Blogging from school, ep. 2

Imagine a mountain facing the sun, with its shadowy back towards you and layers of fog trailing down like a cloak.  Rich, golden-purple fog sunken low in the valley, with the hazy-grey tops of fir trees brushing the horizon.  The car floats down a hill, seemingly headed for the mountain, and the golden fog, and the furiously pale sky.

But it never gets there...it just crawls into the school parking lot.  The sun throws the fog out and we have good weather.  And here I am.

They impounded the window-desks in the library and replaced them with green chairs and ottomans.  Ottomans, by the way, are threatening to take over the campus; good old-fashioned chairs are headed for extinction.  But the absence of the window-desk--the wonderful little desk with the awning over the top--this is a more serious thing.  The narrator has been deprived of her study-space with a view...the sky, the red trees, the lawn, and the people migrating into the Science Building.

They would have to change perfection, wouldn't they?

Speaking of study, my homework today consists of writing our first official essay.  We have written others--ones where you have to race against the clock-on-the-wall-behind-you and writhe in pathetic agony over a blank page with blue lines.  I suppose it is a useful exercise, but better for developing quick thinking than good writing.

To quote one of Abby's characters, I either 'over-think or I don't think at all.'

I'm trying to reach a middle ground, somehow.  In my steampunk book, for example, I have a rough outline and a smattering of ideas, but I don't 'engrave them in stone.'  It's a drawing in the sand, rather--a wave or two of new ideas could brush another out.  I think this style works better for me.  I've tried detailed outlines and spontaneous books, but writing with a rough guide seems more flexible and focused.        

I'd love to work on the steampunk book today...I just have to finish that essay first.  :P

On a similar note, I've been posting on Tulgeywood more regularly, so check it out and please follow if you like.  :)  And I'm currently reading The Winter Queen, by Boris Akunin.  It's kind of like Sherlock Holmes set in 19th-century Moscow.  The English translation is exceptionally well-written, and so far, the story's pretty good.  I'm so used to quirky detectives, though, that Erast Fandorin is a bit boring...none of the 'little grey cells' speeches for him, lol.

Off to Russian history lecture now....