{"id":68,"date":"2008-12-30T23:18:19","date_gmt":"2008-12-31T05:18:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/?p=68"},"modified":"2008-12-30T23:18:19","modified_gmt":"2008-12-31T05:18:19","slug":"refilling-the-well","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/?p=68","title":{"rendered":"Refilling the well"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Paksworld books are largely outdoor books–sure, there are palaces, forts, inns, taverns, shops, cottages, etc., but much of the time the characters are outdoors.\u00a0\u00a0 As a result, it’s necessary for me to go out for hours at a time, noticing things.\u00a0 Sights.\u00a0 Smells.\u00a0 Sounds.\u00a0\u00a0 The feel of the air,\u00a0 the texture of different trees’ bark, different twigs, etc.\u00a0 (It would be easier on the sounds end if we weren’t quite<\/em> as close to roads, but no matter…)<\/p>\n

Today I took several\u00a0 hours off for a ramble, having missed some days in a row, including pretty ones.\u00a0\u00a0 We had a warm spell, quite balmy, so since I’m writing winter scenes in a very different climate than this, I was mostly just absorbing outdoorness.\u00a0 Aloneness.\u00a0 Seeing how alert I could be, how quiet (not quiet enough–spooked one deer out of cover across the fenceline.)\u00a0 Trying to be fully open to the grassland, the woods, the brush as I moved from place to place.<\/p>\n

I spent awhile following a deer’s track.\u00a0 It’s been dry for weeks, but for one small shower (that didn’t leave a measurable amount in the rain gauges.)\u00a0 So I had dents in the dust to look at and decide which were coyote and which were deer–and this wasn’t nice fine dust that took a good impression, either.\u00a0 The slanting winter sun helped, by edging a shadow into even the shallowest and most open prints.\u00a0 Then, in the woods, the deer went off the footpath across fallen leaves.\u00a0 I stopped and looked at the trace and wondered why it had veered away there, when one of their usual tangles to rest in was ahead.\u00a0 Had I spooked it?\u00a0 Had something else?\u00a0 Was it even today’s track?\u00a0 (It’s so dry, I can’t tell.)<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In the leaves, the track was a series of tiny hollows–not clear hoofprints, but just dips in the leaves forming the pattern of a deer trotting.\u00a0\u00a0 I took a picture, then walked beside the track.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Deer often use our paths, and this one, after crossing a shallow dip (as we often do, too) continued on through the woods on one of our paths, one mostly covered in leaves–but where it wasn’t, I could see the hoofmarks more clearly, from the slightly damper soil.\u00a0\u00a0 It crossed the dry creek (we need rain so badly!) on our plank bridge, leaving little dusty marks, and then went on our path through the rest of the woods to the grassy meadow beyond.\u00a0 Deer often use the tributary creek (also dry of course) as a highway, but not this deer–its marks going up the slope to the gap were quite clear.<\/p>\n

Is this just the writer goofing off on a lovely afternoon?\u00a0\u00a0 Partly–but it’s also refilling the well from which the stories come.\u00a0\u00a0 I need to walk on natural ground…touch the trees, even if they aren’t the “right” trees, smell the air, feel the breeze on one cheek and the sun on the other,\u00a0 notice everything, let it sink in.<\/p>\n

There are bones on the land–the scapula of a deer here…the femur of a cow there…something’s thoracic vertebra in the middle of the trail where it wasn’t the last time I came by (most likely deer.)\u00a0 A feather.\u00a0 A tuft of fur.\u00a0\u00a0 On my last trip out, I found the skeleton of a raccoon, in the woods.\u00a0\u00a0 On Christmas Eve, my husband found a dead skunk (very recently dead–not stinking yet.)\u00a0 Scat, of course: fox, raccoon, coyote, domestic dog, deer, rabbit, and things I don’t recognize.<\/p>\n

When I’ve been out a few hours and my senses have opened up, I hear more and see more.\u00a0\u00a0 Then there’s more inside my head for imagination to work with, and more space (it feels like) for things to happen in.<\/p>\n

I came back to the house near sundown, tired and refreshed and much\u00a0 more in tune with Paks’s world than earlier.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Sometimes a specific incident makes it into a book…more often not, but the texture is built of hours of observation and experience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Paksworld books are largely outdoor books–sure, there are palaces, forts, inns, taverns, shops, cottages, etc., but much of the time the characters are outdoors.\u00a0\u00a0 As a result, it’s necessary for me to go out for hours at a time, noticing things.\u00a0 Sights.\u00a0 Smells.\u00a0 Sounds.\u00a0\u00a0 The feel of the air,\u00a0 the texture of different trees’ […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[24,6,107],"class_list":["post-68","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-writing-life","tag-filling-the-well","tag-places","tag-the-writing-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=68"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68\/revisions\/69"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=68"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=68"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=68"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}