writing – Page 5 – Rae Spencer

Chickadees and Writing Events

March 29, 2015March 29, 2015Rae Spencer2 Comments

Chickadee March 26

Thursday a lone chickadee decided to do a little spring cleaning in one of the wren houses.

Chickadee March 26

Thick clouds were moving in, ahead of a line of heavy rain, and the little bird seemed aware that there wasn’t much time for nest clearing.

Chickadee March 26

It made trip after trip into the house, sometimes tossing wood shavings straight out through the door, sometimes carrying them several feet away and scattering them in the honeysuckle.

Chickadee March 26

When the rain arrived, the chickadee kept working a while longer, then it gave up and moved into the cover of the wax myrtles.

As Thursday’s rain cycled into a dreary, cold Friday, I kept watching for the chickadee to return. But there has been no sign of further interest in the nest box.

I suspect the little bird’s interest was never more than a passing fancy, mostly because it was working alone. In the past, the yard’s chickadee nests have been built by pairs of birds working together. (On the other hand, there haven’t been many chickadee nests in the yard, and all of them have failed. Maybe I shouldn’t use those nests for comparison?)

On Saturday I left the yard’s mysteries to take care of themselves while I attended Coastal Crime Fest 2015. This single-day writing conference was sponsored by Mystery by the Sea, The Southeastern Virginia Chapter of Sisters in Crime. The day’s sessions included mystery authors talking about writing and publishing, tales of real-world experience from a retired FBI agent, and a presentation about situational awareness from a pair of self-defense instructors. I’m already looking forward to next year’s conference.

What’s more, Saturday’s conference was not my first writing event this month. Last weekend I attended one of the Hampton Roads Writers’ Traveling Pen Series, a morning-long workshop about paranormal and fantasy writing. The workshop included several very helpful writing exercises, and I was excited to learn that the guest speaker, Vanessa Barger, will be presenting more workshops at the Hampton Roads Writers’ 2015 Conference in September.

After both of my recent writing adventures I rushed home brimming with inspiration, eager to write something new. Or revise something old. Or maybe, most alluring of all, read something timeless. (Hopefully I will do all three while watching a chickadee nest…)

January Sunrise

January 23, 2015Rae Spencer2 Comments

Sunrise Jan 11

After my last post, life became a bit hectic (as it tends to do from time to time.) I wasn’t the only one affected by November and December’s frantic rush. My writing friends’ schedules suffered similar disruptions, and January found many of us returning to projects in various stages of completion. So our annual writers’ weekend at the beach felt particularly well-timed this year, and the icy sunrise I photographed on our last day has been tugging at me, demanding to be my first blog images of 2015.

Sunrise Jan 11

Two weeks have passed, but the warm infusion of inspiration hasn’t waned. Now it’s time to gather my notes and begin a manuscript revision that is long overdue…

Yard Surprises and Writing Surprises

September 27, 2014Rae Spencer6 Comments

When the wild rabbits ate multiple sets of coneflowers this summer, I allowed myself one final purchase before freezing the garden budget. I bought milkweed for the monarchs. More specifically, I bought swamp milkweed. Which the rabbits promptly ate.

Rabbit Aug 12

Milkweed is toxic, so I don’t know how the rabbits were able to eat it without getting sick. Far from getting sick, they ate until every last leaf was devoured. Fortunately, by the time the bare stalks recovered enough to put on new leaves, the rabbits had tired of milkweed.

I assumed (such a dangerous verb) that my milkweed’s season had passed, that it would see no monarch activity until next summer. I was wrong, as I discovered on Monday.

Monarch Caterpillar Sept 22

There were nine caterpillars when I found them. One disappeared by nightfall on the first day and another died during the night, but seven continued to gorge on the milkweed’s leaves.

Monarch Caterpillar Sept 22

On Tuesday, one caterpillar decided it was time for wings. It hung from its back legs all afternoon and evening, twitching every so often, swaying in a storm-front breeze. I waited and waited, hoping to see it molt into a chrysalis, but when night came it was still a caterpillar.

Monarch Caterpillar Sept 23

Prior to finding the monarchs, I spent Thursday evening, all day Friday, and most of Saturday at the 6th Annual Hampton Roads Writers Conference. This year I went to sessions about the mechanics of fiction and nonfiction, the world of independent publishing, and twitter. (Yes, twitter!) I made new friends and took reams of notes, and on Saturday my poem “The Tracking” won first place in the 2014 Barbara Dunn Hartin Memorial Poetry Prize!

Poetry 1st Place

Then my fantasy short story “The Silvershaper” won third place in the 2014 Frank Lawlor Memorial Fiction Prize!

Fiction 3rd Place

Best of all, the conference brought an epiphany regarding my unpublished fantasy manuscript. A trio of sessions about story openings, plot, and voice uncovered the root of a pacing problem in the first five chapters. It’s a problem I can fix, now that I can see it.

As exciting as awards and epiphanies are, they represent a small part of my writing experience. They’re like finding monarchs in the yard, flashy glimpses of wonder. Most of writing’s surprises are quieter discoveries. Accidental phrases open new perspectives; plots turn slippery and skid off in unexpected directions; sub-plots bloom into stories of their own.

Those are the happy surprises. Unpleasant surprises happen, too. Failed poems, unresolvable stories, harsh critiques (which I’ve found are more common online than in person), lost submissions, and sudden doubts so ferocious that success seems impossible. These are like rodents moving into my wren house.

Rats Sept 21

(When I spotted movement in the wren house on Sunday, I hoped for a late-season nest. I should have been more specific and hoped for a bird nest. Luckily, the rodents didn’t stay.)

Rats Sept 21

Were I allowed to choose my yard and writing surprises, I would always opt for monarchs and awards. There would be no lost submissions, no anxious waves of doubt, and no unwelcome rodents*. So perhaps it’s best that I’m not allowed to choose. Because if yards were made only of monarchs and writing meant only awards, think of all the stories that would never be told.

Monarch Caterpillar Sept 24

* I had a pet rat, when I was a teen, and a pair of pet mice during college. I find it hard to despise rodents, but in my alternate reality the rats and mice would all be free of diseases. And they would clean up after themselves. No more breaking into pantries for food, no more trails of droppings and urine, no more Hantavirus or listeria or plague, nor any of the other devastating illnesses mice and rats carry in the real world.

More and More Rabbits

June 17, 2014Rae Spencer4 Comments

Rabbit May 28

When the May litter of rabbits scattered, I lost track of all but two of the babies. One claimed the corner iris bed and another moved into the front yard. The mother rabbit visited both babies every day, but the one in the corner iris bed received the majority of her attention.

Rabbit May 22

It also received the attention of a new rabbit in the yard. The new rabbit was smaller and sleeker than the mother, and it seemed intensely curious about the baby.

Rabbit May 27

Rabbit May 22

I was a bit surprised by the mother rabbit’s acceptance of the newcomer. She never exactly welcomed the smaller rabbit, but she never chased it away, either.

Rabbit May 22

One evening the two grown rabbits and the lone baby hopped in and out of the irises for over an hour, as if all three were playing a strange, hesitant game of tag.

Rabbit May 22

Sadly, the baby rabbit died a few days after I took these photos. I found its body beside the shed, but there were no obvious clues as to why it had died.

About a week later, the baby in the front yard disappeared. The following photo was taken the last time I saw it. (Our neighbor later told me he had found the remains of a predator’s meal in his yard.)

Rabbit June 3

The longer I look at this photo, the more I wonder about those ticks. Was the rabbit ill? It had been grazing most of the morning, and returned to grazing after it woke, but still I wonder.

After the first baby died, but before the second disappeared, both of the adult rabbits turned their attention to the irises under our pear tree.

Rabbit May 27

I assumed a third member of the litter had taken refuge in these irises. I didn’t want to disturb it with a close inspection, but, when the adults continued their obsession with the irises long after the second baby disappeared, curiosity won.

Rabbits June 13

Another nest! They were almost big enough to leave the nest when I found them, and a day or two later they moved as a group to the other side of the iris bed.

Rabbits June 14

Yesterday morning they were scattered, each into a separate hiding place. By evening they gathered again under the pear tree and waited for their mother. (I’m tempted to say “their mothers,” because both adult rabbits continue to visit the babies.) She arrived on schedule and fed them in the irises. When she left, the babies emerged one at a time. Two hopped under the deck, one retreated into the bee balm, and the fourth hid under the hydrangea.

Rabbit June 16

I would love to have a way to keep up with the babies, to know if any survive to adulthood and where they settle when it’s time to raise their own young. This urge to know is familiar, and constant. It’s part of why I enjoy writing. When the story is mine, I get to know everything! But it’s a perilous wish outside of fiction, as the rabbits keep reminding me.