other hand... Don’t get me wrong. We aren’t solely talking about writing. I think the closest I’ve gotten to discussing nuts and bolts was a chat with Dorothy about pacing and pantsing and how I need to learn how to outline my plot because pantsing successfully relies on the book writing being a quick process, and I can no longer reliably manage that. And then a conversation with Old NFO about describing characters, competence porn, and making fallible characters work without breaking them. No, what is really making me feel like my brain is full and it will take a while to process is just the conversation with kindred spirits, the chance comments that make me turn around at the dinner table and ask ‘what was that? That fits really well into a planned story...’ Add to that the trip to Decatur TX yesterday that involved a stroll around the square so I could photograph the courthouse from all angles, a visit to a really awesome hat shop (there will be full write up. My camera habits attracted the proprietor’s attention and got us invited into the back to see the whole process of making high end cowboy hats), and a stroll through a couple of antique shops which are, in their own quirky way, a really good peek into history of a place. I had no intentions of ever setting anything in Decatur, but this brief glimpse has given me ideas. Plus the drive there and back was a good time to have a conversation. Conversations with small groups of smart, competent, quirky people are amazing brain food. I have to wonder if some introvert habits are simply due to the mind being full of cool stuff and needing to process before they can fit more in there (Ok, in a group that isn’t at least some of the above traits, checking out mentally is because boredom. There was no danger of that last night). Large groups get bewildering. But three to ten is about perfect. Besides, any more than that and I start wanting a quiet corner to hide in. There will be photos, but not until I’m home - I can’t download my camera memory until I’m at my computer. The iPad is a great portable writing station (which I ought to write up in it’s own thing) but not suitable to cope with everything a laptop can do. There will be stories, which are both being written, and plotted, while I’m on the trip. I don’t expect those to bear fruit for some time, as the fuel needs to burn and release the energy from what I’m taking in now, here, before I can use it there, and of course getting back to daily routines will bank the fires somewhat.
Header image: as we were driving up 287, we saw two trains parked and waiting on something. Both nearly a mile long, both consisting of car upon car of fuel. Coal, in this case.
