Another day, another burst of nervous energy. I'm not sure where it's coming from, but I'm putting it to good use. I had obtained a trio of mixed mums over the weekend, and used them as an impetus to tidy up the front porch. First I pulled out the dead evergreens from last winter's decoration. Who knew that you had to reliably water arborvitae and spruces to keep them alive? (Yeah, I know...) I cleared out cobwebs and put in the lovely fall colored flowers in place of the neglected greenery. Once I pitched the old dead plants, I grabbed a broom and set about cleaning the whole area. It wasn't long before I found myself caught up in weeding and rearranging. I took advantage of a cool, overcast day to catch up on long-delayed maintenance. After ripping out bushels of vine weed and crabgrass, pruning the dead golden pea, and clearing a few odds and ends that shouldn't have stayed on the porch as long as they did, I must admit, it looks a lot better out front. Almost like someone with energy and ambition lives here. Give me another few cloudy days, and I'll have the whole front set of gardens ready to mulch and put to bed heading into autumn and winter.
I've committed myself to joining a writers' critique group, as of this evening. I don't know when our first meeting will be, but this is a way to force myself to produce at least some sort of meaningful output on a regular schedule. I had tried to do it earlier in the summer, when my daughter challenged me to 500 words a night. But I was still in an emotional upheaval, and as I admitted freely, the fiction well was dry. I'm on a more even keel now, and starting to let my mind wander back to those stories I'd been working on before. Perhaps now I can pry the words out of the vague pictures that swim in the back of my mind. They've been fighting me for weeks, and it's time to take the upper hand.
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