One Thing Leads To Another...

This week I've been struggling with the immensity of being the sole caretaker of my 5-acre landscape. I work, toil, weed, mow, water, prune, hack, curse, weed some more, fight the deer, and fret over the task of washing/staining both decks before the Gates of Hell creak open for the Summer.

On Wednesday, after a morning spent on my knees trying to wrestle with weeds that seem to have roots in Middle Earth, I decided life is just too bloody short, and since I really can't burn down my house, take the insurance money and run to a new life on the Amalfi Coast...

I went to my neighbor's house and stole her gardener.

Jack is now my official garden hero on Friday mornings.  I will still mow and edge and water my pots--cause that's the easy part really--but he will do all the other stuff, AND help me with the two decks. My sense of relief was overwhelming.  Can you get drunk on relief?  Feel high when a burden is lifted? Yes, peeps, you can.  And without the hangover, too.

^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^

Yesterday morning I was going through my usual blog reads over breakfast.  On Lynn's site, Paperback Writer, she was talking about getting back to basics: writing for fun, no matter content or style or format.  She chose Thursdays and invited her readers to join in. I thought it would be a great way to get going on my latest plot idea, so with my new-found freedom from garden graft, I got other chores out of the way and sat down in the afternoon to write.

And realized immediately that I had more world-building to finish first.  My plot is an alternate Earth that is vaguely familiar to what we know now, except the continents didn't drift apart as much and the Mass Extinction event wasn't quite so...extreme. Because of that, I'm using the actual shape of the continents 65 million years ago but mixing things up a bit more with Ice Age melt-down that flooded vast areas, changing the entire scope of the planet, altering borders, climates and geology. I like the configuration, the possibilities, the same-yet-different Earth.

Now, the whole point of this excuse explanation is to say that although I did research, developed some plot points, and figured out a few keys issues...the entire first chapter was only written in my head.  By the end of the day, I felt like I'd been studying for hours and just couldn't do anymore.  You know that feeling?  Head clogged with facts, fuzzy details swirling, wine calling...

^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^*^

So, as one thing leads to another this week: the grueling garden chores led to freedom and a great new helper, my alleged writing led to getting some major research and clarity for my new world.  And hey, I even have a map.

Now all I have to do is just...you know...start writing.