Writing About Writing

Writing About Writing

About an hour ago, at 4 A.M., I woke up with a soft furry body nestled on my shoulder and a contented purring in my ear. It was my white cat Forrest, the most cuddly of all my cats, and one of two, the other being Buddy a long-haired yellow tabby, who seem dedicated to keeping me in good spirits. Buddy was the warm lump curled up in the small of my back.

Lying there at peace with the world I suddenly realized the Christmas blues that have been stifling my creative inspiration are gone, and ideas for articles are rushing in again. I think the fact that I received a lovely gift of books from my son yesterday had a lot to do with it. Now I can get on with my life as a free lance writer who needs a never-ending supply of subjects to write about.

For instance, coastal live oak trees are a subject that needs an article. There is more interesting stuff to know about oak trees than you might suspect. But I need to acquire a certain book and read it before I write that one.

Then, I've been recoiling a little every time I hear people talking about our 'wonderful country' and how 'free' we are – 'Land of the Free' and all that. I really question that. Being a history aficionado, I know that we used to be very free when this country was young and under-populated, but now fees, rules and regulations impede us on every side. I know it is for the 'good of the community' but I think it has gone too far and is an impediment to our American ingenuity. That's worth an article.

Of course there is always an article to be written about the wonders of living on this remote Indian reservation, where the coyotes give frequent recitals and the recent heavy rain has caused a little green grass to brighten up sheltered areas. This means more meals for rabbits which means more meals for coyotes.

And the tame coyote that appeared right after the fires of October inspires me to write some bad poetry. I named him Jake, but my daughter calls him Zeke after a lost wolf dog. After a couple of months of regular feeding at sundown Zeke has become so tame he stood still about 30 feet in front of me a few evenings ago. I got a better look at him. He is a She. Now I've got to think up a new female name that sounds like Zeke, because that coyote comes when called and needs a name with the same sound. I love it that a wild animal accepts me! It makes me feel like Mother Earth or a sort of wilderness witch.

Also, on the subject of writing, I have come to agree completely with some Gather editors about the length of articles appearing here. Less is better. We folks who write our articles from scratch, do get wordy. When I was going to write history articles for Gather, I was advised to keep my articles between 500 and 750 words. That's hard to do when you are all juiced up trying to get the facts and amusing nuances in to keep readers reading. What fires up the author probably won't grab the reader's attention with an equal amount of enthusiasm. So you have to go back over the article questioning the value of every passage and be quite ruthless with that delete key.

Right now I'm going back up to the 'tools' option and if I have written over 500 words I am going to end this piece. - Yep! It's over 500 words so I will quit while I'm ahead. See ya' later.