Scion Wood For Heaven Novel

I wrote 69811 words towards a next novel in November. 

#Nanowrimo doesn't produce fruit that is ripe, 

now I have to prune, graft and water.

The book is unfinished. 

Next step - rough edit and outline review. Then line review.

Then speak to characters and check scene events. 

And then the revision. Next share with beta readers.

It's about life after suicide. 

A bit of heaven, finding beauty in culled wood.

I lost these photographs and had one image on my iphone4.

Accidentally today I loaded an old memory chip - and there were 

fabulous images of my youngest, our college tours of the Northwest 

and these Corot and Van Gogh (esk) images of 

this Fallawater apple orchard shorn down. 

Ever had a memory chip ghost old images layered?

Heirloom and extinct varieties of fruits are of interest to

an off the grid gardener.

Apples are not genetically replicated by seed planting.

The mother's genes partially contribute to a new tree.

Like roses - field testing takes time.

Grafting replicates an apple variety.

Cider made from this fruit is amazing.

When I was seven I was in a Johnny Appleseed play.

I was John Chapman with a pot on my head. 

If you know the title of the play, please let me know,

I can't recall.

The folk hero spread the Harrison apple.

An apple now extinct, used to make hard cider,

and applejack brandy, laced with his own versions

of Christianity and sustainability.

Prohibition ended the varieties of apples and 

many of the Native American medicinal herbs

he used to distill.

Now the trunks become sweet aroma firewood. 

Branches are beautiful in wreaths,

but the grafters waited too long. 

Did they flame up in a blaze where sparks touch heaven?

Like my current work in progress a haunting image that is part

of us - earth, fruit, life, death and joy.

Sparkler in dead chill ~ winter scion clings to heartbeat ~ we connect in veins.

Taking submissions for title ideas

The Orchard End

Caville Blanc d'hiver

White Winter Wood

Scion Wood

Scion Wood For Heaven

P.S.: Scion is not referencing the car ---
 "young shoot or twig of a plant, especially one cut for grafting or rooting as in new life."

Also welcome your thoughts.

All my heart to you.

Thank you for reading 

Copyright 2015 images Caroline Gerardo

Follow Caroline's board ECO Novel in Progress on Pinterest.

Fountain of Memory

Sad that my baby is off to college stirred with joy for his

adventures. 

Everyone tells me their own university stories,

sharing in the memories of those days when 

faces, ideas, and libraries were new.

Why do we relate as humans to our own flow?

Is it universal water we drink?

Working through revisions on the last chapters of novel in progress.

The grinding each word is coming to an end.

What editing tools have you purchased? I've tried a few.

Amazon Buzzards Come and Get Me

On Sunday the revision was final.

I deleted one ending and have chosen two.

I am emailing pdf copies and a paper copy to:

a writer buddy beta reader, a friend from twitter who fits my demographic and my friend in London. All three are men because

I believe that is who will most enjoy the narrative. This one is pretty dark, and this time frame since Thanksgiving has been the inkiest buzzard swarming betrayal in my personal life. But the story has a hopeful quality in his Don Quixote quest to connect and ultimate acceptance of who he is in the soul. A character as anti hero transforms through the diving in the pool as a lifeguard through fire, violence and electric shock. My editor in the U. K. only read two chapters and is clapping his hands to hurry me along. Editing for me is a tedium and a torture. Dean Wesley Smith in his Killing the Sacred Cows says not to use the slow process I have chosen, but there was backlash critics who sniped at me for my writing style.

A couple of the posters on Amazon are not critics of my work,

they are mean spirited individuals who know of me.

However, manipulation of Amazon is widespread. The more novels,

short stories, poetry and work I complete and publish

- the easier it is to take a swing under my chin

to break my neck.

Little do they know I am ready with my left.

Photograph copyright Caroline Gerardo 2011- yes there are buzzards in that foggy tree waiting.

Novel Draft #2 Seeing Light

photos: copyright Caroline Gerardo

I am heading out of the writing tunnel. This book is a battle. Sanity, death, quest for family, quest for true love all smothered in drug stealing, bum fights and crime not cheerful thoughts to grip me. A reader will pick it up and finish the novel in what five or six hours?

The endurance of a year loving this guy, Seth, a character is not daunting. I have sent him off to be read. It is not a graduation ceremony in June. I will complete two more edits.

I am mentally toying with changing the first chapter to first person. The narrator able to distinguish some of what happened, but she will have a flawed lack of reliability as she was not there every step of the story. Even when we are in real life a participant can we recall or comprehend what happened in the souls of men?

This photograph, recalls Van Gogh painting Branches of an Almond, is from a cemetery in Savannah. The light is hot through the tree. The flowering magnolia, not almond but the crazy color is there. Now your perception of the image, the emotion when your eyes go back, will read the words and the picture with new clarity.



Mothering a Bad Hero

When Mom Was My Age
Link for Interview By my Daughter about when I was nineteen. Please go read it, I love Jane Friedman's project about motherhood, how we see those we love and collaborative writing.

Savannah copyright Caroline Gerardo 2011

This is just a short post about writing. I am plugging along editing. If you emailed
or called I will get back to you, soon.
I have two weeks left of writing for my deadline. I handed over a
copy to my second favorite reader. I will keep working through the last five
chapters. I thought about asking my old reader to have a look, but he has
been so distantly cold and out of my life it could only have a bad outcome.
I have chopped out beats and scenes that didn't move. I am on the last
legs of my novel marathon, this part I just breathe.

The story has a great
deal of mental mahem.
My hero is a psycho.
Can a thriller have a bad hero?

I guess I'm his Mommy, being the author I still love him.
That is creepy.
Laughing-- back to work.