Summer's End

Ben waves from the rocks on Drummond Island. Summer officially ends today, but we'll have some more summer weather. I've been writing up a storm, but not blogging--thanks for checking here anyway.

The last two trips up north to the wilds of Drummond have yielded great stuff and I am working on some prose pieces. Right now they are short stories, character studies and those small scenes that swim up into my consciousness and flow out of the fingertips or pen.

I've always been intrigued by strong women, especially those who were strong and different in earlier settings: the eighteenth century woman in colonial America who succeed independently at business; the women who defied convention and wrote; women who did what they pleased and had a sense of self beyond the conventional role ascribed to them. I've done original document research twice in my life and I can assure you that there were many, many more of these women than we are led to believe. Not that is wasn't always like salmon swimming upstream, and not all of them were treated well, but many won the respect and support of their communities. Of course, some of them, in an earlier time, were burned at the stake, but that's not my story.

So these characters who have come to visit me are in a woman's life in the early nineteenth century. She goes to live on Drummond after marrying rather late. She's drawn to wilderness, perhaps because of the wilderness she feels in her own head. So far, it's working as a rough draft, and the ideas are really popping.

I may post some of it here. In the meantime, I thank all of you for the encouragement you offer just by showing up on my sitemeter. Wishing you a glorious summer's end and long colorful fall before winter arrives, no matter where you live.

Peace, shalom, salaam--

Cindy