author: Nicole J. LeBoeuf

Today it's back to the print-out and the scribbling. Just the scribbling for now--no need for a rush job. The call for submissions ends July 1, Tuesday as it turns out, so I can finish up the revision Tuesday morning and email it then.

See, it's not that I'm putting things off until the last minute. It's that I'm taking advantage of all the time that remains. That sounds plausible, doesn't it?

Things I need to fix in the current draft include...

1. Overuse of the words "sudden" and "suddenly." There are other ways to communicate this adverbial property. Try a few.
2. Overuse of throat-clearing constructions: "begins to," "manages to," "allows [her/him]self to." Make each instance justify its existence, then cut it out anyway until each only happens once in the story.
3. Dilution of key plot elements and themes.

That last is tricky. I was looking for opportunities to make it more clear that the object in the wooden box is actually, literally Caroline's heart, because this is a thing that needs to be known throughout the story rather than alluded to obliquely until revealed dramatically. So of course I started noticing the word "heart" popping up everywhere. Hearts breaking, the heart of the matter, heart-stopping shocks. Too many heart metaphors, too many metaphorical references to Demi's heart, and I run the risk of diluting the actual plot element I'm trying to work with. So I crossed them out when I found them and scribbled alternate phrasings.

Which led to noticing other dilutions. Like, an unnecessary reference to Diana the Huntress, muddying the waters in which I want the Demeter/Persephone theme to shine clear. Like too many gun-related turns of phrase that aren't consciously put there to echo the gunshot that kicked off the plot. And then there's mentions of fire/heat/warmth/flames, which need to point clearly at either the literal fire in the hearth and the *ahem* fire down below, and not get thrown in every time the English language tries to build a fire metaphor. And now I'm looking askance at the multiple incidences of breaking glass...

It's possible I'm taking this "don't dilute stuff" thing a little too far. (Maybe both incidences of breaking glass can point profitably at each other.) Argh.

Good thing I've got all weekend. Well, not really--I've got the roller derby bout on Saturday and the WFTDA reassessments on Sunday. And Monday-farm-day doesn't generally make a good work day.

Well.

Good thing I've still got Tuesday morning.

Ow. Ow, ow-ow-ow ow, and also ow.

My back is sore. My legs are sore. Everything is sore.

It has a lot to do with roller derby, true. But, oddly, not so much to do with playing the actual game. Saturday morning I helped lead the Phase 1 class, in which I apparently attempted to assert my powers of mind control over the new skaters. That is, I spent a lot of time demonstrating a good, low, stable derby stance ("Bend those knees! Torsos upright! Get lower!") not just to be a good role model but also out of an irrational and mostly subconscious conviction that I could actually cause the training skaters to get lower if I just got lower myself. Wouldn't that be nice? For both them and me? As it turns out, I do not have mind control powers. But my thighs and lower back got a great workout.

And then Sunday we started off team practice with a 20 minute session of rotating off-skates fitness stations. This made all of the things hurt, y'all. That means I'm getting stronger, right? I hope?

So that was my weekend. Then Monday happened.

Mondays are farm days! And it's planting time. They're trying to get just as many seedlings into the ground as they can during the "summer solstice plateau," which is to say, the period between the summer solstice and the fourth of July. You can probably imagine the amount of bending/kneeling/squatting involved in working one's way down the row, troweling open the earth to drop seedling plugs in every 7 to 14 inches. But what you're probably not imagining is all the hula hoe and rake work that happens before we get to pick up the trowel. We had to "scratch" the beds, using the hula hoe to break the crust of the dry surface, soften up the soil a bit, and move the soil around to help reinforce the shape of the beds. Then we had to rake the clods off into the furrows. Only then did we get to put the seedlings into the ground.

There is probably a writing metaphor there--something about having to prepare the metaphorical ground before you can plant the seedling ideas and encourage them to grow into stories--but I'm too sore and tired to think about it right now.

Ow.

My goal was to finish this draft of "Caroline's Wake" by the end of the working week, i.e. Friday evening. I'm pleased to say I have achieved my goal. It involved less stress than anticipated, too. I got to the end of the scene that was driving me nuts yesterday; the final scene fell into place today easily and naturally, as a denouement should. Ta-da!

To be painstakingly honest, I did not meet my entire goal, which was the have the draft done and ready for critique. As I worked on it yesterday and today, as I babbled to myself about it in today's edition of the Morning Pages, I discovered some small slight issues I'd like to clean up before letting other people's eyes take a gander. The "hot and heavy" part of the seduction scene needs some cleaning up, as the same energy that made it effective and effortless to write has undoubtedly also weighted it a little on the self-indulgent side. (Please feel free to insert whatever innuendo you want there. Far be it from me to spoil your fun and tell you to get your mind out of the gutter. You're obviously having a lot of fun down there.) And given that the story plays around the edges of some taboo/squick boundaries, it's important that the reader realize, or at least suspect, that the main characters are Goddesses. I need to make the hints about that a lot less subtle. Oh, it sounds unsubtle here on the blog where I'm all THIS IS A PERSEPHONE AND DEMETER STORY, GET IT, GET IT? But things are more ambiguous on the page. Which means that certain things a reader would kind of let fly because Oh, We're In Mythology Headspace, It's OK might instead make the reader go What? No. Just NO.

So there's still a lot of "get it right" work to do next week. But that's OK, because the "get it written" part is solidly done. And that's a huge relief.

Meanwhile--hooray weekend! And it's a weekend with no roller derby practice, because the league observes Father's Day as a holiday. Much as I love derby, it's nice to get a Sunday off and relax. But it will not be an entirely non-skating weekend, because I'll be rolling around during the G'Knight Ride festivities. Wanna come eat good food, drink a beer, jam to some great local music, and watch a roller derby mini-bout? It'll be in Roosevelt Park, in Longmont, 900 Longs Peak Avenue. The demo bout will be at 4 PM, Saturday the 14th, on the Roosevelt Pavillion. See you there!

"So I didn't go work at the farm today," I told my friend. "I'm going easy on my right ankle. Rolled the dang thing during practice yesterday."

"Oh, that sucks."

We were at First Monday Spin-in at Shuttles Spindles and Skeins, which is one of Boulder's two main yarn and fiber shops. I had formed great intentions this weekend to actually get some spinning done. But what with the ankle quasi-injury, I didn't want to pedal a spinning wheel. So I brought my current sock project to knit on.

I removed the ice so my friend could see how puffy and swollen it was. She agreed that, yes, it was definitely visible, especially when compared to my uninjured left ankle.

"Yeah, and what sucks worse? It was not the result of epic roller derby violence. It did not even involve skates. It was just... me, getting tired and klutzy toward the end of a set of sideways tire-jumps. As part of our off-skates fitness/endurance work-out. I just landed, and the ankle rolled over, and so did I."

"Well," my friend mused, "no one has to know. You could tell them you were saving a drowning puppy or a burning kitten."

"Right. I twisted my ankle jumping through tractor tires to save a burning kitten. Which our coach set on fire. To motivate us. Because that's how bad-ass roller derby really is."

...not that anyone would buy it. I mean, there is no chance that WFTDA insurance would cover that kind of exercise. Also, I'm pretty sure our coach's membership in the anti-kitten-burning coalition is up-to-date. Still, it sounds a lot more exciting and heroic than "I landed funny and fell down because I get clumsy when I'm tired," doesn't it? Watch. I'll demonstrate:

"What happened to you?"

"KITTENS. ON FIRE."

*awed silence*

There you go.

Is me. This is why: I'm at the Lindsey Stirling concert. She come back on stage after the exceedingly cute montage of baby Lindsey video. She begins the next song. It turns out to be her Legend of Zelda medley. And I totally tear up. Not even kidding. My throat closes, my eyes prickle, and by the end of the song tears are running freely down my face and I'm burying my face in my husband's shoulder to make them stop. I'm not just a nerd, but a soppy nerd.

Also? Stirling was a whole one year old when the original NES game (in its fancy gold cartridge! and its genius new "save game" feature!) was released in the United States. How is it fair that someone who was only just getting born by the time I was ten years old gets to pull my nostalgia strings that hard? (Yes, I am being irrational. Please feel free to envision me shaking my fist at the damn kids who won't get off my lawn. I do not have a lawn, but I will rent one just so I can enact this drama.)

Anyway.

I was initially surprised to hear she'd be playing the 1st Bank Center. It's kinda big. I still think of her as primarily YouTube famous. I admit this puts me squarely behind the times; nevertheless, last time I saw her perform--last year--it was at the Ogden. Tiny place on Colfax. Something like that. So I thought, "Oh, good for her. She must be getting more popular."

O, hi there, understatement. I hear the 1st Bank Center actually had to rearrange the set-up when they saw how rapidly tickets were selling. They originally had the stage closer to the center of the oval, and had to push it back to open up more floor and seating, or so I'm told. And it still sold out. So I hear.

Unless I am forgetting something, this was my first time going to that venue for something other than roller derby. It's where I saw the WFTDA National Championship that got me hooked on the sport in 2011. In 2013, the Denver Roller Dolls hosted the Colorado Cup there (and my league's A-team stormed through undefeated to take home the trophy). But I'm not sure I've been there for an actual concert before.

Which means that Lindsey Stirling and I sort of have something in common. This was her first time playing there. Not only that, but--this is what she told us, several times during the show--her first time playing an arena-style venue ever. For the most part, it wasn't apparent. The lights and effects felt, I dunno, sufficiently bombastic to fill an arena. Although I did wonder about the strobes at the top of the stage; they were almost painful for where we were sitting, straight back and just right of dead center. It occurred to me they might have been angled for a much smaller venue, one where they'd be aimed safely over the heads of everyone in the house. Other than that, and possibly the lack of live-capture video screens, I would not have guessed. And who needs live-capture video? Most of the time she was silhouetted against the multiple screens she did have, which were showing bright abstract patterns and spacescapes and ice caves. I had no trouble watching her killer dance moves, despite the stage taking up about the same amount of space in my subjective view field as would my laptop screen.

So now I feel like I not only saw a wonderful concert, but I also got to be a small part of history. I was there for a landmark in the ongoing adventures of a musician I admire. Neat!

Now everyone go out and buy yourselves a copy of Shatter Me, OK? Also, this is unbelievably cool and you should watch it. Lindsey Stirling and an a capella ensemble doing pop music coverage. With backup cello. I know, right? You're welcome!

Tape! The adhesive kind, not the analog recording medium. It was all over my weekend. That is, if "weekend" means "Saturday through Tuesday," which it does because I say so. I had an unusual amount of significant correspondence with adhesive tape this weekend.

Yes, these are the things I think about when I think, "What shall I blog about tonight?" What shall I blog about tonight? Oh, I know--how about that moment last night when I was all, "Hey, this is funny, I'm doing the same thing now I was doing Saturday and Sunday, only on a much smaller scale. Tape has, briefly, taken over my life."

Look, it goes with having the writer-brain. Writer-brain is constantly going, "Ooh, lookit! Lookit this, too! Lookit that!" Only it doesn't just notice stuff that legitimately has a story in it. It notices everything. Which is not entirely a problem, understand; it's much less of a problem than being in the habit of rejecting potential ideas and then wondering why you can't think of anything to write about. But sometimes there really isn't a story there. You just have to say, "That's nice, writer-brain. Yes, that is a very interesting connection. What a good job you did noticing it." Then you pat it on the head, *pat pat pat,* and you hand it a cookie, and you hope the next time it goes "Ooh, lookit!" it'll be something you can actually write about.

Anyway, Saturday we hosted a roller derby bout. And our home bout venue, the Boulder County Fairgrounds Exhibit Hall, is not a roller derby venue until we make it one. It doesn't have a track marked out. It doesn't even have a safe skating surface. So every time we host a bout, we bring our skating surface with us (it's these blue tiles that fit together like a sort of ornery Lego). Then we clean it, and then we mark the track on it. This involves "At least 385' of rope, rope light or boundary-making material" and enough tape to stick it to the floor in two concentric ovals, more or less. (More is here. Less, you already got.) The best tape is wide, brightly colored, stretchy, and resists getting shredded when you skate over it. It smells like spray paint when you tug it off the roll. And it needs to come up off the floor easily, hopefully all in one piece rather than splintering, because you're going to have to rip it all up when the bout is over so you can reassemble it in your practice location the next day.

So that's what I did for about two hours each of Saturday and Sunday, as part of a hefty team of fellow skaters and officials from our league. It's a lot of work, but it goes quickly with many hands on the job. And the reward is, you get to skate on it when you're done.

Now, Tuesday night involved painting. We came back to finish the job we started last week in the Nexus, by painting the crown molding gold. And that involved more tape. Blue masking tape, to be precise. It was not as difficult as last week's masking job with its fiddly tight spaces (we already did the door jambs years ago, thank goodness), but it still had its challenges. For the bottom edge of the molding, we used a special roll of whose actual blue tape was fairly narrow but that had about three feet of plastic film attached. That stuff is fantastic for peace of mind while you're painting, but I find it a little nerve-wracking to place because I have to do the whole job with one unbroken piece. I get worried that I'll drop the roll, or that the tape will drift off the desired line and I won't be able to correct it without, I dunno, wrinkling it or something. We did the top edge with a wider blue tape that was just blue tape, so I could use my preferred method of ripping off pieces four to six inches long and placing them in a long overlap. So that was OK, but where I was placing them was on popcorn ceiling. Awkward.

Annnnd just to make it a trifecta, yesterday I had to rip open an envelope I'd already sealed to flip over the "return bottom portion with your payment" so that the address would actually show through the window. Roller derby tape, blue masking tape, and now scotch tape. Whee.

Anyway, it was while I was placing the blue tape with film attached that writer-brain sat up and went, "Hey! So, this is kind of like what you did Saturday and Sunday! Only smaller. Isn't that neat?"

Yes, writer-brain. That's very neat. Have a cookie.

"No, but, there's totally a story in that. The main character, they're sort of like a janitor, see? Only instead of a janitor's huge ring of keys, they have every kind of adhesive tape imaginable hanging off their tool belt and stored in the closet. And sometimes they have to use the tape in weird and unorthodox ways. To save the day, see?"

That's... very imaginative. Why don't you go outside and play?

(Although I just might throw tomorrow's freewriting session at it and see what happens.)

Monday is farm day, and today was doubly a Monday. (This in contrast to those for whom today, being a federal holiday, was more of a second Sunday.) Today I worked at not one but two farms. I know someone (through roller derby, naturally) who has a special farm project she's hoping to rock out this week with the help of her friends, and my usual Monday schedule put me in her neighborhood in time for a solid afternoon's work.

Things done:

• Finally finished thinning that tray of woodland tobacco seedlings. (Yes, McCauley Family Farms grows tobacco. Four or five varieties, in fact. It's kind of an ongoing experiment. They grow a little of everything.) The dang stuff was coming up like moss. Narrowing them down to three plants per cell was like topiary sculpture in miniature. Well, I guess it was literally topiary sculpture in miniature, given a loose definition of topiary.
• Prepared some trays of wintered-over herbs and decoratives for transplant: feverfew, lovage, sea oats (a kind of grass), thyme, and... something else I forget now. Each wooden tray was set to soak in a tub of fertilizer solution which was strongly redolent of fish. I fear I got a good deal of it on me when I tried to help it along by splashing the liquid up and over the edge of the tray. Then we took the trays out and hacked up the undifferentiated soil-and-root mat into discrete chunks ready for transplant. Which meant more contact with the fishy smelling fertilizer solution. The thyme smelled nice, though.
• Planted the herbs thus prepared and covered their beds with mulch.
• Pounded fence posts into the area that will become my friend's new pig run, the old one having been washed away by September's flood. Lay out the wire panels that will make the actual fence. Also got to meet all the livestock. She raises pigs and rabbits with varying emphasis on livestock shows and meat. I got to meet the cats and dogs too. One of the dogs is a Great Dane who greeted me through the open window of my car before I'd even parked, let alone killed the engine. Great Danes are tall.

I came home with a dozen eggs, freshly laid today, bought at McCauley's, and a three pound frozen rabbit my friend surprised me with after we wrapped up the afternoon's work with the pig run. After a bit of recipe research and a grocery run, the rabbit will probably go in the crock pot. My friend recommends pot pie.

I got home around 4:30 PM and had my usual post-farm self-indulgent extended hot soak in the tub, where I did some writing, did some reading, and did some serious scrubbing. Nevertheless, I'm still catching whiffs of that fishy fertilizer. I can't seem to trace it to anything obvious, like my hair or my fingernails. It's just... lingering. I may be imagining it.

Terribly strained farm-to-writing metaphor of the day: Inspiration comes from the unlikeliest places, some of which aren't pretty. The process of story "composting" and idea "fertilizing" is not always sweet-smelling. You know that quote about having to go into the dark places? Sometimes you have to go into the stinky places, too.

So... there ya go.

But today I have Good Reasons. Most of them have to do with bout preparation. Y'know--the cleaning of the bearings and the scrubbing of the wheels and the sewing of new velcro onto the wristguard straps 'cause the original velcro teeth got wonky? And the watching of the opposing team's most recent bout, and the taking of copious, verbose notes that I'm pretty sure I will never reread? So that's OK.

And now John and I am listening to Matt Braunger records and giggling.

Could be worse.

And then there are the days when you do everything right and you still can't do anything right. You get up on time and off to a good start but you can't seem to take advantage of it because you just feel incurably tired and grumpy and incapable, and everything looks more worthwhile than the work at hand. And even roller derby scrimmage leaves you feeling dispirited and unhappy with yourself for all the things you could have done right but didn't.

I swear, I think that good days only galvanize that little saboteur in my head. "Oh, you think you're a worthwhile human being who can actually get things done? CHALLENGE ACCEPTED."

Well, little saboteur, you may have won round two, but this game will go to best out of three, and I'm on to you. You and me, pistols at dawn.

Or at least at 8:00 AM.

Today I am all about libraries. I have one book checked out from the Boulder Public Library (Riggs, Ransom, Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children), several from the Longmont Public Library (including the Riggs sequel, Hollow City), a couple of paperbacks bought for 50 cents each off the Longmont "Friends of the Library" book sale shelf (Cornelia Funke's Inkheart and Tamora Pierce's Magic Steps), and three more books I'm requesting holds for so I can pick them up at the brand new NoBo (North Boulder) Corner Library and hopefully read them in time to cast an informed vote for the Best Novel Hugo (the Stross, Leckie, and Grant. No, I have no interest in Larry "Sad Puppy" Correia or The Wheel Of Time: A Novel In 14 Parts. But thanks for asking!).

Me and libraries. We're like this, y'all. I wuv me some library.

I also get writing done at libraries, it would appear. And also at lunch. And also early enough in the morning that I'm still squinting. And sometimes even late at night after derby, in between mouthfuls of "hey, this is carbs too, right? So it's OK if I eat it? How about this?" (Did you know that a suggested serving of Haribo "Happy Cola" contains 3 grams of protein and 30 grams carbohydrates? That totally makes it a derby recovery snack.)

I am not sure exactly how today went better than yesterday in terms of Getting The Work Done, or honestly why I'm sure it did go better than yesterday. Seems like I did about the same amount of writing tasks and had the same amount of interruptions keeping me from them. But I feel a lot better about today than yesterday.

I'm not sure the answer is roller derby, since I was feeling pretty good about the day well before I went to practice. But it didn't hurt. Had a fantastic last team practice before the bout (y'all are gonna come watch us play Saturday, right?). We did a ton of drills that reminded us of all the awesome and absurdly effective tools that we've got in our toolbox. Also, it was New Recruit Night. Knowing that a handful of potential new derby skaters on the couches in the corner were watching us practice, it kind of put me in happy cheerful show-off mode. I want those gals to go home saying, "I got to watch the Bombshells practice! It was amazing! I want to learn how to do all the fantastic things they were doing!"

Definitely, roller derby helped. And going to Longmont early to visit the library, check out books, and write for another hour, that helped too. Also the bit about not having the painting project hanging over my head all day, that was nice.

But I think what really set the tone was--surprise!--getting up on time. Last night's hypothesis was, "In case of not enough time, add hours." So I did. I added about two of 'em. I got out of bed when John did (he has a daily 8:30 AM telemeeting with his geographically diverse coworkers) rather than sleeping in. And dang if I didn't use those hours for all sorts of shit. Grocery run, McGuckin's (hardware and housewares) run, going out to lunch with John and taking our time in leisurely conversation before settling down to our respective work-a-day tasks, taking my Wednesday volunteer reading at an unhurried pace and playing Puzzle Pirates while I recorded it... And, um, writing. I think I really will hit the 5-hour mark today. It's amazing how adding two more hours in the morning can add stretch to the whole day!

Note to self: Sleeping late is almost never as rewarding as adding two more hours to my morning is. Can we do more of this? I want to do more of this.