A Case Of Ancient Mistaken Identity
Oct. 27th, 2011 06:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
madwriterNo writing today, because I actually did fulfill at least a small part of the bargain to myself that I would alternate writing with exercise. Tucker the Big Dog got the benefit of it too, since it was walking him: First around the neighborhood, then a walk around half of campus. A total of maybe two miles. He was quite pleased with it, especially when he got to wade a bit around the campus lake, and I was at least satisfied that I can get back into some sort of exercise rhythm.
Not to mention the fact that exercise has always been brain work for me too: Not just getting more blood to the cerebral area, but also time to ponder What Happens Next, or to fill in some future blank in advance.
At any rate, I did do a bit of writing yesterday.
PROGRESS REPORT FOR 10/25/11
New Words: 1650 on Chapter 1 ("Those Who Came First") Section 2 ("The Dancing Spirits") of Arizona. What starts out as a joke at Ooljee's expense transforms into something a bit more serious.
Total Words: 22750.
Reason For Stopping: Getting ready for work.
Book Year: 941 B.C.
Mammalian Assistance: Vegas was on his box pile, though as I said yesterday, decided to leave shortly after I took away his arrowhead.
Exercise: Walking Tucker around the neighborhood; walking down to campus.
Stimulants: Mr. Pibb.
Today's Opening Passage: The name started as an irreverent joke. Over time, though, the irreverence and then the humor fell away, although for a long time Ooljee was still oblivious to what the mountain Yoreme called her behind her back:
Corn Mother.
Darling Du Jour: Maybe a bit of a spoiler...
The chief’s curiosity intensified. Other Yoreme were gathering around them but he gave them no notice. “This Real Place. What is it?”
Ooljee told him about it being the land where her people were created, and her geographical descriptions were remarkably accurate. With some of her people’s lore preserved over the course of the eight thousand years since Nakuq and Salu and even long before them, from the time the Piqmiut braved the long trek from Siberia to North America, the span of the century since Ooljee’s people had struck out of southern Arizona during a drought was little more than a hand’s-width to her. She described the dry but fertile lowlands between the San Pedro and Santa Cruz Rivers, the cool breezes atop Huachuca Mountains' gentle folds to the rugged teeth of the Santa Catalinas. The locations farthest north didn’t much interest the chief, but his eyes narrowed a little farther whenever she detailed the southernmost locales.
“Foolish woman,” he grunted, then snatched her arm and dragged her up the terraces. Ooljee fought for a few moments before surrendering to the chief’s determined efforts. At the crest of the hill he shoved her toward the edge. She looked down with some trembling, wondering if he meant to push her over. But instead he stepped beside her and swept his arm across the eastern scenery, scoffing. “Look around you. Do you not even know the land you just explained to me?”
She froze, stunned. He was right. During all the half-blind days she was pulled at the end of a Yoreme rope, she wasn’t ascending deep into the Sierra Madres after all. They dragged her north; and now she stood atop a pinnacle of the southern Huachuca Mountains overlooking the San Pedro River where Nakuq’s people once hunted the great mammoths during the winter, and where four generations before Ooljee’s birth her people walked south into Mexico.
Ooljee had found the Real Place.
Non-Review / Research Books In Progress: Michener; Brooks.
Not to mention the fact that exercise has always been brain work for me too: Not just getting more blood to the cerebral area, but also time to ponder What Happens Next, or to fill in some future blank in advance.
At any rate, I did do a bit of writing yesterday.
New Words: 1650 on Chapter 1 ("Those Who Came First") Section 2 ("The Dancing Spirits") of Arizona. What starts out as a joke at Ooljee's expense transforms into something a bit more serious.
Total Words: 22750.
Reason For Stopping: Getting ready for work.
Book Year: 941 B.C.
Mammalian Assistance: Vegas was on his box pile, though as I said yesterday, decided to leave shortly after I took away his arrowhead.
Exercise: Walking Tucker around the neighborhood; walking down to campus.
Stimulants: Mr. Pibb.
Today's Opening Passage: The name started as an irreverent joke. Over time, though, the irreverence and then the humor fell away, although for a long time Ooljee was still oblivious to what the mountain Yoreme called her behind her back:
Corn Mother.
Darling Du Jour: Maybe a bit of a spoiler...
The chief’s curiosity intensified. Other Yoreme were gathering around them but he gave them no notice. “This Real Place. What is it?”
Ooljee told him about it being the land where her people were created, and her geographical descriptions were remarkably accurate. With some of her people’s lore preserved over the course of the eight thousand years since Nakuq and Salu and even long before them, from the time the Piqmiut braved the long trek from Siberia to North America, the span of the century since Ooljee’s people had struck out of southern Arizona during a drought was little more than a hand’s-width to her. She described the dry but fertile lowlands between the San Pedro and Santa Cruz Rivers, the cool breezes atop Huachuca Mountains' gentle folds to the rugged teeth of the Santa Catalinas. The locations farthest north didn’t much interest the chief, but his eyes narrowed a little farther whenever she detailed the southernmost locales.
“Foolish woman,” he grunted, then snatched her arm and dragged her up the terraces. Ooljee fought for a few moments before surrendering to the chief’s determined efforts. At the crest of the hill he shoved her toward the edge. She looked down with some trembling, wondering if he meant to push her over. But instead he stepped beside her and swept his arm across the eastern scenery, scoffing. “Look around you. Do you not even know the land you just explained to me?”
She froze, stunned. He was right. During all the half-blind days she was pulled at the end of a Yoreme rope, she wasn’t ascending deep into the Sierra Madres after all. They dragged her north; and now she stood atop a pinnacle of the southern Huachuca Mountains overlooking the San Pedro River where Nakuq’s people once hunted the great mammoths during the winter, and where four generations before Ooljee’s birth her people walked south into Mexico.
Ooljee had found the Real Place.
Non-Review / Research Books In Progress: Michener; Brooks.
