Braided gloom and beauty

I love the bluster and inconstancy of November in the Pacific Northwest. The other day, I watched a rising column of leaves in a Bellingham parking lot. Some scraped the pavement in circles, others twirled aloft, climbing, making a visible thing of an unseen gyre of air. Then the wind lost its grip: the column broke up, fell apart, and the leaves hurtled over the cars, bullet-fast and harmless, flying every which way.

I love the frosty days and the torrential downpours, the winds and how they lash the huge trees back and forth, love the mornings after these blows, streets strewn with broken branches, sodden would-be kindling. The air is saturated with water, always, and the days change rapidly, fog giving way to brightness, rainclouds screaming in to engulf a surprise window of blue skies. Right now it’s sleet with a threat of coming snow. It’s dramatic, moody, anything-can-happen weather.

November is purple clouds, rain-slicked maple leaves, screamingly red, a spongy mash of birch underfoot, turning from coin gold to rot brown–all the colors are stunning during these last violent throes of autumn.

November is stumbling on foreboding, Gothic structures in the midst of a walk through a Portland neighborhood:
Joseph Wood Hill Park

I am always at a low ebb, physically, emotionally and creatively, at this time of year. Things have a weight, a heaviness they lack in other months. It’s one reason why I sometimes embrace Nanowrimo (a drama unto itself!), because the mad over-the-top pace of it somehow forces me to tread, to keep myself afloat.

November is, for me, a month of beauty and slog, the two intertwined so tightly that the strands are inseparable.

Early bird gets the raptor

We have shifted around the Dua schedule a bit, and so I was on my way home early from a grocery run today. It is cold but bright, and supposedly due to snow tomorrow, and I was only too happy to let a cloud of upset crows lead me down Sixth. At first I couldn’t see the source of their distress, so I merely shot video of the cloud of them freaking out. (It’s not great visually, but the cawing is impressive. I’ll see if I can post it at some point.) Then I got this, and considered myself extremely lucky.

Hawk

The show was by no means over, though, because what happened next was this:

Hawk

It sat there, maybe twenty feet away, in a big oak in the schoolyard on Woodland and the Grandview Highway. The crows were high up, cawing and grieving, and I and the schoolkids and many random passersby just drank it in. Is it a sharp-shinned hawk, or a Cooper’s? I cannot tell.

There will be more birdage to come, for it has been feathered presents for Alyx week or two. I got a somewhat less blurry shot of a kingfisher in Yaletown, a varied thrush, a decent hummingbird while in Portland, and yesterday I found Stellar’s Jay heaven on 18th and Fleming.

Polish up those Taos Toolbox submissions!

Walter Jon Williams has announced that Taos Toolbox 2011 will take place July 10-23 at Snow Bear, and that he will be teaching the two week master class in fantasy and SF along with Nancy Kress and Jack Skillingstead.

What does that mean? Here’s a taste:

This is not a workshop for beginners. We won’t teach you correct manuscript format or what an adverb is and why you shouldn’t use one, because we’ll assume that you already know. We want to concentrate on giving talented, burgeoning writers the information necessary to become professionals within the science fiction and fantasy field.

Though short fiction will be enthusiastically received, there will be an emphasis at Taos Toolbox on the craft of the novel, with attention given to such vital topics as plotting, pacing, and selling full-length works.

More details can be found here: www.taostoolbox.com. They are accepting applications beginning December 1.

As some of you know, kelly-yoyoKelly attended Taos in 2007 and found it to be a wholly helpful and useful experience. If you are or know someone whose writing could benefit from a master class, with wonderful teachers in a beautiful scenic setting, consider applying. And please do pass the word along!

Go Vinyl or go to FtE

This being Monday, I am at Favorite Thing Ever, blogging about the wonders of The Vinyl Cafe. Or, if you’d like a behind-the-scenes look at Indigo Springs, check out “Magic Calls to Magic” in the Tor-Forge blog. Enjoy!