Settling in

In spite of the gray skies I see outside my office window, the calendar on my wall tells me summer is almost here. Classes are over, grades are in (a second graduate 4.0 quarter, thank you!), and I am relearning the art of sleeping past 4:30 am. I've started back to yoga, and aside from a few sore muscles, I am loving every minute of it! I am also loving the freedom to just sit down and read a book--any book--whenever I feel like it.

Friday morning, I'll be traveling to LA to present my research at a graduate conference, so I've been spending some time this week perfecting my presentation. I could talk at great length about my MA project (so don't ask if you don't really want to know), but trying to cram it all into 20 minutes feels like a bit of a challenge--but then I remember just a few weeks ago when I had to do it in 5. I guess 20 minutes isn't so bad after all! Once I get home from LA, there are less than 2 weeks left until my trip to Iowa. Flights and car are booked. Hotel reservations are made. And I've even arranged my time with Emily's diary in the state archives. Nothing left but to wait--and plan the writing I'll begin in earnest once I get home.

I've been giving a lot of thought to plot--and to setting. I'm so looking forward to actually experiencing my novel's setting through my trip to Iowa. I even did a little checking to see if early July would be too late to see fireflies (wouldn't that be a cool thing to be able to write about?)--and the jury is still out. I guess it all depends on where you are in the state.

I've also been reading an amazing little book, "The Flatness and Other Landscapes," a creative non-fiction glimpse of life in the middle of the country. What a wonderful way to "see" a landscape so different from the one I've grown so accustomed to: cloudy (sometimes blue) skies, sparkling water,  mountains and evergreens. Iowa is a place where counties are laid out on a grid (seriously, they are mostly perfect rectangles), and in most of the state the ground is flat as a pancake. (My own backyard has more hills than most of the state of Iowa!) But the most astounding thing about this little book is something that I discovered yesterday.

I bought this book through the Amazon marketplace, and although it was listed as "like new," it appeared brand new when I received it. Now, I've been reading it for a few days now--in bits and snatches--but yesterday, I decided I needed to see when it was written, and discovered this on the fly leaf:

Someone sent my Lizzie a birthday gift, congratulating her on her move to the Midwest! How cool is that? I couldn't help it, I got really excited, and am currently trying to figure out a non-gimmicky way to include this in my book. ( Better still, it places her birthday in April--right where I put it since I decided I wanted her to share Emily's birthdate. I know it's silly, but I am excited!)

Lizzie's story just keeps developing before my eyes!