Farming...

For some time now I've felt the saturation of too many words, of too much life, crowding my heart and head. Mornings, when I wake with the chortling birds, the words have come reluctantly, exerting their own tug-of-war that not even two cups of coffee can overcome. I have a short story due the end of July for an anthology and, as of last week, not a sentence committed to paper. Not even an idea. So when I left for North Carolina last week, I left sans computer, sans files, sans everything but a few stories written by friends. I decided to BE - in the moment, in the breath - for a few days.

On Sunday morning I stole away with my husband to the daylily farm a few miles from my parents' house. The air was swollen with moisture. While my husband chose his specimens, I paced the lanes between furrows of flowers, their reds and oranges, lilacs and pinks richer in the overcast. I walked for exercise - it was a large field as daylily fields go - and to release the tensions that continued to dog me. Workers pulled plants from the ground and tended the lilies still striving toward a distant sun. In the back field, a young man and woman clambered from a pick-up truck and began to harvest hydrangea blooms. Watching them as I walked, the muse snuck in and whispered: Clayton Oxendine Pettigrew, and the story unfurled.

I am smitten with my new character and his story, and hope to constrain GONE to its 2500 word limit - I have not written a 'proper' short before. But I like the sprawl of a novel, the luxury of space a long story affords, so who knows? For now, Clayton plants the red clay of Eastern North Carolina and I farm my words...

Peace, Linda