Front Yard Blues

I wanted to write after work, but not in the house. I'm working on part of the book where my characters are in the Forest Door, which is a place where everything (the grass, the animals, the bugs, and tree saplings) try to eat you. I'm almost finished with this part and yesterday I got the feeling that I needed some extra inspiration so I took a blanket and the stack of looseleaf paper that is my rough draft and I went to the front yard.

There's a figure 8 of azalea bushes near an oak tree out there. I walked to the center of the figure 8 and spread the blanket, happily cloaked by the bushes when I laid down on my stomach and began to write. This proved to be a perfect place to write about a carnivorous forest. Because my lawn is filled with things that want to bite me - ants, spiders, mosquitoes, and little grasshopper-like thingies that aren't exactly grasshoppers. They enjoy springing from my legs to the grass.

So The Water Door Magician is coming along. Though I did stop once to roll onto my back and look up at the sky that was still blue but yellowing with the sunset by then. I don't know what it is that makes powerlines beautiful against the clouds, but they are when you look at them from a grasshopper's point of view. It was because I was listening to "Elvis Presley Blues" by Gillian Welch on my phone. It put me in  mood to lie on my back and look at things.


I was thinking that night about Elvis


Day that he died, day that he died

I was thinking that night about Elvis

Day that he died, day that he died

Just a country boy that combed his hair

And put on a shirt his mother made and went on the air

And he shook it like a chorus girl

And he shook it like a Harlem queen

He shook it like a midnight rebel, baby

Like you never seen   Never seen