Writing among the lava and junipers.

Yesterday, I drove to the top of Horse Ridge, where a monument sign overlooks Dry Canyon, and then walked along the rim. There isn't really a trail, but there were lots of other tracks so I'm not the only one who has found this spot.  Every few hundred yards, I stopped and wrote for awhile.  When it came time to walk back to the car, it turned out I'd gone a couple miles, so four miles altogether, much further than I expected.  Saw a bunny and a chipmonk and hawks.  I suppose if I want to see more than that, I need to quit talking to myself.

The ridge was very pleasant.  A gentle slope, spectacular views, interesting formations.  It had an almost spiritual quality.

I'm finding on my walks a kind of rough circle of beauty.

The closer, more accessible places, while technically in nature, seem scarred by humans.  Shotgun shells, dog poop, rusty cans.  Pretty disgraceful.  What the hell is wrong with some people?

Go out a little further, and evidence of humans starts to fade slightly, and yet it still feels somehow tarnished.  I'm still likely to run into other people.

Go out a little further than that and I get the sense of aloneness I crave, and the scenery is usually nicer.  It takes too much difficulty for most people to get there, so it is somewhat protected.

I can enhance this by going off the paths.  Wander away from the worn trails and strike off on my own.  I don't go so far that I could get lost, but far enough to make it extremely unlikely that I'll run into anyone else.

Here I get lost in my writing.

Finally got untracked yesterday on Tuskers III.  Wrote more than in the first 3 days combined, so I'm back on track.

I left the house early yesterday, determined to get into the story once and for all.  I wasn't going to come back home until I had a firm sense of it.  But once I started writing, it came to me pretty easy.

I think what happened is that I created a couple of characters I really liked, which led to other characters I liked, and then the connections between them.

This isn't turning out to be the mega-world spanning scenario I originally envisioned.  Like the first two books, it is locally oriented, set among a couple of small bands of humans and Tuskers, with the implication that more is going on that we can't see.  That makes it more personal, more human (or individual) oriented.

If I feel the people, like the people (good or bad), then I have a story.

Yesterday's walk was so pleasant, I'm going to retrace it today.