Super Blue Moon and writing

This was the week of what is called the Super Blue Moon. Super because the moon is closer to earth than other times. Blue Moon because it's the second full moon in the month. Some consider it to have spiritual power. It definitely influences the tides, which led to concern for the recent hurricane coming out of the Caribbean, hitting Cuba, then heading for a side of Florida that doesn't usually get forceful hurricanes, like a Type 4.  

Because I've been writing blurbs for when we bring out the Arizona historical romances, as new books after having to pull them, I thought maybe some were not aware of the difference between a synopsis and a blurb. 

A synopsis uses the basic outline of the book and with more words, lets a possible agent or book publisher know the story. It follows the entire plot, with minimal words and has the ending also. It is, of course, intended to make the book sound good; so words are carefully chosen to tell the tale but in a way flattering to the story. If someone wrote a solid outline first, it makes the synopsis easier.

A blurb, on the other hand, doesn't want to tell too much. It's intended to intrigue a reader and make them curious as to what happens. They are not easy to write, in my experience.

 

Writing eight of them, one after the other, was more difficult; but, I did it with the idea it was a rough draft. It was made easier that I had just edited all but two of the books. They will come out one a month or maybe three weeks between. I have time for the last blurbs to be improved.

The way I do a blurb would not suit all books, but I think they best let the reader know the gist of the characters' issues as well as make them wonder what makes it difficult. The nature of romance tells the reader the couple will get together. What makes it worth the reader's time to find out how that happens.

I start with the female protagonist for a paragraph, then comes a paragraph for her possible love interest. The final lines will relate to what it would take for these two to make it together-- without giving away the whole thing. When a book has violence or is spicy, this is also the place to let readers know. 

(The Super Blue Moon photos are from our Tucson home)

August and some nice storms

 August 12th

This Sturgeon moon is the considered to be fourth supermoon in a row after the Buck moon in July, Strawberry moon in June and Flower moon in May.

 

I haven't had a lot to say lately as our world has been very quiet. Ranch Boss had cataracts removed from both eyes and that takes some time to arrange and then the healing and repeated doctor visits to be sure it's all fine. He is quite happy with the results and now has 20/20 vision in both eyes and no more astigmatism. 

We had a little concern about the process since it does involve an anesthetic, but they don't put the patient to sleep, but just to relax so they can do the work. He found the process fascinating for  how they remove the cataract and the old lens before replacing it with the new one.

The patient has a choice of how far they want to see, and he chose distance with using reading glasses for up close and the computer. He also had a choice on using a laser and paying for that as the basic cataract surgery is covered by Medicare for someone with as bad of vision as he had in the one eye and fuzzy in the other.

Otherwise, not much. I have been wrestling with low blood sugar and may have found a way to help which involves protein bars in the late afternoon. Fingers crossed. (turns out that wasn't the solution. More research needed).

 The monsoons in our area have been mixed for how much rain is involved. we bought a rain gauge and the other night, we had three storms come through, with some scary thunder in one of them and 3/4" fell between the three. 

 We and the cactus are hoping for more rain, but you really never know and often the storms hit places other than us.

 

 

 

falls

There are many things for which elders are told to watch out. Blood pressure, blood sugar, pains, etc. etc. One of them is falling...

Before I was an elder, or whatever you call old folks, I took falls at various times but always about tripping on something, like on a hiking trail or walking up from the fields and my toe catching an uneven edge of the field. Then there was the time I broke my nose falling after I caught my toe on a carpet that was uneven. That one could have been bad since I landed on our bedroom's rock floor. It was scary-- all falls are. But overall, my nose survived and it made me more aware of our Oriental rugs.

The fall that I took the 26th of January didn't involve what I expected and could have been far worse than it was. I had decided to walk out the door to our concrete patio, pick up our small cat from a chair and carry her into the house. I got to the door, put one foot up onto the house when the other foot began to slide. I knew I was falling, but I worried also that I'd hurt the cat I was still carrying. I went down hard, hit my head on the screen door and then the concrete, I laid there a few seconds while I tried to figure out if my fall had crushed the cat. She was long gone. Then, I felt of my head. I had a lump sticking out from my hair... Not good. I got myself to a sitting position, into the house, and crawled to the sofa where I could use it and the coffee table to be sitting there when Ranch Boss got back from the store. He told me that the cat was fine. More or less I thought I was, although I wasn't sure about the meaning of the lump, which quickly went down.

I could go into more details about the next days, but the reason I am writing this is because of what I learned about head injuries, most of which I had wished I hadn't known. You don't need to lose consciousness for a head injury to be serious. You also, don't need to fall a long ways. What matters is what the brain has done as it hits against the skull.

My curiosity about this got into what happened to Natasha Richardson in 2009. She was on a beginner's ski slope, fell, hit her head on hard packed snow, was immediately back up, thought it was nothing. She was wrong and died 3 days later when she was brain dead from what her brain had done against her skull.

The other thing I learned is it can take a month for the worst consequences to show up with some head injuries. The lesson here, might be don't go to the internet for more info as it can be scary. Still, there are some symptoms of serious brain damage which include pain, nausea, unsteadiness, and more if you want to check it out.

We found out why my other foot slid-- loose dirt under the mat by the door. So, the lessons are get the mat away from the door, and do more exercises to have stronger leg muscles (something I knew was a problem at my age due to the lack of long walks).

So, this is here for warnings to others... as well as to quit thinking about what the heck I did that led to what happened.

moon thoughts

by Rain Trueax

April 6th and the setting of the Pink Moon. 

With my interest in full moons, I found two meanings for this moon. The first was that it's for the pink phlox and early bloomers. The second was it meant rebirth. Since Sunday is Easter, a time of resurrection for Christians, that's a good meaning. The time of rebirth. however, isn't always good. It means death first.

I have mentioned before that I am on Facebook. Currently, it's a good place for me. I like connecting with people there and sharing parts of my life. If someone asks an opinion type question, even on a topic I generally avoid, I will answer with my thoughts on it. BUT if it's peppered with insulting terms, if it's from someone I have considered a friend, I quit reading with the first of them and hide the post. If it's a 'friend' there that I don't know, I snooze them for a month and then unfollow if the nasty words are still there.

Some say they don't like coming to FB for the negativity. What I wrote above is a solution, which I need, as it's important for me right now as a place to connect with those I have gotten to know, where I am interested in how they are doing. The only way I can continue there is to get rid of what upsets me. Maybe it's my generation or how I was raised to be polite, but insulting words don't work for me even if I agree with them-- and once in a while, I might...

I have a thought on the virus, which I will share... read it or not as it works for you. 

Spring and the Crow Moon

by Rain Trueax
 

We spent this week still waiting on the carport permit. This is so frustrating as it's about length of nails, amongst other things, a not understanding all the rules before getting into the game, and a city that doesn't appear to have enough employees to cover those needing permits getting them in a timely manner. If we were in the county, as we had been when we bought this place, the contractor would already have the carport built. As it is, process puts him and us on hold and not a thing we can do about it as any rushing the gun and starting to build without a permit and inspections would lead to a $500 fine and maybe having to undo what had been done. The power is in the hands of those who have no reason to worry about our schedule. 

Enough whining on that. We had two things interesting-- to us-- happen this week. One happened to everybody. The other was just for us.

My world and thinking

By Rain Trueax

February 19th-- Super Snow Moon

For this blog, I had ideas, multiples-- during the week. Then here the time comes, and my mind is more or less blank as I try to remember what I thought mattered. This was a great week for dreaming-- several of what I call my movie dreams. Once in a while one of those works into a book-- not sure if any of these will.
 

It's raining again in Tucson, which is way unusual for this month, at least in my experience. Friday, we had a rare snowfall, which brought more snow to higher elevations. It's also been colder than usual requiring twice to cover the bougainvillea hoping to protect its beauty for spring. The freezes last a few hours, but the damage takes longer to repair by nature. Bougainvillea are so colorful and say desert communities as much as anything I can think of. Their red blossoms aren't actually flowers but literally leaves.
 

life issues of the aging

by Rain Trueax

When you reach a certain age, which could vary for any of us, the idea of end of life comes into play. I mean at 75, I obviously have a lot less years ahead than I've lived. What does that make for my choices, how I spend my money, home, pets, livelihood, etc.? How do I arrange for what I leave behind? How do I want to spend those years?

eclipse

The last time a total eclipse came across the United States, it was [1918]. It came in the middle of a turbulent time for the country. WWI (where about 53,000 Americans died in combat) would not end until November 11th. Maybe more significant for many Americans, that January was the beginning of a pandemic that would eventually take 650,000 American lives-- most between the ages of 20 and 40. That tragedy was a big deal in my family's history, as my mother and her sisters got very ill. As she was nursing them, my grandmother's beloved brother died. The stories of that go beyond the physical to the spiritual and are part of my family's mythology.

Today, we understand-- eclipses are biological events, the obscuring of light by one celestial body passing over another. Lunar ones happen regularly, but solar ones more rarely and not in the same places. In some times and cultures, these events have been regarded as having spiritual significance-- especially before science was good at predicting and understanding their cause. When you see one, you understand better how a more primitive culture might have regarded them.

Shamans have used such events to give themselves power. I would guess solar eclipses provided less opportunity since they are further apart in any one geographic area. Today when spiritual leaders tried to make (a few did) the one of August 21st into something with spiritual meaning, they had less success. We know too much.

I had another blog set for today but thought I should use the photos Ranch Boss took  Monday morning in Oregon. The actual event lasted two hours or so. We, like many others, settled ourselves (with comfortable chairs) to where we'd have full view of the sun and bought special glasses to watch-- because to study the sun is to court blindness. The climax, when the corona appeared lasted about two minutes here. To photograph it he used a tripod, telephoto lens, and a filter to protect the lens-- the sun will destroy a camera as easily as a retina.

Animals aren't alerted like we are. As it began to take out the sun, the vultures had been circling over a nearby road. As the air current changed, they soared less and used their wings more. Then they disappeared to settle onto tree branches. When the moon blocked the sun, we heard the coyotes yodel from up the valley. As the sun returned, a neighbor's rooster crowed. Our sheep and cattle had sought shelter earlier; so I can't say what they thought. The cats roamed around, were a little feisty with each other (not unusual), but then night is their time anyway. Even though we were in the center of totality here, it never got totally dark but more like dusk. The temperature dropped 10 or so degrees. 

In a way it was all biology. In another, it was, however a big deal in the US-- something we could all talk about without getting mad or upset. I admit. It surprised me when it felt special-- something I suddenly shared with more primitive cultures as well as our own. I could imagine how scary it must have seemed to a people not knowing it was coming. I could see how someone might claim they brought the sun back to gain power. For me, it was more moving than I had expected it to be when it reached totality. 

An event like that is what photography is all about. It allows someone to share with others a moment that otherwise passed and is gone. For much of the US, this was a big event. It felt good to have something we could share without judgment or someone being angry. I liked knowing that as it passed us, it was over others until it went off our continent. It was truly a shared event, at a time when so much is divisive.

patterns

  September 16th, harvest moon from Oregon Coast Range

This month I've had several nights where I woke at 2am and instead of falling back to sleep right away, would lay there thinking. One night it was about patterns and how they impact our lives. When a life pattern is undesirable, we call it a rut. When we like it, it's a routine. Patterns are how we develop skills by repeating what we've learned and adding to it as we grow in abilities. Wanting to break a habit requires breaking a pattern. When it's an addiction, it's tough but only a minor challenge when it's something less-- like say making the bed every day instead of leaving it for the night. 

One way patterns interested me was in books-- as both a reader and an author. When I choose a book to read, buying one by an author I already know is encouraged (or discouraged) when I know the basic patterns I can expect to find in their books. There will be certain elements, types of characters, challenges and action, which I can expect.  Of course, if I've read an author enough times to know their pattern doesn't deviate much, I likely will quit reading them because I know how it's going to go. Only a few authors have I liked so much that I've wanted every book they ever wrote. It's not easy to provide the pattern I'll enjoy while still keeping the book interesting.

September 16, Harvest Moon after clouds passed on by

As a writer, even choosing names for heroes and heroines can end up with them too much like earlier books or even secondary characters. I tend to like certain sounds. The letters that make those sounds tend to appear again and again as names. I have to fight against that as it gets confusing for the reader.

I also like certain types of heroines and heroes for their character traits. That's good in that a reader can know what to expect, as I said above, but bad in that I can feel I am following an old pattern that needs to get rejuvenated. There are authors who have written many more books than me as in hundreds and yet manage to stay fresh. It's got to be a gift as I feel myself having to fight for new ideas after writing only 26. One way to do that is to change genres where new elements come into play as challenges for the characters and the writer ;).

As part of breaking patterns, I've changed the way my blog roll looks. For one thing, I moved it up to the top of the page. For another, I removed the images because so many of the blogs were putting up images that were read as huge. I tried adding the option of snippets instead and found I like it better as a way to see what the bloggers are up to. I also decided to add some new blogs from full-time RVers.

When our kids were small, we had a 15' vacation trailer with no inside bathroom, but we used a porta-potty in what was also a clothes closet. When the kids were small, we had a rope barrier to prevent them from falling out of an upper bunk-- while Ranch Boss had a big knife always ready to cut it if needed to make a fast exit. That trailer took us camping around Oregon as well as Arizona. At that time I read a magazine called Trailer Life which had a section on full-timers, who were mostly older. 

Today we had realized, when we traveled with our travel trailer (which we are thinking of upgrading to a fifth wheel trailer) that there were a fair number of people living relatively full time in RV parks. Young couples, singles, as well as older folk are doing this. The appeal is downsizing as well as the freedom to move around the country. 

So I've added, for now, four blogs by those living in their rigs. I plan to keep the list a little more flexible as I see something new that seems upbeat. I don't read blogs everyday, know a lot don't, but it's nice to have it there.

a new moon

Now and again, I get these emails about astrology. I felt this one was worth sharing as part of lifestyle thinking. I've believed that the moon does offer some opportunities for us to work with natural energies. In my books, I've used the moon's cycles by finding online what phase would be in the year they are set. I create calendars with it, when it would rise as well as the events in the story.

The photo is a full moon since we don't have much to photograph when it's a new moon as it will be September 1

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A New Moon is always good time to reset and refine intentions and when it is accompanied by an eclipse is carries even more power. We are moving into a time of consolidating and collecting our energies for what’s to come and this New Moon is a great time to review where you have been and where you wish to go.

The most important thing is to know what you want. If you don’t know what you want, at least tell the truth about what you don’t want. Eliminate what does not work, what no longer fits, and open the possibilities for something new to become clear and begin to emerge. The first few days of September will be a great time to go within and to make some inner decisions and personal commitments that will put certain things into action for you in the future. It is a time to set things up in the right way, realign your goals to match your heart’s desires, get the support you need, and make a plan. coming from:  Patricia Liles. Contact her at PATLILES@aol.com

nature heals II

Experiencing the beauty of nature heals when within it-- but again when remembering the experiences.

These are from Arizona.

Hunter's and blood moon

 
Yes, I am fascinated by the sky and especially of full moons. I cannot explain the why of my interest-- or really that of much of mankind. This one though, the Hunter's Moon, is always one I especially like to have in my photo gallery. 

It so happened that the 1867 manuscript I am writing came at the same time of the year. Using Google I did a search as to when the full moon fell that October. It was perfect to give my couple a Hunter's Moon-- which suited the challenges in their story. 

There is some mythology involved with the Hunter's Moon. I am not sure I take that kind of thing much to heart. Sometimes with any full moon I sleep less well but this one hasn't impacted me that way.

What I am thinking of doing is (assuming the sky is clear and I have time) taking photos of the moon through its stages. A crescent moon is pretty cool looking also.

Because we had an eclipse with this full moon, we took more than the usual number of photos but had less turn out thanks to the mistiness in our Oregon air.

Despite that challenge , Farm Boss got a good photo of Orion (above). One thing that he learned is that a time release in the early morning doesn't work as moon and stars are moving too much.