Tag: Life

Ever been out on the Plains?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

My novel Nearly Canaan starts off in a railroad crossing called Prairie Depot, and my story The Secret Side of Jaya returns there.

Prairie can be found as far east as Ohio, but it’s more extensive out on the Great Plains.

Here are some tidbits about the landscape.

~*~

  1. It’s bigger than I thought. The region runs from the Rio Grande river bordering Mexico all the way to the Arctic Ocean in Canada, and along the Rocky Mountains to the west. Its width is about 500 miles and it covers about a seventh of the continental U.S.
  2. Rainfall ranges between 13 and 20 inches a year, too little to sustain trees.
  3. Its natural vegetation is a variety of grasslands. And it’s flat or gently rolling.
  4. It had immense herds of bison as well as pronghorn. Prairie dogs, coyotes, prairie chicken, and rattlesnakes remain prominent.
  5. Native American tribes included Blackfoot, Crow, Sioux, Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Comanche. The nomadic tribes followed the bison migration through the year.
  6. The introduction of the horse from Europe dramatically changed the Native culture.
  7. The rural Plains have lost a third of their population since 1920. Ghost towns, which have lost so much population they’re considered extinct, are the most common category of towns.
  8. The climate includes cold, harsh winters and very hot, humid summers.
  9. Without natural trees, hills, or mountains, there’s no protection against wind and erosion.
  10. The region includes Tornado Alley, based on the frequency and intensity of the twisters generated in its open spaces.

~*~

What surprises you here?

Here’s another consideration of your worldly possessions

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 4 Comments

If your house caught fire, what would you miss most?
Or, if you had time, what’s the first thing you would you save?

You know, that Dolley Madison thing of grabbing the portrait of Washington when the White House was burning. (OK, a slave actually deserves the credit, but back to the point.)

I have to admit that having so much of my work now backed up in the cloud, rather than on paper, greatly refocuses my response here.

My journals would be a big loss – there are too many to take them out all at once.

Other people would top the list, and after that, whatever’s closest at hand, probably starting with my laptop.

Among the non-family members in his past, the one now called Liz

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

As Cassia delves into her father’s photo negatives in my novel What’s Left, she’s bound to come up with a slew of Liz, who became his first lover.

Somewhere there’s also the experimental short movie he made, the one that made the rounds of avant-garde showings. The one featuring Liz’s shimmering breast.

Cassia’s aunt Nita had been Liz’ dorm roommate when the whole thing began. She’d tell her niece plenty, should the kid ask. She’s also a central figure in Daffodil Uprising and Pit-a-Pat High Jinks.

~*~

Romantic love is only one of the options when it comes to emotional spiraling.

Could you tell about telling me of some event that knocked the floor out from under your feet?

~*~

Cassia’s roots included inspiration like this Orthodox icon of Saint Agatha. Via Wikimedia Commons.

~*~

 

What I don’t like about November

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

Here we are!

  1. Election Day. How can so many Americans be so dumb, so often, these days? Once in a while, I’m surprised by a miracle.
  2. The time change. Moving the clocks back from so-called Daylight Savings is the real beginning of winter. Where I live, it means sunset in the middle of the afternoon. How depressing!
  3. The foliage is gone. The trees are naked. The landscape’s turned black-and-white for most days.
  4. It’s cold. The fact is, we have to get used to the falling temperatures. It always comes as a shock. By the time we get to February, the same readings will seem balmy.
  5. Christmas songs and décor everywhere. It’s all a big retailing push. It’s not even Advent until the 29th this year – or the end of the month. It’s SO wrong! And remember, the Twelve Days of Christmas aren’t a shopping countdown – they begin on Christmas Day itself.
  6. Garden cleanup. OK, it’s not all bad. Harvesting the root crops can actually be fun. But turning off the water to the outdoor faucets, emptying the hoses and taking them to the loft of the barn, collecting fallen leaves, bringing the hammock in, along with other outdoor furniture and the ceramic pots, can get tedious.
  7. Putting up outside Christmas lighting. I prefer getting this done before it turns into a knuckle-freezing trial.
  8. No more yard sales. My wife’s pretty good at finding things on my everyday shopping list at way-below-retail on most Saturday mornings. Alas, any new items will have to wait till May.
  9. I have to clean ash from the wood-burning stove. It needs to be done every-other-day, at the least.
  10. Can’t sit in the loft of the barn. Not for long. And even then, I can’t leave the hayloft door open.

~*~

What about you?

Anyone else using the DuckDuckGo search engine?

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 12 Comments

Always a contrarian with an aversion to Big Brother, I’ve been open to alternatives to Google for online research. Still, it seems to come up with the broadest results.

Lately, though, I’ve been relying on DuckDuckGo (https://duckduckgo.com/) as an alternative, largely on its promises to keep my wanderings more private. What I am finding interesting is the fact that it comes up with a different swath of results than Google does.

Yes, I still turn to Google, no apologies, but I do like getting off the freeway, if you know what I mean.

I am curious about other search engines other folks are using – and why.

What are your search engine preferences?

Sing along, if you will

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

As Joni Mitchell has sung, “And the painted ponies go up and down, we’re captive on a carousel of time. We can’t return we can only look behind from where we came and go round and round and round in the circle game.”

Makes me think of my Barn blogging, with its emphasis on the seasons, too, as well as the way my categories go round and round.  

Getting to know Grandpa and Grandma Mac

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

In the early versions of my novel What’s Left, Cassia’s father’s parents are barely mentioned. They live miles away in Iowa, for one thing, and, for another, whatever they do is light years away from his contented life in her mother’s close-knit extended family.

As a purely literary challenge, trying to fit any more characters into a five-generation tale runs the risk of adding confusion for the reader. But then, by my eighth and ninth revisions, I stumbled upon a simple tweak that allowed me to acknowledge his parents more fully — the simple names of Grandpa and Grandma Mac would do. Just how much of a picture do you get from just that much?

For the most part, they’re a sharp contrast to Cassia’s experiences of home. She and her brothers never feel comfortable in their childhood visits to their Iowa grandparents. But somewhere in my later revisions, an episode developed that changes her understanding and then allows a relationship, however tenuous, to develop. Can I admit being rather fond of the insertion? For one thing, it allows me to quickly sketch another kind of American family little known to the general public — one that faced earlier pressures not all that different from Cassia’s Greek-American lineage much later. For another, well, it’s closer to my own roots, even when I look at hers with some envy.

~*~

In the final revision of my novel What’s Left, the voice and direction of the story changed greatly. For one thing, it became much more Cassia’s own.

Continue reading “Getting to know Grandpa and Grandma Mac” →

Out west, it can be a long drive to anywhere

~ Jnana Hodson ~ 5 Comments

When Joshua and Jaya finally arrive in their Promised Land in my novel Nearly Canaan, they discover how far they are from other destinations.

As I recall, some people would drive hours for a fine dinner, and hours going back.

Here are some drive times from Yakima, Washington, to other Western locales.

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  1. Seattle, 2 hours, 16 minutes. I remember it taking more like three or more.
  2. Spokane, 3 hours, 9 minutes.
  3. Walla Walla, Washington, 2 hours, 6 minutes. Having the Interstate down the valley has certainly cut the time here.
  4. Wenatchee, Washington, 2 hours.
  5. Portland, Oregon, 3 hours, 6 minutes.
  6. San Francisco, 12 hours, 6 minutes.
  7. Boise, Idaho, 5 hours, 33 minutes.
  8. Salt Lake City, 10 hours, 11 minutes.
  9. Denver, 17 hours, 19 minutes.
  10. Missoula, Montana, 6 hours, 9 minutes.

~*~

And that’s not stopping for fuel, food, or comfort.

How long does it take you to get to a favorite daytrip destination?