Wood cutting and Finishing Novels

Posted on August 10, 2015 by Barry Pomeroy

I’ve been waking early lately, sometimes with dreams. I made use out of it to get up and do some chainsaw work in the yard. I cut wood, as well as slabbed out the log that’s been lying in the yard for a week now. I cut a slab off each side to make a timber and then dropped it with the others in the workshop. That makes six timbers I can cut up once I have a bandsaw mill. I should make building one a prority next spring, depending on what I do then. I might do a road trip in June next year, for it’s been a while and that is the buggiest month. We’ll have to see. I guess that would mean no garden.

The garden this year is the occasional few green beans, beet greens from plants that stay tiny, lettuce, a few small peas, and zucchini. I can’t report on the potatoes, for I haven’t dug them yet.

I uploaded the latest writing while I was eating breakfast, which means the Not Quite Dark novel is done. That is merely a first draft, however, and lots of labour remains to make it a final work. That means I don’t have a writing project for this evening, which hasn’t happened in a while. I guess I have to do more editing on Naked in the Road to make up for it.

It’s very still tonight and when I went out the young rabbit was hopping around in the woods. The flashlight doesn’t seem to bother her at all, and she, or he, came right up to me.

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Visitors

Posted on August 9, 2015 by Barry Pomeroy

Today is the first time I’ve felt the chill of fall in the air. It was around fifteen in the cabin and outside it likely went below eleven. The nights are starting to cool off. I kept the windows closed all day and the cabin warmed up slightly, but still stayed cool. The snakes were out trying to soak up the last of the summer’s warmth, getting ready for hibernation, much like me.

I went for a walk to the top of the other hill today, just looking over the swamp which has dried considerably now, and whether there have been trespassers on my land over the hill. There were no tracks other than sign a bear as been around, and moose have been moving through as well. There were a few raspberries amongst the thorns so I snacked on those as I walked, and followed a game trail of some kind beyond the slope of the hill.

Strangely, I sometimes think someone is going to visit when I’m wandering around on my land, although I’ve had no visitors this summer other than Dennis coming by with Erin and Miriam in the spring, and that was mostly to deliver my inverter.

I have two zucchini ready to eat, although the next ones after those are small and might take quite a while. They are growing quickly though, so I should pick tomorrow.

I did some more clearing up today, moving lumber to the tin shed and some gear to the workshop. The new part looks even more cleaned out. I’ll try to get a good cleaning done before my Leen comes, if she does, and that way she won’t have to suffer through lingering dust. I need a windy sunny day for that.

Last night was reasonably productive for writing and the new novel, Not Quite Dark, is almost done. Whether I finish the draft tonight depends on whether I can evoke a safe town after the apocalypse. It’s hard to keep the story from veering into a maudlin wander if you are aiming for a happy ending. I did some editing today as well, so it was reasonably productive.

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Tiling

Posted on August 8, 2015 by Barry Pomeroy

Today I had promised to help Kim with the tiling in the basement, so I knew I was leaving the land. Therefore, I did little beyond locking up the cabin and uploading the latest of my writing. I’d written much more than I thought last night, nearly four thousand words, so a draft of Not Quite Dark is nearly finished. I can see it will still need some work, but at least it progresses.

The tiling went as usual and we accomplished even more than Kim had wanted. I am to go back next week to do the grouting, and then the floor will be as finished as it’s liable to be, at least right away. I stayed to dinner, but left shortly after, to darkening skies and light rain.

This evening I watched The Hedgehog again, or at least part of it, as well as finished the Wim Wenders’ Wrong Move. His characters are too disconnected, and focus on alienation and people being lost in the landscape. Only in Alice in den Städten does he overcome that, at least amongst the films I’ve seen. The Hedgehog is a film about connection, and resolutely rejects the isolation that Wenders has appear very naturally.

Another novel nearly done, and a veces yo preguntarse, que es un punto?

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Writing in Anticipation

Posted on August 7, 2015 by Barry Pomeroy

I did a bunch of clearing out of lumber today, after I did a tour of the garden. I’ve been able to eat my tiny peas as well as some decent beans lately. And the ubiquitous zucchini. I’m leaving the potatoes in the ground in case my Leen comes and then she can have potatoes fresh from the ground.

The cleaning mostly consisted of moving lumber scraps and pieces of ply from the new part to the tin shed. Then I did a fairly comprehensive sweep and moved a few things to the workshop. It looks a lot bigger in there now, and more open, even though I still have some lumber and four boxes of scraps mostly for kindling. This morning didn’t end up being the great writing day I’d imagined. Instead, I edited Naked in the Road, which is going slowly, and finished the latest edit on the second book of the Blind Fish Series: Lost in the Tunnels.

This evening I was tired from the lack of sleep, so after I watched a movie during dinner, I napped on the futon. The cabin has become quite luxurious. I managed to get some work done on my latest novel and now my father and daughter are well on their way to a town where they might set up a refuge in the post-apocalyptic landscape that is Canada after the collapse of most infrastructure.

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Inspection and Report

Posted on August 6, 2015 by Barry Pomeroy

I went to Fredericton for my inspection yesterday, so today was mostly spent sitting with Mike and Carol talking to Eric downtown, and then driving to Nicknack to see if Mento was around. When no one was there, I went to Millville and changed my two rear tires to ones I want to wear down a bit more. When that was done, I drove to the bush and arrived on the land just as it started to rain. It was light enough that it wasn’t miserable or that I had to worry about the stuff I was carrying into the bush, like my laptop and an old trunk full of letters and photos. I had covered the trunk with plastic anyway, just in case.

The cabin was as I’d left it, and I opened up the buildings and made some food while I watched A Brand New Life, a Korean movie about a child abandoned by her father in an orphanage.

This evening I did some work in the yard and then some editing on Lost in the Tunnels. That book is nearing a decent draft status, so a few more drafts and it will be done. It’s not a bad book too. I think people will like the series, or I guess, trilogy.

On Wednesday, before I left to go for my inspection, I’d spent some time writing for Not Quite Dark, trying to get my ideas down before they’re gone, and now I am nearing the end of the first draft of that book as well. Hopefully I feel inspired tomorrow and I can get to almost the end.

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Books I have Written

Posted on August 4, 2015 by Barry Pomeroy

Today was a bit of a showery day. I spent most of the day working on the writing I did last night, editing Naked in the Road and Lost in the Tunnels. In fact, if the rain hadn’t have come, I could perhaps have gotten through the onscreen edit of Lost in the Tunnels. I’d like that book to be ready for a paper edit when I get back to Winnipeg, just as Working for Ray is ready to go and hopefully a couple of others. It’s been a prolific year.

The thunder storm was wild enough that I recorded some of it, trying to get the hail coming down on the roof and the rain gushing from the gutters. If I had a better water delivery system for the pond, I could easily fill it with a storm like this. Maybe I’ll work on that next year, as well as insulating the floor in the new part. The other smaller projects can wait until then as well, for now I’m trying to wrap up writing projects and get ready for the fall courses.

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Books I should be Writing

Posted on August 3, 2015 by Barry Pomeroy

I didn’t feel well this morning so I spent some time cutting up wood with the chainsaw and cutting down a few more trees around the garden. I also found and cut another maple. I peeled it after I measured it against the other one that has bee drying. I am going to replace the ladder I cut apart with peeled maple that will last a lot longer. That will give me my mid-size ladder again.

By afternoon I was hot and sticky, so I showered and ate a lunch combined with dinner, zucchini of course, while I watched another sad foreign film called Mouchette. I should try to avoid having these images in my head.

I did some more cleaning up the yard today as well, although so far I haven’t written anything. I wasn’t up for it this morning and I’m a bit tired now. I always worry about a novel draft when it’s two thirds done. I wonder if I will be able to finish it, or will it languish like Marred, a novel about Mars colonization setting at fifteen thousand words, and The Coffin Ships, another ten thousand words or so of a novel start on fleeing earth and colonization of the asteroids and Oort cloud.

I managed to get something written last night after all. I got through a tough part in the novel and wrote another five thousand words. I might finish this draft after all.

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71 Impala and Other Stories

Posted on August 2, 2015 by Barry Pomeroy

I was tired today. Perhaps because I slept in so late yesterday, I was awake until after five in the morning. Then I slept but woke up at nine-thirty for some reason. Whenever I sleep poorly my production is a bit off the next day. Today, I edited what I have of Not Quite Dark, as well as the “71 Impala” story, which now appears like it might make a book as well if I choose to pursue it that far. I also went to the creek, and the heavy rain of yesterday didn’t seem to affect it at all. I was able to cross in boots and I rooted around in the pallet shed a bit and then brought back a pallet.

I see another zucchini is almost ready to eat, and there are a few more on the way. Soon I’ll have to come up with another way to eat them. What little I have as a garden has done well. Even the oregano, which has been in the ground for years, has perked up in the greenhouse. I’ll put it back outside for the winter, and hopefully it will be even healthier next year.

For a movie today, I watched Il ladro di bambini, a movie about two children taken away from their mother who has been prostituting the eleven year old girl since she was nine. It was another sad film, and left me unsettled. Perhaps that is part of the genre.

I can see the hazy outline of how my novel ends, but I am having difficulty with the next few chapters. I don’t want to sink them into crisis immediately, but there is one coming. It will allow me to play with the narrator structure and enhance the relationship between the child and her new father.

I read part of a book I put together of Tom Waits bio as well as lyrics, in an attempt to spark inspiration about the stories in which I picture him, collapsed with some of his characters from his songs. I think that’ll become my afternoon reading, especially once I finish this latest novel. Then I can get to work on that one if I’m inspired.

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Ancient History and the Cabin

Posted on August 1, 2015 by Barry Pomeroy

Several years ago on this date I put a canoe in the headwaters of the St John river and over the next three weeks canoed its entire length.

Today I finished the tin shed extension and cleaned up around the building, as if I am getting ready to leave for the winter. It’s a rough building but it only has to house building supplies.

Once I was finished that, a storm was starting to move in, so I cleaned up some other stuff that was in the yard and then as the rain began, I took apart my old ladder. I made that ladder when I first lived on the land in November of 2007. I was building the shack, a building I tore down two years ago, and I needed a ladder to complete the roof. I made the ladder so hurriedly that I didn’t even attach top rungs, since I didn’t need them at that point. The only trees big enough to make a ladder at the time, other than the fir, was white birch, so I used that. Since I didn’t peel it before too much time went by I had to strengthen it by adding some maples that had grown larger in the meantime.

Now there is lots of timber I can use, including straight pieces of solid maple. The trees have grown a lot in the last eight years.

Once that was done the thunder storm was in full force and it was raining much harder than my overflow system is made for. I’ve set up an overflow to carry the extra water, after the barrels fill, to the pond. It is only one garden hose thick however, so it’s not made for heavy rain. I should do some more work on it next summer and make sure it can carry whatever the storm can throw at it.

I made a video of the storm and then came inside to update my latest novel, Not Quite Dark, which is not at 22000 words, and then I watched a poignant Japanese adoption narrative called Bunny Drop or Usagi doroppu. Now that the film has ended, just as the computer ran out of battery, I have set down to write. I’ve solved some of my concerns for the next bits of the novel, but I feel there is still a blank area before it is done.

I wrote until two in the morning and then lay awake until five. A change of some sort is going to have to come.

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Films in the Bush

Posted on July 31, 2015 by Barry Pomeroy

Today was a lazy day, at least in terms of physical action. I spent it writing through the afternoon, and managed to get another seven thousand words on my latest novella. It is going well and I like the characters. Other than that, and watching a movie from Taiwan, A Summer at Grandpa’s, I did almost nothing. I guess I walked around a little bit, but I’m not sure that counts.

Maybe my time here is winding down, although I think I am a bit focused on this latest novel too. Once I have a good draft out of the way, as well as a good draft of Naked in the Road, I’ll feel more like fiddling in the yard. That’s what I tell myself.

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