Month: February 2024

Inspired by Learning

Every two years, I have to renew all my certifications as a fitness professional. I enjoy the classes, including the tests, and feel refreshed as an instructor. I also take weekly classes with a yoga teacher whose skill I aspire to emulating. There’s no required continuing ed for writers, though. I could go years without learning anything new, if I wanted. But since I don’t know everything and can forget to apply what I do know, I took a class on revision and self-editing.

It made me look at my work in progress with fresh eyes and gave me an improved sequence for my revision tasks as well as new tools for analyzing problems in a book. It’s more challenging than analyzing movement but equally fascinating.

I’m now so excited about working on the next Mae Martin mystery, I had a hard time making myself pause to write a blog post. Recent encounters and experiences have made me think “blog post.” Bluebirds in the desert. Daytime coyote songs. A new gallery’s grand opening with dance performances accompanied by gongs and didgeridoo—it was so T or C.

But … I have to work on the book!

*****

If you’re new to following me, you may have missed some of my older posts. Small Awakenings is a collection of reflective essays from this blog.

Stone and Light

First, look at the art. Take your time. Explore.

Then you may understand the effect it had on me. I attended an Art Talk by Otto Rigan at Rio Bravo Fine Art, spending over an hour immersed in images of his work and stories of how he came to this unique form of expression.

After his talk, I ran on a desert trail I’ve known for years, a place so familiar I know where to step, where I’ll meet rough ground or soft sand or the perfect surface, and it looked entirely different. I saw the light, literally. Light glinting on grains of sand like tiny mirrors. Light shining back at the sun from smooth, flat stones. Light flaring from bits of reflective minerals in otherwise dull-surfaced rocks. The textures and shapes of every rock and pebble came to life. My mind went quiet in awe. A spiritual experience of stone and light.