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The lights were low, the cake was chocolate, the musicians were in top form, the singers were like angels, and the love was all around.

I think this is what happens when friends become family. I think these are the gifts of time spent together, years blending each into the next, good times and bad times shared. Gifts of music and birthdays and time to savor one another's company.


 Happy Birthday, old man. We love you.

almost ready to go

I've been busy this morning. All the important things, dontcha know. Breakfast. Baaaaath. Tidying up and packing. And a little reading, too, of course.
 
 Remember when the bathtub first arrived? It was some of the best money I ever spent. I can sink down deep into that tub and let all cares float away, be immersed in another world for just a little while... or a long while. Soaking meditation. hee.

(In looking for a post about my bathtub, I turned up so many posts wherein I mention soaking in the tub. hmmmm.... !)

The dresser and bed photos are a mystery for you. Where are they taken? In my house, but where? Long-time readers here can probably guess. More next week.

Quick trip to Alexandria, Louisiana -- I'm almost ready to go to the airport. Hello, Rapides Parish Library system! I can't wait to meet my new librarian friends later this afternoon, have some supper tonight, and do good work together tomorrow. I've got my li'l silver camera with me. Let's see if I can remember to take pictures.

You know, I hadn't stepped on a plane in over 20 years, when I began this traveling gig ten years ago (this, from an Air Force kid who had grown up all over the world... I think I wanted to Stay Put and raise a family... which I did). Now I can't count the number of planes I've been on in the past ten years. It's all good.

Hello, world! It's fall. Here I come!

xoxoxo Debbie

preparing to go

I've been working all week. On what?
1. Administrivia. Confirmation letters, email, phone meetings, W9s, faxing, airfare reimbursement, car rentals, dinner plans, scheduling changes, equipment needs, teacher goals, coordinators' needs and expectations, PowerPoint presentations, workshop flow, questions answered, lessons learned. 
 2.  This book. In researching the sixties, I came across Fire and Rain: The Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, James Taylor, CSNY and the Lost Story of 1970. I spent two hours reading it in the bathtub last night. I'm still a prune. And I'm loving this story. I may have to do a whole blog entry on it at some point. It's due back at the library today, and I hate to return it, but I will, and I'll get right back on the hold list.
3.  This manuscript. It's not for the sixties trilogy, but it is. It started out as research, six years ago, and has morphed into a story of its own. I think it's going to end up an opinionated biography in book two, that's what I think. We'll see.

4. This food. Simple and homespun. I know I'm going to miss it, on the road.

Fall travel is about to begin in earnest. I leave Sunday for Alexandria, Louisiana, where, on Monday, I'll work with students in schools served by the Rapides Parish Library system.

Then I'm home again, and then -- boom! -- I'm on the road more than I'm home, until Thanksgiving.

Working writers make their livings in a myriad of interesting ways. Some have full- or part-time jobs that have nothing to do with writing. Some are supported by spouses, or parents or other benefactors. Some -- a few, really -- make a living entirely from their writing.

Once, my good friend and fellow writer Tana Fletcher told me that there were three secrets to viable self-employment:

-- have one or two permanent paying gigs.
-- diversify.
-- create passive income.

She was right. As long as I have remembered these three guidelines and have worked toward them steadily, I have done just fine on my own. I let go of a permanent paying gig when I moved to Atlanta and left my Towson teaching job, and when I decided not to teach in low-res MFA programs anymore. I haven't figured out what to do to replace that "one or two permanent paying gigs" part of the self-employment equation, but I'm diversified to Kingdom Come.

Part of my diversification is teaching and speaking. To speak and teach, I travel.

Fall travel is always like this -- a grind and a blessing. I try to prepare as best I can by being very, very quiet in the weeks leading up to fall (and spring) travels. I get still. I eat well, sleep well, read, write, soak up home, and try to make progress on the next book.

I try to make sure all my administrative ducks are in rows before I set out, because I know, once I'm on the road, it is too hard to do much else but be on the road then home again, on the road then home again, repeat.

Home is for catching my breath in these next couple of months. But this week! This week is for working steadily away on feeling at home and in my most-beloved element, working away and working well. I love these early fall days.

What are you working on this week?

my hero

If you only knew. We are a writer and a musician respectively. We are deck-staining virgins. We've been at this project since July. Pressure wash it, strip it, wash it again, bang in errant nails, tighten renegade screws, sand in certain places, wash again. Read directions a hundred times. Now it's too hot, it's raining, it's hot again, let's keep it swept and agonize over stain (which color?) vs seal (which shade?) vs paint (really?). Water or oil based? Let's sleep on it. Repeat.

I gave in once again and took a nap. He sealed the deck. I woke up and snapped his picture. "A rare sighting!" he said. Then he made himself a gigantic pimento cheese sandwich. We never know what we're capable of, do we? We just keep plugging away... even if it takes us months -- or years -- to figure it out.

Thank you, Jim.
How is *your* weekend taking shape?

friday link love

Where I've drifted this week, deliberately and by chance:

This ten-minute video about the life of street photographer Vivian Maier. I've been following this project for about a year now, right here, and am fascinated by Maier's largely unknown life, and by the amazing shots she captured.

I was captured by E.M. Forster this week. I watched A Passage to India years ago and hated it, tried to read the book instead, hated it, and thought there must be something wrong with me. I was just too young, I think. I needed context. Context is something I work with all the time, with this '60s trilogy -- trying to give young readers context and framework and foundation. It matters.

This week I was led to a quote (you'll see it in the sidebar) from A Room With A View (a movie (lovely montage here) I loved and watched over and over again), which led me to thinking about trying to read Forster again. So I watched Howard's End this week (which made me want to re-watch Educating Rita!), then downloaded the novel from Project Gutenberg. It's great. It's more than great.

The class struggles Forster writes about in 1910 England are the same class struggles I am trying to delineate in book two of the '60s trilogy, which takes place in 1964 Mississippi. Who knew. Kismet. Synchronicity. I'm expecting it now, looking for it everywhere. I know it will come.

Onward. I loved this link from the kitch'n: Nourish Short Films: 54 Bite-Sized Videos about the Story of Your Food. Here's one, from Michael Pollan.

I'm in the midst of making another tiramisu blanket for our family's newest babe (I am now a great-aunt! hooray!). I want to make this next. Remember those chevron blankets from the '70s? I haven't made one in decades. Thanks to this reminder from the purl bee, it's time. I have lots of that blue sky cotton sitting around, waiting to take me back to the '60s.

It's cool this morning. I'm having trouble putting away the stuff of summer, the beach paraphernalia, the memories of a wonderful week away. Instead, my thoughts turn toward firewood and pumpkins. Funny how fall just *arrives* here in Atlanta.  Time for some recipes with pumpkin, especially that pumpkin soup with bacon, which I will savor in front of the season's first crackling fire. Avec Howard's End. With my book two manuscript close by.

Hello, happy autumn.

xoxoxoxo, Debbie

PeeEss: If you are at SIBA this weekend in Charleston, come say hello! I'm there on Sunday, as SIBA has named Countdown its YA book of the year. Thank you, Southern Independent Booksellers! xoxo