The lull between whatever

Nadia amid the wishflowers, what my granddaughters call dandelions gone to seed.

Our chickens are sneaky creatures; this morning as I finished breakfast, I peered out the window and there's Nadia strutting across the front yard. It's not even eight a.m. and she's already flown out of the run, exploring as she is wont to do.

Lately I've had breakfast before I feed the chickens, as I'm up early and we don't feed them now until around seven o'clock. But this morning I was mesmerized by a band of heavenly light sandwiched between two pushy layers of cloud that JUST COULDN'T PUT OUT THAT LIGHT! (Lol.) They tried, those portions of the marine layer, squeezing with all their cloudy might, but that light was just like Nadia Chicken; stealthy, smart, powerful in its own not so little way. Nadia's merely a hen, and yeah, she scales the door, and can fly right back in, as my husband witnessed later this morning. But those clouds, that marine layer, my goodness! Muscles into view most mornings, shoves its way back in the evening, or late afternoon if it's feeling really full of itself. Yet today was different; that band of light seemed to say to me, "Peace." Peace and love and hang in there despite cloudy summer mornings and naughty chickens and whatever else seems slightly or pervasively vexing.

Not a shot of the marine layer, but some pretty amaryllis flowers blooming at our place.

Anyway, ahem. The lull to which I referred in today's title is the lull that occurs after a story, no matter its length, is concluded and another project, like the next project, has yet to begin. The next project, most likely, will be revisions for The Deadfern Miracles, woo hoo! I've missed those people, who have been in very capable hands with some dearhearts giving it all a good once or thrice-over. Because I'm feeling like releasing those Miracles perhaps in November. Like on the first, which would be the twentieth anniversary of my serious foray into the world of crafting fiction!

An entire post awaits that subject, another ahem, so I shan't say more than yeah, twenty years. Dude....

But (BUT!), I will yammer on how after something is finished, there's a stillness which lingers like the marine layer, yet not so encompassing. Maybe it's like any sort of task or job or project that isn't a permanent thing, but certainly hogs a lotta bandwidth, then it's done and you sit back and go: WHOA! Breathing deeply, yet the enormity of it lingers. Or how now suddenly time exists for other things, like luring hens back in the run with half a bowl of chicken scratch, ahem.

Ahem indeed! I can bribe Nadia into the run for a brief time, but she flew out less than an hour later and who truly is the creature being trained, huh? Myself, methinks, big LOL.

Yet (YET!), there's little harm in giving the hens less than half a bowl of scratch first-ish thing in the morning merely to hold them in the run for another forty-five minutes (or less). This means no afternoon full bowl of scratch, LOL, and maybe today my better half will affix another piece of something, probably a thin board, to the thin board already attached to the top of the run door. Or he won't get around to it and tomorrow we'll go through this all over again, who knows? We have plenty of scratch, and if Nadia feels so inclined, well.... It's not like her getting out of the run hampers world peace or anything.

Right before I began luring her with an empty small basin that waits on the back steps. She's too smart for that despite me making a sound that usually gets the hens to look twice.

Speaking of world peace.... The lull in not writing most mornings frees up more time for prayerful contemplations, hehehe, and that's yet one more post of which I want to add to the line-up. I might write a letter to a dear friend about these contemplations first, just to run them through my head with more than the slender grasp upon which I have on them now. But yeah, I'm mulling over all kinds of notions, not all of them chicken or novel related.

Lulls are nice like that, gentle little islands, daredevil hens notwithstanding, on which we can casually stroll, pondering this, that, and certainly a few other thoughts that previously/regularly/occasionally we don't peruse due to time constraints. But in being semi-retired such time exists, when I'm not spending it bribing chickens or writing very long short stories. The next tale in On Being Brave is Squee's story post-attack on Enran. I had the words Chapter 1 all typed out, ready and waiting, but seeing how long the previous section went I backspaced that Chapter 1 and will attempt a truly SHORT STORY. That (hopefully) short story most likely WON'T be what I work on next, Deadfern in its way. But after I tackle those Miracles, and maybe give Echoes of His Voice: The Hawk Book Six a peek, Squee and company are waiting.

I think I count eight chickens feasting on early morning treats. Oh Nadia....

Because no matter the lull, no matter how retired semi-retirement is, something else calls me to sit my butt in this swivel chair and do more than blog about life. That light, caught between the aggressive layers of marine clouds, seeks for me to set about crafting plots and characters not necessarily related to achieving world peace, but for some reason beyond my feeble capacity to pinpoint, they matter. Isn't that a wild statement? In my tiny crook of this large planet, seemingly silent shouts land on the World Wide Web, promoting love, respect, and a fair bit of interstellar hoo haa. Squee and friends will contribute to that otherworldly element while I continue to harass Nadia to stay put.

We'll see which option occurs first. Pestering Nadia I bet, if I was a betting woman. Have a wonderful Tuesday!