“Writers are not here to conform. We are here to challenge. We’re not here to be comfortable- we’re here, really, to ‘shake things up.’ That’s our job.”- Jeanette Winterson
“Create dangerously, for people who read dangerously. … [Write] knowing in part that no matter how trivial your words may seem, someday, somewhere, someone may risk his or her life to read them.” Edwidge Danticat
‘Settings are obviously important – and as a writer, you have to respect what was real at the time of the story you’re writing. But the real key to success lies in finding the right characters to carry that story.”- Joan Lingard
“Write what should not be forgotten.”- Isabel Allende
“The thinnest yellow light of November is more warming and exhilarating than any wine they tell of. The mite which November contributes becomes equal in value to the bounty of July.” Henry David Thoreau
“So dull and dark are the November days. The lazy mist high up the evening curled, and now the morn quite hides in the smoke and haze; the place we occupy seems all the world.” – John Clare
“November at its best—with a sort of delightful menace in the air.”- Anne Bosworth Greene
“Some of the days in November carry the whole memory of summer as a fire opal carries the color of moon rise.”- Gladys Taber
“But there is always a November space after the leaves have fallen when she felt it was almost indecent to intrude on the woods…for their glory terrestrial had departed and their glory celestial of spirit and purity and whiteness had not yet come upon them.”- L.M. Montgomery
A Nano blessing from me to you and some word prompt/inspirational pictures to keep you going.
Now get out there and get those words!
“May your words come easily and with speed. May your writer’s block be as easily dismantled as Legos. May your plot holes be filled with the judicious application of word wars. May the writing dares be plentiful and humorous. May your plot bunnies be tamed by day’s end.”- L. Sieh, 2023 Nanowrimo Blessing
“Fantasy is an exercise bicycle for the mind. It might not take you anywhere, but it tones up the muscles that can. Of course, I could be wrong.”-Terry Pratchett
“Researching real history has taught me to be bolder and more imaginative in building fantasy worlds and writing fantasy characters, to seek out the margins of history and the forgotten tales that illuminate the whole, complex truth of our flawed yet wondrous nature as a species.”-Ken Liu
“My idea of a good fantasy is something that’s absolutely grounded in reality. And there’s a little element that doesn’t belong there – and that’s the fantasy element – that you have to react to and deal with in a completely real way.”-Melissa Mathison
“When you’re older, you want to be scared because you understand more where the boundaries between fantasy and reality are, and I suppose they are more blurred the younger you are.”-David Tennant
“Fall colors are funny. They’re so bright and intense and beautiful. It’s like nature is trying to fill you up with color, to saturate you so you can stockpile it before winter turns everything muted and dreary.” – Siobhan Vivian
“I would rather sit on a pumpkin, and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion.”- Henry David Thoreau
“I am made for autumn. Summer and I have a fickle relationship, but everything about autumn is perfect to me. Wooly jumpers, Wellington boot, scarves, thin first, then thick, socks. The low slanting light, the crisp mornings, the chill in my fingers, those last warm sunny days before the rain and the wind. Her moody hues and subdued palate punctuated every now and again by a brilliant orange, scarlet or copper goodbye. She is my true love.” ― Alys Fowler
“And every year there is a brief, startling moment When we pause in the middle of a long walk home and Suddenly feel something invisible and weightless Touching our shoulders, sweeping down from the air: It is the autumn wind pressing against our bodies; It is the changing light of fall falling on us.” ― Edward Hirsch, Wild Gratitude
I went on a girl’s trip to Hocking Hills state park in Ohio recently and here are just a few of the pictures. You’ll probably see more in the next few weeks.
Hello! I realized I haven’t actually written about seeing Howe’s Cavern in New York and since the pictures were pretty cool, wanted to post about it. The Husband and I went to Howe’s for the start of our East Coast Trip in 2022. I had miscalculated the driving hours, so we ended up doing a 10 hour day and then going to the cavern tour when we got up. It was a pretty neat way to start the day though, I will say! Here’s a picture of the fog over the mountains that we woke up to.
The caverns are located in the Schoharie Valley region and was called “Otsgaragee” or “Cave of the Great Galleries” or “Great Valley Cave” by the Native Americans in the area. It’s not known how far into the caves the Native Americans had explored. The first white person who is reported to have found the cave entrance was around 1770, but not much is known other than that. Supposedly he was a peddler who was hiding from an attack in the entrance of the cave.
Lester Howe, a local farmer and his family, settled land across from the hidden cave entrance in the 1880’s and reportedly rediscovered the cave, by following his cows on a hot day to find cool air blowing from a cleft in the rocks on his neighbor’s property. He eventually bought the property from his neighbor and began to offer tours of the caves. The Howe’s Cavern website has some more information on the history and timelines for the cave, if you’d be interested to learn more. https://howecaverns.com/
Here are some pictures from the cave. The tour included a boat ride, but that was mostly in the dark, so there are no pictures from that. We liked our tour guide, she was pretty funny. The cave itself was pretty chilly and slippery in some parts, as you might expect. It wasn’t a hard walk though. There were some tight spaces, but overall we we impressed. It’s amazing to think of the work that was done with more primitive mining tools and safety precautions that we take now.
It was really interesting to see the colors from the different minerals on the wall and the shapes of natural erosion.
This rock formation was called “Pagoda Rock. It was in a deeper part of the cavern off the path.
We took a picture in front of the heart rock and alter area. You can get married in Howe’s Caverns, although would need to be a very small wedding! The superstition is that if couple’s kiss on the quartz heart rock, they’ll stay together for 10 more years of bliss. Since it had just been our 10 year anniversary, we definitely kissed on the heart.
I hope you enjoyed seeing some pictures from Howe’s Caverns. I am hoping to get caught up sharing our adventures from last year. We had a lot of fun on our East Coast trip and I think I’ve only shown part of it. Last year was a tough year and I’m just starting to recover from it now. I’m determined to showcase the good things from it though, not just dwell on the negatives. So stay tuned for more vacation pictures!
“There is no season when such pleasant and sunny spots may be lighted on, and produce so pleasant an effect on the feelings, as now in October.” — Nathaniel Hawthorne
“Autumn serenades the breeze into dancing a cha cha cha; the mountains echo in the background. October sky never looked more charming nor the sublime leaves of the trees so graceful.” — Avijeet Das
“After the keen still days of September, the October sun filled the world with mellow warmth…The maple tree in front of the doorstep burned like a gigantic red torch. The oaks along the roadway glowed yellow and bronze. The fields stretched like a carpet of jewels, emerald and topaz and garnet. Everywhere she walked the color shouted and sang around her.” — Elizabeth George Speare, The Witch of Blackbird Pond (I read this book obsessively when I was a preteen. I still own a copy of it!)
“You don’t waste October sunshine. Soon the old autumn sun would bed down in cloud blankets, and there would be weeks of gray before it finally decided to snow.” — Katherine Arden, Small Spaces
“Yet, I can face the winter with calm. I suppose I had forgotten what it was really like. I had been thinking of the winter as a horrid wet, dreary time fit only for professional football. Now I can see other things—crisp and sparkling days, long pleasant evenings, cheery fires. Good work shall be done this winter. Life shall be lived well. The end of the summer is not the end of the world. Here’s to October…” — A.A. Milne, “A Word for Autumn”
“I remember it as October days are always remembered, cloudless, maple-flavored, the air gold and so clean it quivers.” — Leif Enger, Peace Like a River
