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Castles in Idaho??
Feb. 24th, 2012 12:58 pmIt's sunny today, even if it's cold, and so I took a little drive. We are all dying for spring in our house so we can throw the kids in the car and go somewhere. Both to see each other without other distractions, and also just to get out of town. No matter how interesting of a place you live in, I think most people get that urge sometimes, don't they?
Anyway, I didn't go far, but I wanted to track down something I'd seen before while driving to the sand dunes. Because this...
just doesn't look like something you'd er, normally find in Idaho. There was a faded wooden sign nearby that said something about the Fremont County Sugar factory or something. The thing looks fascinating--I mean, there are battlements! What on earth does that have to do with sugar?!
It felt really good to get out of town. The fields all look like ice rinks--we had buckets of snow, then it all melted in a day, with minor flooding. It didn't have time to drain before the temperatures dropped again. Cold, yes, but rather pretty. There's just something inside me that dies a little if I can't get out to see mountains. Like I need the reassurance that there are things much bigger than me out there.
Also--last night I went to the live action writers' group in my area. I've been thinking about their comments on the piece I brought, a story I love that has problems. I keep writing new books and then going back to look wistfully at that older one, trying to figure out what the problem is. The question for this (and all my writing, really), seems to be, "What have I got that IT doesn't have?" And I think I may have found something. Between that and a suggestion of one way to simplify the opening--I might have found some more clues to solving this. Something that involves simplifying rather than expanding, and honing in on what the story is at its gut level, instead of adding in fix after fix until it's just a mess. We'll see.
Anyway, I didn't go far, but I wanted to track down something I'd seen before while driving to the sand dunes. Because this...
just doesn't look like something you'd er, normally find in Idaho. There was a faded wooden sign nearby that said something about the Fremont County Sugar factory or something. The thing looks fascinating--I mean, there are battlements! What on earth does that have to do with sugar?!
It felt really good to get out of town. The fields all look like ice rinks--we had buckets of snow, then it all melted in a day, with minor flooding. It didn't have time to drain before the temperatures dropped again. Cold, yes, but rather pretty. There's just something inside me that dies a little if I can't get out to see mountains. Like I need the reassurance that there are things much bigger than me out there.
Also--last night I went to the live action writers' group in my area. I've been thinking about their comments on the piece I brought, a story I love that has problems. I keep writing new books and then going back to look wistfully at that older one, trying to figure out what the problem is. The question for this (and all my writing, really), seems to be, "What have I got that IT doesn't have?" And I think I may have found something. Between that and a suggestion of one way to simplify the opening--I might have found some more clues to solving this. Something that involves simplifying rather than expanding, and honing in on what the story is at its gut level, instead of adding in fix after fix until it's just a mess. We'll see.
