Alpaca Sketch

Apparently I’m on a sketching kick, so I drew a smiling alpaca. The bunny sat on this one, too, and then he tried to steal my pen.

I Did an Art

It’s easy to get distracted by various projects, so I’ve been trying to focus on writing-related stuff, but this past week I really needed to draw. I spent a couple of days in my pajamas making a mess with colored pencils and eventually produced a cool picture of some carnivorous plants. This was my first serious attempt at drawing any that I can remember, so it was very fun.

I like the size of this paper. Gonna do more projects on it in the future for sure. Image: a desk covered in colored pencils, with a laptop and a drawing of some brightly colored pitcher plants.

Image: Two different red Nepenthes pitcher plants above two Sarracenia pitcher plants, one red and one green with red streaks. A regular sundew plant on the left bottom corner, and several dwarf sundews in the right corner.

Thanksgiving Pics

I’ve been pretty focused on family this week. All my siblings and I are back home for the holiday, and it’s been really nice. I haven’t done much else, so here are some photos.

My siblings, my husband, and me on the very end. We saw Bohemian Rhapsody!

My awesome sisters and goofy dog.

My family’s grumpy old black cat, Pippin.

My grandma holding one of my cousin’s four pomeranians, all of whom are staying here. It’s been exciting having six dogs and two cats in one house.

My pups love road trips, so they’re having fun, but this one is pretty bad at being a dog.

Writing days this past week: 1

Getting in Motion

I’ve been walking a lot more, lately. It seems kinda vital to take advantage of these last bits of nice weather before things get truly wintery and unpleasant. Walking is my favorite form of exercise, and it’s been recommended by a surprising number of successful writers throughout history as a form of meditation when inspiration is lagging. It’s peaceful, the scenery provides stimulation for the imagination, and moving around is generally pretty good for the whole system. I’ve known for a long time that people with ADHD in particular tend to have better focus when they get exercise, but it has to be somewhat consistent to be effective, and consistency is difficult when you’ve got ADHD. Somehow, though, I’ve managed to get something like a routine established.

There’s a beautiful bike path around a lake near my place, and I love going out there, even though my dogs absolutely lose their tiny minds at the sight of all the fat and insolent squirrels who taunt them from the sides of the trail. It takes us a lazy hour and a half to go around the lake, and I don’t usually spend the time specifically thinking about anything in particular. I think it’s been helping with my general mental clarity, which makes it easier to choose to keep going out, and to make choices about what to do with my time without getting overwhelmed. I’ve always unconsciously classified walking in pretty places as “the stuff I do when I should probably be doing the dishes or writing.”

That was not great. Jogging around the neighborhood will never be my thing, even if it might seem more efficient, or like a “better” form of exercise, or whatever other judgement I had in the back of my mind about the whole thing. It’s boring, it hurts, and my dogs would rather tie their leash into a bow around my legs than trot faithfully at my side. It just doesn’t work for me, but walking in a spot with some good trees and water does, and I can do it for a long time before I get bored or tired.

We’re often taught a very adversarial approach to exercising our bodies, but healthy movement really doesn’t have to be any kind of a punishment to be beneficial.

These shots are all from this evening’s walk. An orange sunset over the lake framed by lacy tree branches.

A cute red and white spotted mushroom in leaf litter.

A great blue heron carefully ignoring me and the dogs from the water’s edge.

Canada geese silhouetted on the lake under an orange sunset.

Writing days this past week: 3

I Live in a Chilly Rainforest

I’ve been missing my favorite hiking places ever since we moved to Seattle from the bay area. I’d been hiking in the same spots since I was a little kid, and they were so safe and comforting for me, and provided a really great way to relax and get into a more creative frame of mind. The night I finished my rough draft of Somnolence, I called it done done around dawn and then went for a hike with my dogs as the sun came up. Moving was hard, and I still haven’t found a place around here where it’s so easy and comfortable for me to just go out and walk a trail. I still visit all those same places whenever I go down to see my family in California, but I really want to try to find places around here that fulfill that need.

To that end, yesterday I just googled some nearby trails, picked one kind of at random, and drove over there with the pups. It was absolutely gorgeous and so peaceful. Totally worth it.