When I saw the horse, it struck me as odd.
I was driving down the road, my two boys strapped into their carseats in the back and I looked to the left to the front yard of a house we passed. A horse, a pinto with white hair and large orange spots, jumped and galloped there. No fence contained it. It was a painfully odd and beautiful sight that I kept watching as we drove by, almost forgetting to look ahead. The road was essentially empty, a tree line on one side and houses on the other, but chauffeuring my toddlers in the back demands more attention. As my mind went through the monumental task of understanding the image of that horse galloping free with the normality of suburban sprawl, that Pinto galloped right onto the pavement next to my car, almost flicking side panels with its tail as if it wanted to flirt with the mechanical beast it noticed. That horse lost interest, quickly, and galloped ahead as I slowed, forgetting the gas pedal. It sauntered ahead to a small, fenced-in lot with two other horses, one solid white and the other solid brown, running around. The Pinto galloped up to the fence. The white one met it. Their long heads craned over either side of the railing, one nuzzling the other. I kept watching, wondering what that magnificent beast would do next. I wanted to see if one might try to jump over the fence to join the other or if the trapped horses might find inspiration in the Pinto that somehow escaped. A moment later, as I watched, an old rancher, white haired and grizzled with age, sidled up with a harness in hand. The Pinto jerked a bit, but that assured old rancher wrapped the harness around the horse's neck and led it back home. For a moment, I saw something wild and free.
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New Year. New Books.
I've been rather latent on my blogging. My last post was on October 26th last year, after which I promised myself that I would be more consistent on this page. Yeeesh. That promise went out the window. With the holidays, the normal daily grind of being a stay at home father and all that that entails, and the rather ambitious goal of writing a first draft of a new book during the month of November (the first time participating in NanoWrimo) followed up by the promise of a second draft by the end of January...what can I say? As the saying goes, something's gotta give. Almost daily, the website would be at the back of my mind or scream out at me whenever I happened to check in on Twitter. And I felt really bad. Every time. But never bad enough to actually post anything. Well, I'm happy to announce that I stayed right on target with my new book. I completed a first draft by the end of November and took the next two months to increase overall word count, polish the prose and really understand the storyline. Now, with a pretty good draft on hand, I'm letting that sucker sit and marinate for the next month while I figure out my next book and work on a couple of short stories I've had at the back of my mind. I feel good. It's been a great year so far and I feel accomplished on what I set out to do when my wife and I sort of swapped familial positions one year ago. Here's to 2018! |
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January 2021
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