Reverie 2011: The December Reverie Project

 

This December I'm taking part in a writing challenge - or let's call it a writing invitation - friend and fellow writer, Kirsten Ogden has set up. In case anyone else out there wants to play, here's how it goes: REVERIE 2011

What is REVERIE 2011?

rev·er·ie/ˈrevərē/ Noun: 1. A state of being pleasantly lost in one’s thoughts; a daydream; 2. An instrumental piece suggesting a dreamy or musing state.

Reverie 2011 is a December Daily Writing/Photographing/Cartooning/Filming/Poeming/Prosing etc. Prompt to help you REFLECT on the past year. REVERIE, REVIVE, REVOLUTION. 

December 2011 posts from here on out are devoted to this challenge. Wish me luck!

The New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2011

So many books, so little time...  

Haruki Murakami, Julie Otsuka, Charles Baxter, Leah Hager Cohen, Michael Ondaatje, Tessa Hadley, Tom Perotta, Téa Obreht, Denis Johnson, Barry Hannah - such a nice list of authors. To see the others along with their book's titles, follow the link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/22/books/review/100-notable-books-of-2011.html?smid=fb-nytimes&WT.mc_id=AR-E-FB-SM-LIN-OHN-112111-NYT-NA&WT.mc_ev=click 

"The Cap"

When asked by Prime Number's Prose Editor, Cliff Garstang, about the inspiration for my story "The Cap," I responded:

"Barry Hannah once said of a rich and reckless woman he’d like to have punished for running down his dog in her SUV, 'I set out to destroy that woman. But instead I’ve immortalized her.' I do believe I’ve done the same with a rich and reckless man." 

"Mr. H is working on lost time, ill-conceived time, time that waits for no one. He hasn’t ever had this problem before and is unsure of how to handle it. It is a definite conundrum. Mr. H loathes conundrums and says so to himself. Out loud. “I loathe conundrums.” Still, all the clocks in the house keep ticking."

- from "The Cap" by Karin C. Davidson - Prime Decimals 13.2 - Flash Fiction 

To read more, visit: 

http://www.primenumbermagazine.com/Issue13_PrimeDecimals2.html#anchor_405

the novelist and the sea

N.C. Wyeth's illustration from The Yearling

John Gardner states in On Becoming a Novelist, "Writing a novel is like heading out over the open sea in a small boat.  If you have a plan and a course laid out, that's helpful.  If you drift off course, checking the stars can help you find a new course.  If you have no map, no course laid out, sooner or later confusion will make you check the stars."  Right about now, it's very cloudy and I've a feeling I'm heading in a more southerly direction than planned.  Say, the Caribbean.  It's a good thing that there's only another month or so to hurricane season.  Ophelia, perhaps through the calming of rue, is still a tropical storm.  The novel, the ocean canoe, the ride across the blue-green waves.  Still, I'm heading out.

Writing Retreat in Gambier, Ohio

Surrounded by cool, green views and birdsong.  So tranquil that it took this city girl a little while to get used to the calm factor, but I finally gave in to the quiet immersion of reading and writing and restructuring.  Slowly, surely, the novel is coming together, apart, and together again.