writing

Watching It Snow

| Flower Roberts

I have watched the snow in silence all morning. I am truly grateful for this period of quiet peace. I have needed to concentrate on a project I have been working on.

The view from my desk.

No, it is not decorating for the holidays or decoupaging Christmas ornaments. That would be fun. I will hold off on glitter and glue until after 5:00PM.

I am rewriting my story. Not just a chapter, the whole thing. Well almost all of it.  I am culling what was myth and wishful thinking to see what is left.

This has not been an easy thing to do. If I did not feel that it was necessary, I would not be doing it. I am tackling one past event at a time and looking at it from all sides. We usually do not look at things from perspectives other than our own, especially when we are young.

Piling up quietly.

This has been hard work and has required my actually drawing scenarios and stick people and writing out what each person might have been thinking. It usually gives me a headache, but is very enlightening so I will keep at it until I get more clarification.

Watching the snow in silence is like staring into a fish tank. It somehow clears my mind like rice clears the palate.

Fluffy snow slowly falling is so soothing that it feels like balm for my troubled mind as I brave things I have refused to face.

This snow is like an angel. Nature’s way of quieting the setting and softening everything. Muting the noises and covering the colors so that things are monochromatic and muffled.

I did not say I would be making a snow angel nor snowman. My neighbor did bring me some snow cream.

I feel gratitude to my parents for leaving my sister and me this haven. It has brought me so much peace and comfort.

The results of this work are for a book that I have been working on for a long time. There have been surprises. I am sure there will be more. Bring it!

FLOW in SNOW

Targets and Tangents

| Flower Roberts

A first draft has a life of its own. I have tried to stay on task with my three targets of this book I am birthing. But tangents keep emerging which take me off to somewhere unintended. These have a pull too strong to ignore. So now I have seven files instead of four: Intro,  Parts 1,2, 3 and Tangents 1,2,3.


This is how I have gotten myself unstuck in the writer’s muck. Who knows? Maybe this will end up being three books or a collection of short stories. I just know that when the spirit catches you…you do what it tells you to do.

Tangents are an important part of the process. I have learned not to ignore the quirky visions and ideas that pop up while writing. Those tangents can completely reorient a project.

I also know to pause and process an event from various angles. Seeing Part 1 from my dad’s point of view made the heated argument rather comical. I cannot imagine how frustrated he was with his brazen daughter. I remember he seemed resigned at the end of that disagreement. I know that feeling in dealing with my own headstrong daughter. Poor Daddy!


Stopping writing is not an option.

FLOW back at her desk