• Poetry & Flash Fiction
  • testing

Indigo Vales

~ where the writing comes from

Indigo Vales

Tag Archives: not writing

Work Zone Awareness Week

12 Thursday Apr 2018

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

amwriting, April, birds, distractions, not writing, proof of time, work zone

It’s mostly starlings zooming by my work zone
blackflash streaks past the sill where I keep heart-shaped rocks
rusticles, and a plastic shell that some anonymous person placed
one day when I wasn’t looking
(I don’t have the heart to throw it away)

I am waiting for the dragonflies to drive by
misguided missiles on a southern trajectory,
herded mistakenly between these yellow canyon walls
forgotten which way is west!
Where are they?
(Soon
they’ll be here soon
don’t force larval days to arrive)

It’ll be election day tomorrow,
my work zone will become a dehydrated mess that I will abandon
in favor of watching warships cruise by
contemplating the nature of the clammy quartz I sit upon
fondly remembering Glen and Mike and Fitz and Steve and Lucy.

Sunrise kindles my work zone
predictably pedestrian in its charm
Fingers and face stiff in April’s chill
Slurping java waiting
for the skimmers to skim by
while I watch the paint dry,
rerouting all forward momentum
towards the laundry room.

Ah look, a white butterfly!

The Pleiades Are Not Amused

18 Sunday Feb 2018

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

editor, fear of success, Hercules, not writing, periphery, Pleiades, poem

“You want me to what?” she said, nearly choking on her raspberry-flavored coffee. It was 11 AM. She was fully awake but not yet showered or dressed or fed. She’d spent the morning reading Twitter trying to make sense of the outrage, impotent, her body filling with her own outrage and bile. Her lips and throat were dry. She pondered more coffee. She pondered the pain in her shoulder she’d ignored for months. She pondered the call for submissions and wondered just what do you mean, call for submissions? You talking to me? She pondered emailing the editor to make some small talk, to see how he’s feeling these days. She supposed if she wrote to him he would reply kindly and she could take it as some kind of encouragement to answer the call, but the man is busy and he ain’t got time for loiterers.

She thought about answering the call for submissions, the deadline is plenty of time away. A comfy goal. She wrote a little poem long ago that would be perfect for their upcoming tome, absolutely perfect, but what was the title–what did she call it? Where did she save it? What file? Which drive? Or should she begin a new piece just for their next issue?  Should she search for it now or take a shower first? Or have another cuppa joe? She couldn’t start, do an actual anything without being clean and watered and fed, who can actually doing anything in disgrace?

“What do you mean, call for submissions?” she murmured. Might as well ask me to divert rivers to clean out the king’s stables, she thought. It’s only been 30 years of shit piling up. No biggie. She supposed she’d get started after lunch. No sense trying to find a poem in a haystack on an empty tank. Her mind drifted into wondering what she should wear today, something comfortable, was there enough dirty clothes to take a run to the laundromat yet, and then she thought about putting meat out to thaw for dinner and prep veggies for a nice salad. Better use up the cauliflower before it goes bad…

Cycles

17 Saturday Oct 2015

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

cycles, daughter, not writing, turnturnturn

Writing now feels like I am beginning in the middle of things instead of the beginning.  As a woman who is mildly OCD, it’s important to start at the beginning, chapter one, with the first word, not leaping haphazardly around from thought to thought like a cricket on a hot skillet. Ever see a bead of mercury slide this way and that, it doesn’t know where it’s going but for the hands that are tilting the surface it sits upon?  That’s how I feel these days, and it doesn’t lend itself to much creativity.

Starting this story at the end makes no sense, but I have limited time to write and less mental energy to do so.  So here goes. My father is at the end of his life’s journey courtesy of cancer. My brother uprooted his whole life and moved back here to be with him as he goes through this, these last eight months. They lived in my house in the finished basement apartment and renewed their familial bonds. My brother is handling as much as he can because he’s not working a full time job as I am.  He is handling everything beautifully and we have full confidence in him.  I struggle with the guilt of getting to work on time and trying to be a good worker bee, making lots of mistakes because I’m a tad angry and preoccupied (tad=very) instead of being by their sides. In the meantime, I’ve closed the valves on creativity for now.

Today I’m applying for FMLA (family medical leave), and I hope they don’t give me too much garbage about it. But it needs to be done and they can just deal with it.   Just like the pile of laundry on the couch needs to be folded and two-day old dishes in the sink need to be washed.  There is coffee in my cup now and… I hope I won’t come home too tired to have a beer before bed as it has been for the last eleven days.

Create in a storm when the heart is breaking and the mind has no clue what it’s thinking? I suppose it will come back eventually.  It did once before.  Until then, I have a pile of clean socks to keep me company.

September 15

15 Tuesday Sep 2015

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

not writing, reading

Not really in the right mental space to create, so I do believe today is going to be a reading day.  And what shall she read, today, Girls and Boys?  “Boating For Dummies,” The Sun Magazine, and “The Ultimate Weird Tales of Clark Ashton Smith.”

Gone For A Walk

29 Saturday Aug 2015

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

broken circle, destiny, not writing

Perhaps the wind will meet me there and refill my cup.

Here comes 2016

19 Wednesday Aug 2015

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

goals, not writing, thoughts

Is it too soon to make plans for next year?  There are good plans (like writing and submitting work) and plans for things that I know must come, the saddest of all which I do not want to explore here at the moment.  Some plans have to be put off for now, but they hover in the distance like a storm cloud we can’t tell which way its going.  These are the thoughts I had while holding a 16-month planner while browsing at the bookstore.  “Words To Live By,” featuring the box designs called Primitives By Kathy.  As I held the book, my Inner asked “What’s to come? What’s to come by my own hand and by all those things outside of my control?  And what are all those things within my control that I can note in this planner, set goals, make things happen?”  I put the book down (as is my habit when confronted with anything I have to get deep with, but I’m learning to overturn that habit quicker.) I went back to the planner for another glance at the pages, interested to see that the New moon and Full moon are still an important part of our dates and planning.

So the house is quiet now. The menfolk are down for the night.  My office is trashed because I did not put any effort here today, and my Inner is muttering about the mess.  I think I’m going to be up for a while…

Today’s reading haul:  “The Sun” and “Harper’s” magazine.

Image

Listen to Papa

15 Saturday Aug 2015

Tags

inspiration, not writing

quote-those-who-say-they-want-to-be-writers-and-aren-t-writing-don-t-ernest-hemingway-79-74-41

Eh… what does he know, anyway?   *yikes*

Posted by Kristine | Filed under Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

It Was Official

12 Wednesday Aug 2015

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Niko's Boots, not writing, Rose's book

I officially took the day off from writing yesterday.  I completed the second edit of Rose’s book and handed it back to the editor to see where he wants to go with it. I hope that my part in this is done now.  Yesterday I goofed off and let my mind settle.  Today I am focused on watching the time and getting out the door to my day job.

And I suddenly remembered there is a short story of my own called “Niko’s Boots” that needs its own edit and a place to publish. Where shall I place that on my list of priorities, hmm?   The proper response is “AT THE TOP!”

This Is What Happens When You Hurry

06 Thursday Aug 2015

Posted by Kristine in Uncategorized

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

fail, not writing, Rose's book

When you decide at the last moment to head for the shore in hopes of catching some peace, some rays, to try and wash the stain of this guilty pleasure off you before you drive back home where the troops are waiting for dinner, you will forget something.  “Forget something you will,” says Yoda, and right, he was.

I folded laundry and washed up the dinner pots the morning before I left, more as an act of penance than being any good at housework.   Hubby wanted to stay in bed (because who wants to go to work at that hour, of course?) I dropped the bomb on him that I was leaving for the shore. I was going by myself because he does not like the ocean, it’s not his thing, and I wanted the opportunity to have some time alone. My son wasn’t feeling well, so I kissed him on the forehead as he slept on the couch and headed for the shore.

I hit the road happy, hopeful, excited, and driving a little too fast on the parkway. I realized that getting there, the journey, was as much a part of this as anything so I slowed down, slid into the slow lane, and a miracle occurred. I could actually feel myself breathing. That’s right, actual movement of my belly, feeling the air slide down and relishing it the way I love a cold IPA. As I neared my destination, the land dropped out from under me. It all became sky and there she was–mother ocean.

The plan was to spend Day One alternating between beach chair and waves, getting as pink as possible without getting overdone, to listen to the waves, the gulls, the constant breeze which was quite stiff for most of the day.  Day Two would be dedicated to working on Rose’s book.  I have to somehow combine my version and my editor’s version and make something readable. Not as easy as it sounds, believe me, but my laptop was fully charged and the a/c was working in the hotel room. Last night around 11:00 I pulled out the laptop to try and get into the zone and discovered my flash drive had the wrong file on it. Yes, boys and girls, it’s true. I could not work on Rose’s book without my editor’s Word document. All right, stay calm I thought, I have a copy of it from an email attachment. I shall open and save the email attachment and move on with this project.  The hotel has Wi-Fi, so I connected and got to look at silly headlines from Yahoo… but was completely unable to connect to Google. “Page not available.”  Naturally. No email, no document, no Google Drive. Nada. I tried for hours to catch a tiny blip of connectivity to Google but it was not to be.

What happened next has nothing to do with writing and more to do with hurrying. Suffice it to say, the hotel will mail my cellphone back to me because I dropped it in my rush to get to the beach at 5am.  I hurried out the door to my destination, hurried to the beach to catch the sunrise. What else will I screw up because I was in a hurry?  Hopefully not a manuscript that requires care, attention to detail, and the right voice, because not only is it representative of my work, but more importantly, it represents her voice and her life.

Recent Posts

  • Night of the Curtain
  • Dear Right Shoulder,
  • A Perfect August Night In OV
  • Metallica & Iron Maiden Before You Knew Them
  • Fourth Of Us….. ?

Tags

amwriting angry woman birds blessings brother change child childhood Choose cycles dad daughter death destiny dog dream evolving faith family father fear fight Flash fiction friend goals grief help Henry Rollins hope HoW human inspiration International Authors Iron Maiden justice life listen love march memory Mom morning mother music nature neighbor not writing ocean pain peace poem poem? poetry politics power progress prompt rain reading season silence sleepless social media Solstice son sorting spring storm sunrise thoughts truth Universe weather woman writing

Blogroll

  • Duotrope
  • Highbrow
  • International Authors
  • Listen to Uncle Stevie!
  • terribleminds
  • The (Submission) Grinder

Social

  • View @indigovales’s profile on Twitter

Housekeeping

  • Register
  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.com

Stay in touch with good ol' fashioned email here at indigovales@gmail.com

Join 127 other subscribers

Archives

  • October 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • October 2021
  • July 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • May 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • Indigo Vales
    • Join 127 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Indigo Vales
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...