retreat

I've retreated to a secluded house outside of Pense to work on writing during this week-long break from school. The house is located right beside a train track. Some of the rail cars have been parked here, their red and blue metal a contrast against the fields of prairie. Some of the trains have passed by with really interesting graffiti. I took some pictures I'll post later. I've seen more owls here than I ever have in the past. Two grey owls like one of the trees right beside the house. There's two white owls that hang out right where the cement road turns to gravel road. We went on a walk along the train tracks and found two deer following us, watching.

So far I've done some revisions on a story started back in the fall. After many drafts I think the story is close to being "finished." The structure finally matches (more or less) what I had hoped to achieve. I started work on a new story, as well. I'm still in the beginning stages. 2500 words and I deleted two pages this morning. There's some old issues of The Walrus hanging around here and I've been reading some amazing fiction. Sarah Selecky's "This Cake is for the Party"(nov. 2011) was amazing, juxtaposing past, present and future in a seamless manner I want to achieve. Grace O' Connell's "Noisemakers (June 2011) was also really inspiring. Started reading the first paragraph and then I couldn't stop. Beginnings are important.. I'm thinking of Clark Blaise's essay "To Begin, To Begin" where he writes: "The first paragraph is a microcosm of the whole but in a way that only the whole can reveal. If the story begins one sentence too soon, or a sentence too late, the balance is lost, the energy diffused” (266) and then suggests, “Art wishes to begin again. The impulse is not only to finish, it is to capture. In the stories I admire, there is a sense of a continuum disrupted, then re-established, and both the disruption and reordering are part of the beginning of a story” (267). I think what led me to delete two pages was to reconsider what the story is doing.. Both stories mentioned above maintain a consistent tone throughout, a consistant feeling. (or maybe I'm just addicted to this impulse to begin again and capture..!!)


...And back to the story!