This post was supposed to be a series of before and after photos of the garden, but I haven't taken the afters yet. I have to finish the work first. I can't stall for long-- there's a deadline on the tea garden. I'm having a party in it during the first week of May. And the rest of the vegetables have to go in soon or I'll run out of growing season.

Soon, though. Piles of dirt and stone are turning green whether or not I get the soil mixed. The garden behind us keeps sending up volunteer violets and little blue flowers I don't recognize in the herb bed. Mads brings the flowers to me by the fistful and we watch them wilt in the tiny clay vase that sits on the kitchen sill.

I have asparagus and tomatoes and peppers and a dozen other things to plant. The peas sprouted and are reaching for the trellis. Once this storm clears I'm heading back out to sink some containers for mint and chammomile and lemon balm. Maybe I can convince the big kid to help me dig up rocks. And maybe I'll settle for a cup of violet tea and a chat, instead.

I am trying out new mantras.

I am taking a little while to recognize and accept that last year was really hard, even the amazing parts, and this year might well be too, and that's going to be okay, one way or another.

In a little while, when the little one wakes up, I'm going for a walk in the warm afternoon sun and I will enjoy the light and the time I get with the baby and I won't be planning gardens or worrying about things I can't control or making lists of things to get done or even plotting stories.

Fall is usually my favorite season. I love the leaf change. I love the anticipation leading up the holidays and I love winter squashes and baking and the chill in the air. I like hikes and long walks with a good stiff breeze at my back.

This year I'm resisting it. We hardly had a summer- only a handful of days above 90`F, and a lot of gray sky. (I should not complain, after all those years back East: we still had ten times the sunshine, and I like the gray days anyway). Two weeks ago I bought a handful of house plants at a nursery sale and split them into a dozen pots. Now I'm poking at them every day wishing they'd grow faster so I can split them again and cover every last window sill. I have no idea where my gloves and hats are, which is stupid of me. I've already needed them more than once. I'm already planning next year's gardens and household projects (including painting the downstairs green).

I'm planning more stories, too, which is another shift for me. I'm mostly a pantser when it comes to short stories, but it's not working at all for novels. During a writers group meeting a few weeks ago, I realized the problem I'm having with Solace is really two-fold: I'm stuck in short story mode (which is, for me, a completely different kind of mindset) and I don't get the kind of time I need to focus for novel mode. It's odd for me to be planning more shorts and pantsing the novels, but I needed to try something to get going again. (And no, not NaNoWriMo. We travel the last week of November, every year, and while I applaud the rest of you for doing it, I know better than to put myself through it. Much as I love the idea of it.)

Until the last year or so I was fine working with tiny pieces of time. I had more of them, for one, and managed to get the bigger ones sometimes, too. I'm still figuring out how to get them again, and figuring out how to manage this tendon that keeps pretending to heal and gets worse again, and re-orienting myself after spending a year preparing for and adjusting to another baby. I'm resisting the seasons change because I am tired of changes and adjustments and shifts, and am ready for things to just stay quiet for a while. Maybe winter won't be so bad after all.

I'm exploring my options with the tendonitis and trying not to let it frustrate me too much.

I sent Chapter Two off to the writing group last night, which leaves me feeling like I've accomplished something more than I expected to for the week. It's so rough that I cringed as I sent it, but I needed someone else to look at it before I could go any further. I'm leaving chapter one until I've finished the rest of this draft- the bones are there, but I'll need some of the later details before I'm comfortable adding the flesh.

I kept less than 15k words from the Solace's first draft and while the first third of the book is roughly the same, the rest will be all new. Radical plot and setting changes will do that. I'm struggling with the structure and juggling two very different voices and trying to keep up with research that comes out faster than I can read it. I keep waiting for the bits that render the whole book pointless. Then I can have a good cry and move on to the next one.

I'm still not sure I'm up to this book, yet. AUCTIONEER is looking more and more tempting, and has so much more shiny and so much less hard. That's what's really holding me back with SOLACE. Writing about grief and forgiveness is hard. Writing about art and aliens and flirtation? Not hard. Pure fun.

Next task: Chapter Three, with a cameo and the beginning of the sequel's set up. There is no sequel, but just in case.

The tendonitis in my right thumb is still restricting pretty much everything. I hate it. It's fortunate that I'm a lefty and that I have helpful, independent kids and an understanding husband. I still hate it, and I miss knitting and gaming and typing more than thirty words at a go.