Getting Away

This weekend I was afforded the opportunity to get away for the weekend. After months and months of constant attention to working on the book I take some time away. Living in Texas allows for some beautiful weather and being in the north east we have some outstanding scenery. Weather is a key factor when driving the back roads of our country on a motorcycle.

The Dallas / Fort Worth area is known as a transistional area. The area to the east is wooded and filled with rivers, streams and lakes. The area to the west have open rolling hills and vasts plains. Our trip this past weekend took us east, through small towns and villages established nearly a century ago. With the mind of a writer I absorbed the richness of these town - taking in each nuance of the buildings, the landscape, and the people.

The trip allowed my brain to relax and in a way recharge with creativity. To break beyond the strict confines of editing. To allow my imagination to flurish with possibilties. I'm hoping at as I return to editing the RABBIT SLAYER I can work on the prose in imagitive ways - to remember that editing does not have to be stoic. It too can be a creative process - one line at a time.

The pinnacle of the weekend occuried when I arrived home and read the English project written by my daughter. The project was to use a multi-medium (she called it genere) work that depicts the life of a fictional character based on historical relatives. My daughter choose the life of her great-great grandmother. A woman that immigrated from Germany in the late 1800s with a toddler. Not a lot is known of her, but my daughter did a splendid job of using multiple writing techniques to depict an immigrants life in New Work at the turn of the century and beyond. It is an excellent piece of work - and I'm not just saying that because I'm her father. - Well maybe I am. Seriously, sometimes I am amazed at the mind of my child. If only I had the imagination she appears to possess.