Sandra Gail Lambert

It went well, very well.

I'm back from my camping trip/writing retreat.  Oh, I love those days that start with waking up at 3am to write and feel good about writing until you fall asleep over the yellow pad and so you take your first nap of the day at 5am, but wake just in time to stroll over to the beach and watch the sunrise (accompanied by no-see-ums) and visit with a ghost crab before returning to the campsite to greet your writer and editor friends who are just getting up and so you have a morning discussion about foreshadowing, rejections, and writer arrogance (our own) before you go back to the van, stretch out over the bed, and peel a grapefruit and half write and half watch a fisherman pull in a flounder from the dock.  And it's only 9am. 

 

Make your own writers retreat

I'm off to Little Talbot Island State Park with my yellow pads, computer, butterfly field guide, kayak, and camera.  The best writing I've ever done, especially the beginning parts of a project, has been done propped up by pillows in my van's bed.  At this park, the view is of salt marsh.  But across the road, where I'll probably stroll most dawns, sometimes, hopefully, after writing since four in the morning, the view is of the sunrise over the ocean. 

And this trip, I've enhanced my do-it-yourself writing retreat by bringing in one of my favorite writers and one of my favorite editors.  And best of all, besides all that writing stuff, they've promised to cook a dinner.  Yum. 

All these photos are from previous trips to Little Talbot. 

   

On being a happy reader with Margaret Atwood's The Year of the Flood

 A few pages in I know it's going to be good, very good.  My body sighs deep into the mattress with a gust of pleasure.  The book is balanced open on one breast.  My hands fluff the pillow until my head is the perfect distance from the page and the print comes into focus.  I am so happy.  In my youth, this was when I would call in sick until I had finished the book.  

Perhaps it will all fall apart.  Perhaps I won't stay in
love.  I doubt it.  Margaret Atwood and I have a long, close reader-to-writer relationship.  But it doesn't matter.  This first brush of words, rush of reading is enough.     

Something to Declare - Reading and Book Signing

 Wild Iris Books, Friday October 23rd, 7pm - I'll be reading from my contribution to the anthology Something to Declare: Good Lesbian Travel Writing.  There are all sorts of good parts to the writing life, but this part, the part where I get to perhaps make a little money for an independent bookstore, thrills my old bookseller's heart. 

Anyway, I promise you a tale of churning rapids, naked women, the sweet gorgeousness of a Florida landscape, and, not least of all, gingerbread with hot lemon sauce. (There will be no actual gingerbread - only a story about it.)

Back to the Yellow Pads

 
The dog, much to my annoyance, can't just go pee.  Even after she finds the right spot, she jerks in frantic darts back and forth over the grass, she circles here and there, she changes her mind and rushes to the next mysteriously (to me) acceptable place and repeats the darts and circles until she stops and squats.  I ready her post-pee treat. 

It all reminds me of how I get started on a new writing project.  And this morning I squatted.  Which means the yellow pad is filling up.  Pages are flipped back on themselves.  It's that just-put-it-down-don't-worry-that-it's-crap beginning part of writing.  For a revision lover such as myself, it's a both wild and unnerving time. 

Now, what shall I have for my post-squat treat? 

The Crutch Master - Bill Shannon

 

"Relating to your environment as it comes to you on an improvisational, freestyle basis."  Yes, this is how I want to and sometimes do move through the world.   

(And no, when I used crutches, I did not look like this - not that I didn't have my moments.) 

Everglades National Park

 
Okay, this is a more-than-usual self-serving post.  Every January I used to spend at least 10 days at the Flamingo Campground in Everglades National Park.  For all sorts of reasons, I haven't been in awhile.  I miss it.  I haven't even seen it since Hurricane Wilma blew through. 

Perhaps if I extol its wonders to ya'll then I'll get myself back down there.  Here we go.

First off, oh my god, the sunrises make you forget that there ever was even a single mosquito the night before.  Sometimes, just lounging against the pile of pillows on my van bed, I've seen a Great White Heron and a Reddish Egret poking around at the edge of the Bay.  One thing I always do is figure out the tides so that I can ride them up to Snake Bight on my kayak and float among the Roseate Spoonbills roosting in the mangroves.  Oh, and then there was that year when dead center in the midst of the scores of White Pelicans crowded onto a sand bar, there was one Pink Flamingo.  Do not get me started on the butterflies.  Or the snakes. Or the mysteries of a coastal salt marsh. Or sitting on the marina dock, eating a yogurt, and watching manatees and a crocodile.   

So, see you in January? 

Greg Walloch - F**k the Disabled

"May I ask you something?" Let me tell you, nothing good hardly ever follows this question - except for when Greg Walloch takes hold of it.   

Gainesville Pride Weekend

It's LGBT Pride time in Gainesville.  I know, other places hold theirs in June, but after one too many incidences of heat stroke during the march/parade, we moved it to October.

Here's a link to all the events courtesy of the Pride Community Center.  Me, I'm going to the pre-Pride kick off at Kickin' Devil Cafe this evening.  Tomorrow is the downtown party, and after wards I'm driving out to the lesbian hotbed of Melrose for a friend's seventieth birthday party. 

I'll just have to take more anti-inflammatories and go have fun.  I remember when I used to go to a party and use drugs.  Now I use drugs to get myself to the party.