Partners in Time: The Series

With a working laptop again and being back in my home state, I feel in a better frame of mine to write. There's something about Oregon that tends to stir up my PIT world, quite likely because the characters live in the state and so much of my life in Oregon inspired so many aspects of my series.

Progress-wise, I'm creeping along. I am still getting more done outside a house than in it. When I stay with my parents, I tend to have no decent place to set up shop and be undisturbed, so it's better for me to leave and hit up a coffee shop in the area. I keep looking at my notes and scratching my head at how little is left of the story to write, though. Huh.

Hopefully I can finish the current chapter soon...maybe before my mom and I fly to England at the end of the week! We'll see.

-K

Today is Valentine's Day. It also happens to be the 150th "birthday" of my home state. Oregon got its statehood on February 14, 1859. I don't know if I will ever have a PIT story relating to that event, but I still find it a little neat. And I did need to know it for the whole epic storyline/history/futures of the main characters.

I also realized that PIT5 opens up on Valentine's Day for Sam and Meg. (I don't think this would qualify as Spoiler Alert...although I had reasons for doing that...or, rather, Sam had reasons for arriving on that date....) Huh, go figure. I will say writing about mid-February Oregonian weather when experiencing massive July heat in Sacramento was slightly bizarre. If I really wanted to capture that accurately, I could sit outside and freeze my butt off in my hooded sweatshirt, since tonight (in Sac) it is cold and windy and spitting rain.

Speaking of PIT5, work on the book continues. I'm probably 90% done with Chapter 14. Chapter 15 gets better. I feel like I've spent the last couple chapters setting up dominos and haven't yet had the fun of knocking them down. SIGH. I was skimming some already writ pieces of the book -- checking something -- and find it weird that my recollections on writing some parts is just...not there. It's like those pieces dropped from Mars, or were written by someone else. Not to say they're bad (or good). It's just odd how I will have very vivid memories of writing some scenes in certain places/times of my life...and other moments I literally have no memory whatsoever. For example, I remember vividly writing the opening chapter -- I did so sitting on the porch of my apartment near sunset in July, streaming jazz through my laptop, savoring the warm air on my skin, trying to imagine mid-February Oregon weather.

So, yeah, it's Valentine's Day, and I'm in a nearly deserted Starbucks writing, flying solo as usual. But, hey, I'm spending the holiday with those I love -- my fictional characters -- and doing something I love. So that's fine with me!

-K

"Be careful what you wish for." For a period of time, that expression was a tentative drafty title for PIT1. It also could explain my life in the past week.

Growing up in Beaverton, OR, snow was a bit of a rare treat. Typically it would snow a little and melt within 24 hours. In rare cases, maybe it would snow a bit and be on the ground for a week if we had a dry deep freeze. But in recent years, it's been pretty paltry and pathetic.

On Dec 14th it snowed in the Portland area, and the stuff is still on the ground. This has been a weather event of epic proportions, a "once in a lifetime" sort of storm.

While I love snow and the idea of a white Christmas as much as anyone...enough is enough! My flight home for the holidays (scheduled for Mon, Dec 22nd) was canceled due to the weather conditions in Portland. I was very very fortunate to get a seat on a plane leaving the following afternoon...and that one did go. On the ground at 3:30 P.M., on Dec 23rd, and after 90 minutes waiting for my luggage to come out (for they were that backed up), I took the light rail from the airport to the 'burbs. By the time I walked into my parents' house, it was after 7 P.M. that evening.

The snow is insane. We did get a white Christmas, fufilling a wish of mine -- it even snowed for about 30 minutes on Christmas Day. But after being stuck in my parents' house since I arrived on Tuesday, unable to drive because of lousy skills (and I would have to pry the keys out of my parents' hands over their dead bodies), I feel a wee bit ready for things to thaw NOW so I can actually see friends, go shopping, hit up favored coffee spots, etc.

Since I can remember, as a writer, I've been a big fan of research -- as in experiencing something to better write about it. One thing I've written about a lot but never experienced happens to be large quantities of snow being dumped outside one's home. This morning, I went out for a walk and found trying to fight my way through a foot of crusted, crunchy snowfall was not as easy as it seemed. My mind immediately went to Meg and Sam at the 1850 segments in PIT4. Ironically, I did bring and wear my Doc Martens on this hike, and found those to be quite nice in terms of traction and keeping my feet sort of dry.

And whenever I write my way towards Sam's present of Dec 2008, I will now have firsthand experience to draw from regarding The Arctic Blast of 2008 (as the local news has dubbed the 2 week snow event.) I wonder if there's a way I can use that in a future story line....?

* * *

Considering the MASSIVE DISTRACTION of wondering if I'd get to my family's home or not last weekend, my writing progress on PIT5 has been sort of lame. I got about a page done on the flight on Tuesday (until I realized that I left my glasses in Sacramento, which broke my whole grove of thought), and that's been it so far. Yesterday was, of course, Christmas, and my family hosted festivities, so it was impossible to really focus on writing then. And by the time the day wound up, I was too fried to write. (The forgotten glasses makes it hard for me to tolerate looking at a computer screen when my contact lenses are out. Said glasses are en route to me, being mailed out by my roommate and supposedly guaranteed to arrive today...though the mail service has been pretty disrupted due to the road conditions.)

Hopefully things WILL melt soon and life can feel a wee bit more normal. I do like excitement once in a while, but when one has plans to relax and catch up on stuff, it can make it hard to reach those goals.

And I'm not sure if I ever will wish for a white Christmas again!

-K