I Am Danny Of The Clovis People

[madwriter]

Scenic fall-color hiking and driving this weekend--I'll try to get some pictures posted here sooner rather than later. In the meantime I've been writing too, though as warm as the days are I should probably be outside instead of just having my Writing Room window open to the woods. But I'm always in a hurry to write when I start a new project, so there you are.

Cut so I could include a picture of the Marx Brothers.



PROGRESS REPORT FOR 10/10 AND 10/11/11

New Words: 3900 (3300 / 600) on Chapter 1 ("Those Who Came First") part 1 ("The Skystone Hunter") of Arizona. My experiment with compact writing didn't seem to work so well yesterday. At any rate, yesterday's writing was finishing the story of Nakuq and Salu, and today's was a bit of infodumping to bring the reader up to speed on the next 8,000 years.

Total Words: 12900.

Reason(s) For Stopping: Had to get ready for work / Finished the section, and wanted to do some spot research for the next one.

Book Years: 8944 B.C. to ~1000 B.C., give or take a couple of centuries.

Mammalian Assistance: At one time or another pretty much every one of our six Upstairs Cats managed to get into the Writing Room while I was working. I'm not sure how this happened; I think they've learned the trick of osmosis through doors. So at any given time they were on floor, table, boxes, and in window, as well as trying to perch on my lap (though only Nugget succeeded at that). Most of them left the same way, except for Hayes, who I chased out after she knocked over a lamp.

The Marx Brothers' interpretation of my Writing Room today.
The part of me is being played by Groucho (a lifelong dream of mine).

Exercise: Walked Tucker the Big Dog around the neighborhood; walked down to campus.

Stimulants: Dr. Pepper plus open window.

Today's Opening Passage(s):

Yesterday: Then she withered again, and demanded to be taken down to the water. That was a nearly impossible journey, down the mountainside with Genngha herself able to do little to help her passage and Nakuq’s arms all but useless. But Salu was strong and knew the easiest paths. The sunken sun was glowing red by the time they reached the Santa Cruz. There the holy woman stood again and sang to the river.

Today: Over the next eight thousand years, while the world continued changing and warming with no pockets of cold getting ahead again for long, Arizona transformed into a desert.

The deciduous forests and grasslands that dominated the land—and indeed had made up most of Arizona’s landscape for nearly all of its history after the passing of the dinosaurs—went into an almost complete retreat north or up into the mountains. The desert to the south, whose increasingly harsh conditions had driven a southern tribe to butcher the Piqmiut, spread from Mexico into Arizona. Along with it traveled the ironwood, giant saguaro and organpipe and other cacti, which would create forests of their own throughout southern Arizona. As the deciduous forests—the grandmothers of what would become known as the Sonoran Desert—gave way, they opened the path for the mother of the Sonora, the small but almost impossibly hardy thornscrub that in Nakuq and Sela’s time had been confined to Arizona’s lowest, driest valleys.

Darling Du Jour: “But now the Real Place is changing too,” she continued. “Things are ending.”

“Ending!” Nakuq cried.

The Piqmiut and Salu’s people shared a common belief about the origin of their world, and, unlike future religions, the belief that there would be no ending to it. Things changed, certainly, and things died, but the overall world they saw around them was constant regeneration: a dead tree could spring new life from its branches, plants dropped seeds the sun would bring forth into new plants. People died, but their spirits returned to another baby shortly afterward once the naming ceremony was done. He had glimpsed forever in the night sky over the long winter. The thought of everything ending was seen as wasteful among these peoples who wasted nothing. To Nakuq it was terrifying.

“Genngha explained it to me,” Salu said, and drew what Nakuq recognized was a small sun-wheel in the dirt. “The world was created here.” She pointed to the space at the top of the wheel formed by two spokes. “But now we are moving here.” She pointed to the next space. “Our first age is nearly ended and another one is beginning. But always we have the sun and the sky.” The large circle in the center, Nakuq remembered—one touching each age no matter how far they went from the first one.

“What happens when things change?” Nakuq asked.

Salu smiled sadly at him. “I don’t know. Only that they will be different.”

Non-Research / Review Books In Progress: Michener.