Writing to a Deadline

Posted on August 23, 2015 by Barry Pomeroy

The month is draining into the long tube that carries all of our days away. I’m only here for another week and a half, and I’ve started another novel. I’ll try to get part of the draft done before I leave, but as always, it depends on inspiration and mental state.

Today I did more editing than writing because I was tired. I had trouble going to sleep last night.

I was looking at the garden today, and examining the second zucchini plant that is coming now, and I found more raspberries growing in my yard. I ate the ones I found and searched for more and then decided I should pick hazelnuts. Unfortunately, true to Bashful’s statement, there is a worm that drills into and eats most of the hazelnuts. Only a few are left intact, about five percent, and the squirrels have already made off with more than enough, especially considering that they are still a bit green. They are tasty, however, so I think I’ll set up a spot where I can grow them a little more seriously. There are a few open areas where I can let them flourish, although I’ll have to figure out something to scare away the squirrels.

I took a long nap this evening, so I am likely in for another unsettled night, but it is always nice to use the futon in the new part. It’s a lighter part of the cabin, with its high roof and many windows. The main part of the cabin is more like a winter cabin, with its insulation and seven foot ceiling.

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Stories and Novels

Posted on August 22, 2015 by Barry Pomeroy

It was raining the many times I woke this morning but I persevered until I’d slept in. At nine I was up and charging the laptop. It was still cool and raining off and on, but it looks like the worst of it has passed.

I fired up my little laptop and worked on “71 Impala,” which I still think might make a novel. I wrote some more on it this evening, as well as started another read-through of Naked in the Road. There are always lots of things to change.

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After a Day, They get Huge

Posted on August 21, 2015 by Barry Pomeroy

I arrived at the land today by dinnertime, and I was hungry enough to eat right after I put everything away and opened the buildings, and picked the zucchini which had grown huge in my absence. If you leave them even a day, they get huge.

I stayed in Fredericton two nights, so I could hang out with my friends. I even ran into another friend at the grocery and hopefully will be able to visit with him and the family next week. It’s time to see people because soon I am gone. In two weeks, in fact.

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More Editing

Posted on August 18, 2015 by Barry Pomeroy

I woke up late this morning and tried to make up for it by hauling rocks. I’m collecting rocks and boulders for a raised fire pit, kind of a Dutch oven, that I want to build. Soon it was too hot for such work, however, and I did some editing. Actually, I did lots of editing. I finished the edit I was working on for Naked in the Road. Now I want to do one more on-screen read through and I’ll be ready to release it as an e-book. It’s been a lot of work. It’s a huge novel.

I’m not sure what writing project to take up next. I can work on Marred, my novel about the colonization of Mars, or try to write more on Code World, the short story collection about the next and digital future, or work on “71 Impala,” two stories which have novel potential, although I’m not sure I’m up for another road novel right now.

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Gardening and the Swamp

Posted on August 17, 2015 by Barry Pomeroy

I hauled more muck today, so one of the garden plots has a fresh coating of half-rotted leaves and swamp muck. It should make a better growing surface next year, if I have a garden instead of driving west.

I also went to the main swamp, which seems to be drying up. More silt has washed into the lower parts and it’s covered in weeds. Likely in several years there won’t even be a swamp there any more. It might be an artefact of the logging anyway, since the main pools are rut from skidders.

The cabin was cooler this morning, since I’d left the door to the new part open. It’s much cooler in there at night, since it has no ceiling and the roof is a good conductor. I closed that door once it started to get warmer, and late in the day it was hot outside but quite passable inside.

I made the changes to my first novel, since I’d done some work on it last night, and then did an edit on “71 Impala”. I’m thinking of working more on that story, but I’m not in the mood this evening.

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Hauling Muck

Posted on August 16, 2015 by Barry Pomeroy

Films often end on the same scenes of their opening, a kind of hint to the audience to what is coming. In my case, I hauled muck this morning, just as I did in the spring. I skimmed it from the areas of the swamp I’d not used before because of frogs and salamander eggs, and then dumped it on one of my garden beds. Most of the beds are in use, especially the one I’d built earlier, which is growing one huge zucchini plant, and three potato plants. It has a squash as well, but that isn’t doing as well and I doubt anything will even grow on that before I leave. The other bed has a number of plants but none are productive except for the two bean plants that have survived the rabbits. The peas there died and the squash, zucchini, and cucumber aren’t productive at all. I should have planted them on that plot first and avoided the raised table bed I tried as an experiment in slug avoidance.

After it started to warm up, I took apart a strange flat frame I’d picked from the side of the road and stowed the wood and screws. I also took apart my band saw and repaired the broken band that has meant I haven’t used it all summer. I just wrapped electrical tape around it, but it seems to have worked and was much easier than I’d thought it would be.

In the afternoon I worked on my first novel and hid from the heat. It was over ninety outside, which is in the thirties, and inside it went as high as eighty, or twenty-five. At its worst, I took a nap and read, and tonight I have a plan to open the door to the new part and let it cool down in here. Tomorrow is supposed to be hot as well.

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Grouting

Posted on August 15, 2015 by Barry Pomeroy

I knew I was going to help Dennis and Kim with grouting in the basement, so I didn’t do much beyond having breakfast before I left. I arrived before Kim and the girls were back from groceries, so I started to work.

I finished the grouting relatively early and I stayed another few minutes to hang out with them but then left, it felt to me, abruptly.

I managed to get some work done when I came back though. I carried in a pallet for use behind the workshop, and then worked on Not Quite Dark. I’ve now finished the second draft, and it’s fairly decent overall, as far as I can tell. It’s hard to evaluate your own work. I keep thinking of details the story needs and then I work on it some more. Even this evening, I was thinking about some description the novel could use. Maybe I’ll look at it in a while when I’ve forgotten about it enough to consider its problems more clearly.

I worked on it for a few hours and it was nearly dark when I finished. Apparently it’s going to be hot tomorrow. If so, I might work on another book as well. I should try to finish another draft before I leave in three weeks.

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Strange Works

Posted on August 14, 2015 by Barry Pomeroy

I was up late last night. I couldn’t sleep for some reason, so I did some editing and then watched Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s MicMacs à tire-larigot.

This morning I woke up relatively early considering, so I listened to the weather and then got my gear together to haul Bashful’s burned four wheeler away from the creek and into his yard. I assembled my ropes and called to him, but he wasn’t home, so I helped myself to his yard and pulled my car into his drive. By the time he came home I had his burned hulk halfway up the hill. I didn’t like to begin the project when he wasn’t around, but I wanted to help and I’m not here for too much longer. It took a bit of back and forth, but it was much easier with him towing and me manipulating the direction of the bike. After a few hours, it was on the back of his truck and he was quite pleased, despite being a bit put out when he saw me fiddling in his yard when he arrived. He told me he’d help with my bridge when I returned, although I rarely need help with my projects.

I was a bit dizzy from the bending and lifting, and likely eating less than I normally do, so I came back to the cabin and took a shower and watched the rest of the latest Jean-Pierre Jeunet film, The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet. It wasn’t really that great, although the camera techniques and the quirkiness of people’s lives are still clever and evocative.

Later in the afternoon, after lunch and I’d walked around a bit, I did some work on Naked in the Road and Not Quite Dark. Hopefully I’ll be done both drafts in a week. If so, I might work on the “71 Impala” stories and see if I can write a book around those. I think it’s possible and the narrative is fun to work with, since its laconic style is so different than anything else I’ve written.

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Going back into the Forest

Posted on August 13, 2015 by Barry Pomeroy

I stopped by Millville on the way back to the bush to send Kim a picture of the grout bag so if she wants to pick up another one she knows the type. Then I came to the cabin and ate dinner. I’d only eaten a sandwich all day and I was hungry. I’ve finished the preparation for my fall university courses however, so that’s done.

I didn’t want to waste my time when I arrived, although I just heard yesterday I have more time here than I thought, so I started work on Not Quite Dark, starting at the beginning again and working through the editing until I was one third of the way through the book, about where I’d left off a few days ago. I’m trying to refine the characters more, as well as give more background to the grinding halt to civilization the characters are experiencing.

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Cleaning up

Posted on August 11, 2015 by Barry Pomeroy

I cleaned off the step today, worked in the porch, and sewed some clothing. I’m trying to put the cabin in order for the winter, and that involves moving fasteners out to the workshop, repairing a bucket with a bad handle, and moving some useful wood scraps to the tin shed. I finished that work early, and although the sun poked out its head in the morning, by evening the steady rain began.

I worked on editing Not Quite Dark this evening, and I’m a third of the way through the novel. It has grown slightly, and likely will again, but soon I should have a good draft.

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