I walked Tuesday, 4 miles, 4 markers, up into the gap again. I counted 40 or so hawks sitting in about 4 trees up in the gap, in backyards. Very strange. I don't think I've ever seen so many birds of prey in one place. Convention?
I finished reading
It went like this:
First, just write down the factual aspect of the idea. Jot down sections of it. It takes place over a long period of time and relates to evolution. Write down any rules. Rule 1: It's set in Virginia, so I'll have to research what the geologic history is. Rule 2: The different times have to have a connection to each other. I did this work in the afternoon, warming up.
Second, I just started playing with the beginning during workgroup, writing down the bare bones of the first idea/section. Then I looked at it and took what stood out as interesting and rewrote it using that as a focus. And rewrote it again. All of this was very loose, often in free verse, using phrases, ideas. Looking for emotional tags and descriptive tags. Pushing each one further out from a factual description. The idea niggling in my head was that by the time I have a decent draft, it might all be a metaphorical, emotional, poetic description.
And finally, when I was tired of playing with the first idea/section, I started to freewrite out into other sections, trying them out, seeing what ideas were coming out on the page, what evolutionary events interested me.
I wrote for about an hour and a half. By the time I stopped, I was very sleepy. Which is probably a good sign that my brain was working hard.
Frog Out