Friday I snuck off to Culzean Castle in South Ayrshire. It’s a lovely, lovely place — it has six hundred and some odd acres of swan ponds and deer parks, walled gardens and fancy fountains. It has an aviary, and all manner of little shops and visitor centers.
Do you suppose I got into any of them? No, I did not. I saw the sea, and my inner nine year old said, “Hey, how can I climb down that scary looking cliff and get to the water?” I found the nearest rickety staircase down (okay, I exaggerate) (slightly) and climbed amongst the lovely rocks, hermit crabs, sea urchins, anemones, and other tiny sea-ish things. I turned rocks over and poked to my heart’s content. It was absolutely heavenly — the sun on my head, breeze blowing in the smell of the ocean, cormorants shrieking (I was threatened by huge nesting gulls. Those things have scary hooked beaks. When they’re nesting, it’s not just the odd bird plop on your head you’ve got to worry about.), ravens croaking — it was the best day I’ve had in Scotland all year.
And then I had to come home and ruin it all by taping boxes together in preparation for my move. Sigh!
It’s not every day that you spend quality time with your possessions, but if you’re like me, you’ll find your mind spinning in those types of circles which leave you wondering things like, WHY was Susan lazy? and attempting to answer the etymology of lazy susans in this way. You’ll also come away with the conclusion that you have WAY TOO MUCH JUNK and you’ll wonder why on earth you ever thought you needed another bloomin’ thing. Oy! If I have to tape up another box, I think I’m going to break out in hives. I have cardboard aversion and BADLY.
Moving day is tomorrow, and everything is all boxed up and accounted for. Before I toddle off to crash against the nearest piece of couch, thought I’d check in with a few cool facts:
Poets R Us! ~ This poetry month thing is inspiring! Between Laura Salas’ really fun book launch on ning, Miss R’s Poetry Makers, GottaBook’s Thirty In 30, and several other notable and talented bloggers, you can get frequent poetry fixes. It may just inspire you to send out your own poetry for consideration and publication. (Go Poetry Princesses!)
Method Acting 101 ~ Many people rely on acting to help them become better writers. I’ve found a website that has a lot of fun with that idea. It’s Come in Character — where you’re invited to be who you’re writing. Ask questions. Explain yourself. Debate! Just… don’t be yourself. Be someone else! Come in character.
Whoo hoo! ~ A short story of mine has been accepted for Leila’s very cool TBR Tallboy literary ‘zine. The deadline for stories for this first issue was on the 31st of last month, but stay tuned for the inaugural issue of the ezine, full of stories that Leila likes (her magazine, her rules) and take a chance on submitting some of your own!
I’m so exhausted I can’t really think straight any further. Stay tuned – I’ll be more coherent later this week. Meanwhile, here’s your photographic moment of Zen… it was such an awesome day out on the Irish Sea… it’s hard to believe that it absolutely POURED the next day. But I got SUN!
Woo hoo! Congrats on the TBR Tallboy. I submitted my Willow Bay story–haven’t heard back yet.
GOOD LUCK with the move, which I assume has already happened, since I’m late getting to this?? I echo Liz’s happy-housewarming words!
Sounds like a lovely beach day!
For me, it’s not the cardboard that hates me, it’s the tape dispensers. I end up bleading, with the tape end totally lost on the roll…
I hope it goes well! And congrats on the story.
Commiserations over moving — I got so that just touching cardboard made me want to cry. You’d think people that hated moving so much would do it less, but we seem to do it all the time…
We loved tide pools here! We’ve found crabs, octopi, all sorts of little crustaceans — and every time we go out there’s something new.
Just visited that come-in-character blog and I got so happily distracted NOT being Katie for a minute that I actually went back to my blog instead of coming back here. And I wanted to come back to congratulate you on the short story!
Happy housewarming, Tanita. We’ll talk to you when the computer’s unpacked!