Location: Healdsburg, CA
I'm thinking of branches today so I took this shot outside my house around mid-afternoon. It's a close-up of one of the blue oaks that hang over our little rental in a way that makes me nervous when the wind kicks up. No wind today, just another in a line of beautiful summery days. Wonderful relief from the siege of constant rain that dominated the last few weeks.
A day after my favorite day of the year begin at 4:30 in the morning when I woke up with back spasms and ended up spending the next three hours listening to my old pug snore next to me. The work day came finally with a big dose of disappointment. Every writer goes through rough periods -- it's the way it works for us -- but the trick really is to remind yourself that you can't control anything but your craft. Do good work and the rest will follow. But some days this seems like the hardest thing you will ever do. Some days weariness comes and brings with it waves and waves of regret, bitterness, frustration. The kind of stuff that punches Grand Canyon size holes into a writer's confidence. Not very useful when you're trying to fill holes in a blank page.
Days like these, I study on branches and the interconnectedness of things, both real and imagined. I think of hearing my Pop sing the happy birthday to me over the phone yesterday and want to cry at how melancholy it made me feel. It's not very productive to think this way but when the demons come out to play, you're pretty much stuck with them. They do not return to their place willingly. But if you're a writer, you can give them to your characters. Give them to somebody who can really use them.
That's where I've been today. Out on the branches. Trying not to fall off.
Taken with my K100D, 200mm lens and edited slightly in Photoshop.
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