Looking Over the Rail: Life Course Changes

Not much progress on the website. I'm a writer, not a webmaster!

Oh well.

Back to stuff about writing. One of the tough things about any kind of work or really anything is how to enact necessary changes. Dean Wesley Smith put it very nicely in the master's class--life is like an ocean liner. It can't turn on a dime. My corollary--you personally can turn on a dime, but it'll involve jumping ship. What does the ship represent? Family. Job. Home. Financial and social obligations. Your life as you know it, and all the ties that connect you to the world around you. The more you're willing to give up, the faster you can change.

A fast change isn't necessarily a good one, though, and it may not be lasting. In fact, you may crash and end up managing nothing but the damage you've caused yourself and others (if they don't abandon you entirely--and financial institutions will of course haunt you.) You'll have escaped into a storm, not the future you wanted. Going back to the jumping ship analogy, you have a moment of freedom--freefall--scary and exhilarating and, if you're that sort, fun. Then you hit the water. Slam. Culture shock, as in your own personal culture is no longer accessible and you're a stranger in a world completely alien to you. Shock from damage. Damage you cause yourself, financially, emotionally, maybe even physically (but I thought living in a cardboard box would work--why am I having to deal with frostbite?) Shock as you realize that big change is hard, and that now you have to swim. Staying afloat isn't a stasis situation anymore. Or, if the ship was sinking, at least it was sinking slow and now ...

Some people deal with shock better than others. They can run away to Europe and start hitchhiking, just getting by, and never look back on their old lives. They can ignore their family and work sixteen hours in their office every day, only surfacing for junk food, and not suffer from the resentment, or ensuing divorce, or the guilt if a child gets hurt and they don't notice for three hours. Each course change a person sets has positive and negative effects, foreseen and unforeseen. The bigger the change, the more effects there will be. If you can't deal with those side effects, you may try to climb back onboard. But the ship may have already gone on its way. Even if it hasn't, it may not be possible to get back on unless someone throws you line. And if you do make it, you can bet your status on that ship will have changed.

I'm not saying if you need a big change, don't jump ship. But consider how much you can handle, and whether or not you're willing to lose everything. A slow change may be more manageable, and more sane, and you may be able to adapt more easily to those unforeseen circumstances as they come up.

Sometimes there isn't a choice. Sometimes a lifestyle change is what you need to save your life, or to give yourself a shot at a future you want to live to see. Maybe those two things are the same. And maybe your ship has run aground and the only way to move forward is to get off. Anyway, as a model this works really well for me. I'll look at my decisions in a whole new way. Maybe it'll make me a more effective writer, and a more effective human being.

Crazy-Making Website Update

Now I'm totally confused. If my site goes down for no apparent reason ...

well ...

there's a reason.

It's because I am an ftp amateur.

Pity me.

Crazy-Making Website

I've been working on my old website. I don't have anything new up yet--it's going to take me a bit of offline gymnastics to figure out how to upload the work I've done over the past few days. Watch out for that last step, it's a doozy ...

One of the things that I found particularly difficult was working up each page so that it fit the subject matter but also connected in some way to the home page. I don't think I was successful. There are things that I could do if I was working on Word that I can't seem to do with the themes in this program, like adjusting fonts. I can't adjust fonts on this thing or that thing? Really? And why is it that if I have access to this background here, it doesn't show up on the menu there?

It can be crazy-making.

The sooner I finish this, the better, is all I can say. I'll let y'all know how it works out.

Master's Class: Kidnapped by Pirates

When you've been through a life-changing experience, it can sometimes be hard to convey what happened, what's different now that you're back home, etc.

I happened to stumble on a metaphor in the middle of class that makes the explanation child's play.

Remember Hook, the movie starring Robin Williams? Peter Pan's son and daughter have been kidnapped by pirates, and the kids are instructed to write some things down. The daughter refuses, and Captain Hook instructs Smee to give her an F. Which he does. "F?!" she cries. "You gave me an F?!"

The real problem, of course, is not that she got an F but that she's been kidnapped by pirates. And that's what the master's class was like. For a while I focused on the mechanics I didn't have and where I failed as a writer. "F? Zero out of ten points on my revision paper?" Oh my gawd. I thought they'd send me to the remedial class before I could proceed.

Luckily, I figured out that some score on a revision test didn't matter at all. What I really had to pay attention to was that I'd been kidnapped by pirates. And I wanted to be a pirate. Er, writer. I finally began to look at what I did right, instead of what I was doing wrong. From that mindset I could then think about what I left out of my writing (not what was wrong, but missing) and commit to including that piratical, er, writerly stuff.

Suddenly, I began to sail the high seas, battling storms, tasting salt on my lips, deafened by the thunder of waves against the hull that shook through my very bones ...

I didn't give a rat's tail if I got an F on some grammar-related test thingy.

And that, ladies and gents, was what I came home with, and why I view writing, and life, in a different way than I did before the class. Wouldn't you, if you'd been kidnapped by writers?

Appearances Matter: Story Setting

What does every story need at it's very beginning? A character, in a setting, with a problem. Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, there lived an old woman who was so poor she didn't have enough money to buy bread.

At the master's class, I learned, (and I wasn't alone) that I had a lot of problems with setting. Characters came through okay, problems percolated in the evil coffee machine, but setting? Not so much.

I just read a story for a workshop (not for the Lucky Labs) where all the errors I'd been guilty of with setting were amplified. A character arrived at home at twilight. Um ... home? What's home? A ranch? A mansion? A cardboard box? Is this in a neighborhood or a cottage in the woods with wolves howling in the distance?

If writers don't supply the details, the readers will fill in their own. The problem is, every reader has a different home in mind. When a Persian rug appears in the living room on page three, this may fit the reader's mental image, or it may shove the reader out of the story. After all, a Persian rug doesn't really belong in the Frank Lloyd Wright house they imagined.

The class really brought home the fact that writers are building a world, whether it's a familiar one or an alien one. Shorthand very seldom works. I can officially stop envying urban fantasy writers. Because, thinking about it, it's just as difficult to describe an urban landscape well as it is to drop the reader into an alien one. Maybe moreso--in an alien landscape, the reader isn't busy filling in false details. They wait for the writer to let them know what color the trees are, and whether those trees have tentacles or not.

The fall colors this year, speaking of colors of trees, are incredible. That's what you get when you have a really cold previous winter. Our view of the Gorge takes my breath away, and the light filtering through stormy clouds runs the full array of autumn gold to cold, pale, winter light, depending on the time of day. I'll have to post a pic soon, and pics of the happy dogs playing Don't Catch. Finn, btw, had actually begun to play actual fetch while Brian was away. Brian quickly reminded him of the rules, and now everything's back to normal.

Brian is Home!!

Yes, our wayward wandering dog has come home. For those of you who've read Benji, this'll sound familiar:

Apparently Brian spent several hours hanging out with dogs downhill from us. There were two puppies and the owners noticed that he wasn't hounding the chickens, so they didn't mind and figured he'd go home when he was good and ready. They called him Bear.

Brian didn't go home, but wandered for a couple more days, going further north and west. He ended up wandering back south again toward the road, where he came upon Windy Ridge, where Mary found him. Mary had given me, the kids, and our groceries a ride home when our car broke down one day, so she knew us but didn't connect Brian to our home.

They loved Brian. Her boys became very attached and named him Wesley. They didn't see any signs and didn't have time to go door to door (it would be an enormous task anyway! I don't expect that sort of thing) but they did call two separate humane society branches. For some reason the humane societies didn't connect the dots, possibly because she described him as a Newfoundland (black dog) retriever mix and perhaps the person on the phone didn't hear 'white' in the description.

Mary has a ton of wonderful animals, including horses and llamas, and is in touch with our animal hospital. So the next time she went there she checked the boards and realized she had Brian. She called immediately.

The boys were crushed, but we're elated. The DH and I put together a huge gift basket and brought it over as a big thank you. And we all lived happily ever after.

Beast and Finn were a little puzzled when Brian came home, btw. He smelled completely different, so they followed him around and checked him out to make sure he wasn't some weird dog that happens to smell a little like Brian. For his part, Brian is happy to be in his old dog house again, and slept in it all night. I think he's a little confused, but not about us. He was so happy to see me, he ran right into my arms.

Physically he lost some weight, which will turn out to be actually good for him. He was turning into sausage dog and it was hard on his hips. I'll try to exercise him more so that he keeps that weight off. He's in excellent shape now. Rapid weight loss (which he no doubt experienced while he was wandering around for about four days with no food) is *not* recommended, btw. Do not fast an overweight dog. We'll be keeping a close watch for any health problems, but since he's been fed for 2 1/2 weeks and seems active and happy, I'd say that any danger he might have been in has long passed.

Thank you everyone for your ongoing support. We're very happy campers. A big hurray and thank you to Mary and her boys. You guys are heroes.

Things I've learned

Thoughts for the day:

Competent work employs the first workable idea.  A competent craftsman will have practiced his skill up to a certain point such that his work, on first perusal, will leave nothing to offend the eye.  He will use the materials most easily available to him that will get the job done.  And he will put just enough thought into his work so that it's clearly a unique product.

A good craftsman will think deeply to get past the early ideas to find an elegant one.  He will trust that his skills are competent and focus on expressing his ideas and himself through his work.  He will use materials that inspire him and others without being overbearing or gaudy.  And he'll know he's achieved something true to himself when the results of his labor surprise him, not because his work is bizarre, but because his work of art taught him something he didn't know before, and perhaps reveals to others what they didn't know about themselves.

I plan to apply these principles to writing.

Polishing rice to a mote

One of the things we went over in class is polishing a manuscript to death.  It seems I've been doing that.  

I should have known.  I know better than to turn my paint into mud, so why in the world would I do the same with words on the page?  Going over a work is fine.  Going back to fix things that need to resonate with things written later, no problem.  But I've been playing with sentences, even individual words, trying to get that perfect lightning/lightning bug thing going.

At least with my process, that may need to happen on the first draft, because work that I turned in that I thought was some of my best work couldn't hold a candle to the stuff I wrote overnight for the class.  And you know what?  That was true for everyone in the class.

Everyone.

Just think of what we could do with a longer deadline so we could really think things through and no rewriting?

I firmly believe that learning to rewrite words on the page is critical--at a certain stage in a writing career.  Those are important skills, at least in my opinion, if for no other reason than it would be good to be able to respond to an editorial request without falling apart.  On the other hand it seems I've gotten past that stage.  My revision skills went from productive to destructive somewhere along the line.  

My classmates shared that trait.  We are Borg.  (We all had similar problems, and we even came up with similar story ideas until K&D started handing us completely different news articles to write from.)

So it's back to Heinlein's Rules for me, and with a confidence I didn't have before.  I've now had complete strangers, over a baker's dozen of them, tell me my writing is better when I don't polish it to death.  I may write a little more slowly and be more considered with those first word choices as a result.  Or not.  I'm not sure what it'll do to my writing speed.  I'll be interested to find out.

In other news, no news about Brian yet.  We'll be going to the humane society again in a bit to see if he's there.  I suspect he isn't.  They called when a dog matching his description came in last time.  They'll probably call again when another comes in.  But we'll look just the same.  Maybe they haven't had time to give us a ring and he'll be there, fanning his tail and looking very apologetic.  

That would be incredibly wonderful.

Glory in the Details

I'm home.  Still feeling overwhelmed, in a good way, about Kris and Dean's master's class.  

We didn't just learn about writing at this class.  We learned about different aspects of a writer's life, from budgeting to marketing, writing pace to contracts and all kinds of stuff in-between.  Some of the more valuable lessons I learned came from watching Kris and Dean react to new information.  They're learning all the time, and voraciously investigate anything having to do with writing craft, business, or their other interests.  

I try to learn about stuff, and I thought I'd done a pretty good job.  Well, sort of.  My sources of information about things like writing craft have been pretty limited, unbeknownst to me.  I'd forgotten a big, very important source of information.  Direct experience.  That means reading (for pleasure first) and then dissecting writing, among other things.  That also means listening to my senses, even if it means snorting dandelion pollen and then sneezing for two days afterward to get a description right.  

I get away from my office from time to time; I've even posted about escaping my desk to write, hopefully not with a note of superiority.  But it's literally been years since I've gone downtown to check out architecture, or savored a hot chocolate with raspberry sauce and extra whipping cream specifically to imbed the sensory information into my head in a way that I can later access for writing.  Taking notes helps.  I'm sure the wonderful staff at Mo's restaurant in Lincoln City thought I was nuts, but I took four pages of notes about the food--how it tasted, smelled, felt, the clientele, the view ...  When I sat down to write the story, I didn't even have to look at those notes.  The memories were right there waiting for me.

And of course there's writing practice.  Writing with a specific goal in mind--to get an effect, or to deliberately include scents on every page, or to express an opinion through character voice without actually stating what that opinion may be.

The different ways to get direct experience are still percolating in.  Until then, I've got to write with what I've got.  Tonight, in fact.  I'm pretty pooped but I could stand to write something that isn't an assignment, as fun as those assignments were.  (Some of them I have to say were ~fun~ assignments rather than fun fun, but I ended up enjoying the results anyway.)

It's good to be home.  I'll miss my writing buddies, but I missed my family lots and I'm all grins right now.  If Brian comes home that'll be even more beautiful.

Before the Long Drive Home

I've had a fabulous time at Kris and Dean's master's class. What an incredible experience. I'll be spending the next few weeks (or years) assimilating all the information I got here and making it part of my writing process.

Actually, I'm still here, technically, but in about three hours I'll have graduated from this particular asylum and can carry on wreaking havoc out in the world at large. Dinner first. And maybe a glass of celebratory glass of champagne.

Later I'll post a blog entry with a list of folks who were here who wouldn't mind a little shout out. I've been privileged to work with some really amazing writers; talented, dedicated, creative, intelligent, and almost as crazy as me though not as dopey unless they want to be.

One of the things that's going to be on my mind will be my writing style. I can't imagine that I could have changed a whole lot in two weeks, but at the same time I feel like I'm living in a completely different universe.

It's always kewl when you get thrown off a cliff and manage to fly. Flap awkwardly, in my case. They say there was a nice warm pool of water to catch me down there, but I didn't want to find out the hard way.

I will go over some of the interesting lessons over the next bit, but I don't want to throw anything out there before I know what I've got. 'Cause, I may think I'm throwing a bouquet of flowers and y'all might run screaming spiders! spiders! and then I'd be all embarrassed right before I started dancing around doing my Kami freaking about spiders dance. Followed by Kami realizing she'd touched spiders and doing the boogety woogety shudder I touched a spider dance.

No word on Brian, btw. I think having him missing has been easier on me than the rest of the family since I've been here all sleep deprived and busy. If it hits like a ton of rocks when I get home, I may whimper about it here. You're all forewarned.

I walked on the beach today. My whole body feels clean but imbued with a living perfume. Incredibly beautiful day today. Pouring rain, sunshine, damascus steel sky. My hair flew around my head and the ocean thundered and sand sizzled down the beach. Five pelicans ghosted through sea spray whipped up into the air by northerly wind.

My DH will be driving in today. I've really missed my family, especially him. I feel like I've got a whole lifetime of words (here's where he'll let out a groan) of words and ideas that I want to share with him.

That's what long drives home are for.

Signing off, sadly

Last post before I head off to Kris and Dean's master's class on the coast.  This is not the departure I thought I'd have.  Brian is still not home.  Going to the shelter and stopping by local vets with fliers hit me again and again with the fact that an animal I love is missing, possibly hurt, possibly worse, maybe hypothermic and lost and scared and there's not a damned thing I can do about it.

The rest of the family will be on the lookout while I'm away.  Who knows?  He might turn up overnight, or tomorrow morning.  Every passing moment is another moment that Brian might find his way back to us.  

Adding to my grim feelings is a dream I had of Brian coming home.  I had similar dreams for every pet that's left this world.

This blog will be silent (or whispery at best) until October 18th.  I should have some interesting writing-related blogs when I get back.

The Three Doofuskateers

The dogs escaped today, and very weirdly, out of the three, the two who are usually gone the longest are the ones who came home first (after making me sweat for about three hours or so.)  Brian the Poopyhead, Mr. Loves His Comfort, Sir "Too Far, Will Lie Down Now" is often, after an escape, not only the first to come home, but the one who comes home after less than an hour away.  So, I'm quite worried.  Beast is exhausted and muddy, having gone way past the fun and into the misery part of traveling cross-country.  Finn is in better shape, but looks very concerned and often lifts his head from being curled up (they both got soaked in various downpours, so curling up is the best way to conserve heat until he dries off) and searches for his brother as far as his line of sight allows.

It was awesome to see them, three dogs at the firepit--except one of the three was our neighbor's dog, Sammy.  Sammy's daddy was away so he didn't know Sammy had gone on a little excursion with his best buddies across the street.  I think the muddy coat will kinda give him away, but he has a little time to clean up first.

I'd like to think that the soreness and sadness will teach them a lesson, but I know better.  These dogs, given a chance, would roam the many hundreds of acres that comprise the hills we live in again tomorrow, and would return only for food and perhaps a game of don't catch.  Don't catch, btw, is where we throw an object and they all run to get it, one picks it up, drops it again, and they all run back to us.  Throw is fairly loosely interpreted, so recently when I dropped a can of tonic water, Brian grabbed it and carried it off, and when I asked him to come to me, he dropped it and came very obediently.  I told him to go get it, and he did, and picked it up, and I asked him to come, and of course, once again, he dropped it and came over.  Don't catch.  A way for humans to get as much exercise as the dogs.

Anyway, earlier in the evening we heard some rifle shots.  This happens around here.  People sight in their rifles for hunting and such, and sometimes even practice.  It's just the timing and location of the shots that leave me even more worried about Brian.  

He'll turn up, and he'll be wet, and he'll feel sad and worried because maybe mom and dad will be mad and not love him anymore.  Brian, wherever you are, as long as you come home, mommy will be happy.  Honest.  But, you might get a bath.  You have to admit, it's a fair price to pay.  And don't forget, after every bath, there's always the head/towel game.  Sweet!

A Classy Way of Learning

Classes and seminars, like the master's class I'll begin next week, are an excellent way for writers to get educated, if they're taught by good people who get results.  Assuming you've done your research, you can expect results.  

Part of  the reason these things work is the focused time on learning.  Reading books on writing is all fine and good, but there's no guidance, feedback, nor deadlines associated with reading.  Receiving feedback from an instructor, or just knowing you'll be graded, will push writers to improve.  In away-from-home classes, you commit the commute time, and while you're in class (in theory, anyway) you'll have few or no distractions from the subject at hand.  Also, good instructors will carefully link reading assignments, writing assignments, and connect those to real world applications so that they align to prove a point.  Like a good story, good classes have themes.  If it's a long class, it'll have sub-plots with their own themes and counter-themes as well.  

Writing retreats can provide some of the same benefits as a class as far as the focused time, but they lack the academic element.  Some retreats do have evening lectures or debates over dinner.  These can be very beneficial, but lack the overall experience of having formal instruction.

Bad instruction is out there.  Be careful what you sign up for.  Also, even very good instruction can damage your writing.  (See Dean Smith's article about this very thing here.)  Among other things, if what's being taught doesn't fit the way that you work, it can undermine a system of writing that works for you.  

Most savvy instructors are aware that there are many different ways to write and do their best to support a given writer's process, but there are two pitfalls I can think of off the top of my head.  

When there are tight deadlines, a slow, deliberate writer will be forced to rush and perhaps fall on his/her face and decide that s/he is a terrible writer because all the feedback on the stories is bad.  

Also, the authority of an instructor can be dangerous to impressionable students.  For example, even when an instructor acknowledges that he outlines but that not everyone outlines, the student may decide that the real problem is that she outlines and everything will be better if she starts doing that.  But if she's a non-outliner like me, she'll find that it'll feel like she's already written the story, and there aren't any surprises left for her--she'll have killed her inspiration to write, and her prose will become as lackluster as her enthusiasm.  (BTW, it's not true that outlining means there aren't any surprises--even very careful and thorough outliners find the story escapes them and surprises them all the time.  They still have plenty of fun.)

Writers who want to please their peers and teachers are particularly vulnerable.  The ego-laden writer is in no danger (and will probably never learn a thing in a class except s/he may decide that everyone is an idiot.)  Writers who have no sense of the worth of their own work may totally ruin it trying to write it to answer everyone's comments.  Better to chuck the story and start again than create such a monster just like Dr. Frankenstein.  And writers who seek praise and hope that their darlings will be received with enthusiasm and demands that they be published immediately will be crushed.  (The evil part of me says rightfully so, but really, these kind of writers need to be educated, not destroyed, and a class is not where they'll learn what they need to know to avoid this particular pitfall.)

Cautionary tales abound about writers going through a class, seminar or workshop and they never write again.  Though part of me (the evil part) quietly rejoices that the slush pile will be that much smaller, honestly, I don't want a writer to stop writing because of a class.  I'd rather they stop writing because it's not as important as other things, or some other reason, like publishing sounds more like a recipe for heartache than an opportunity to share stories with the world.  Do not stop writing because of a class.  If you think you might, don't take the class.

Before you take a class, have a few things clearly in mind:

*If the work load is notoriously heavy, are you a fast enough writer to keep up?

*What are the stated goals for the class?  Is that what you really want to learn?

*What is the teacher's reputation?  Is s/he (or are they, if there are multiple instructors) published, and if so, do you respect their work?  Or are they editors or agents, and if so, are they teaching what they know?  (Not all editors or agents are qualified to teach writing (some are)--but experienced ones can certainly talk about what they're looking for and offer great advice on how to present yourself professionally.)

*What is the reputation for the class?  Do people often wash out?  Is there a reasonable number of people who come out as better writers for it?  (BTW, even a very good class won't have 100% excellent results, and there are always people who don't do well in a given environment so don't let that discourage you--just be aware.)

*Is the cost comparable to similar classes of similar length?  If not, is it worth the disparity in cost if it's more, or if it's less, are there additional costs (like finding your own lodging or buying expensive textbooks?)

*Can you get college credit or a certificate or does the class have some other tangible worth in the publishing community?

Before you take an expensive class that requires you to be away from work a long time, try something smaller scale, like working with a critique group, a community college extension class that meets once or twice a week, or going to a convention (like OryCon!) where there will be writer-related activities and classes (hopefully for free.)  Willamette Writers often has writing-related activities.  If you're not local you may find similar groups, or online groups like Longridge Writers and RWA who can give you a taste of learning under the guidance of other writers before you take the plunge for bigger things like Viable Paradise, Clarion, or Kris and Dean's classes.  Don't take my word for it--check credentials before you sign up for any of these or other courses.  Writer beware: even the most reputable courses may not be for you.

Happy Writing!

Walk the Walk, then Talk the talk

More ways that writers educate themselves:

I called a writer friend of mine, S, the other day to discuss OryCon stuff, and of course we ended up talking about writing stuff.  For an hour.  (Or so.  Ahem.)  We talked SF, real life, bringing real life into fiction, what people don't want to deal with because it's too big in real life but can deal with in fiction, other cultures, pigs, tropical islands, garbage, sequels, and each other's work in general.  

It can kill a story to talk about it too much before it's all on the page.  In fact, for many short stories, it's a sure way to kill it.  But once it's on a page, feel free to analyze it from all sides, and if you can enlist good help, that's even better.  Just don't overwork it by going over it again and again and again unless you how to revise without smothering the fire and life from your writing.

Writers talk to each other and learn a lot about content, writing techniques, stuff that's come out that's similar to their work, and markets that open up, among other things.  I came away from my phone conversation with S inspired to write.  I wrote notes while we were on the phone.  There's still a chocolate wrapper upstairs that says chickens, pigs and ducks; trash collectors:  Mean Scars.  I wouldn't have included the details that sprang to my mind if we hadn't started talking about pigs.

Writers don't have to face years of writing in a vacuum unless they want to.  In fact, learning from other writers may help boost their writing skill and their careers far beyond where they would have gone writing on their own.

But there are some things to keep in mind.  

One of the most important is that you can't start writing to please your writing group or writing friends.  It's important to maintain your style and to be true to your muse.  If they 'get' it and are just as excited about your story as you are, great.  They may become your best allies, with late night emails telling you about a piece of art they found, or a song that reminded them of your story, or a news article that pertains to your work.  Even if they aren't into your story in particular, because they're your friends, they'll do their best to help you by pointing out writing technique books that have helped them, emailing you about workshops and writing retreats, or telling you about anthologies that have just opened up that your stories might fit into.  Your writing friends don't have to like your writing in order to be supportive.  If they aren't supportive of your writing, it might be best to keep the friendship on a non-writing-related basis.

Another factor to keep in mind is jealousy.  I have yet to meet a good writer who would undermine a friend's career out of jealousy.  I don't think that's a serious worry for most people unless they have crummy friends.  But if you have a big success, it might be an idea to think twice before talking about it on and on at every opportunity unless asked, and be sensitive before enlisting your writing friends for promotional stuff.  If they offer, great.  But bear in mind that they're working hard on their writing careers too, and much as they might try not to be jealous and feel horrible if they are jealous, it's harder not to be resentful when it feels like their successful friends are shoving a victory in their faces.  I've been fortunate in that my writer friends have been successful and haven't been self-absorbed or insensitive about it.  In fact they've been understated (and there's one I'd really like to hear more about her success from!) but it's a factor to be aware of, just in case.

Lastly, like talking about games that your friends aren't actually involved in, be careful about going on and on about your characters, plot, subplots, setting, etc.  Not only might it undermine your work-in-progress if you haven't finished it by making it less interesting through over-familiarity, but there's a good chance you'll bore your listeners out of their skulls.  If there's a healthy interchange of conversation, fine--better, if the other folks are doing most of the talking, it's fair to assume they're not bored at all and are eager to talk about your work.  But be sensitive to the fact that talking about your work takes time out of their day and time away from a chance for them to talk about their work too.  It's easy to get carried away.  Use good conversation skills and watch for signs of boredom or attempts to get a word in edgewise.

There are a number of writing communities that meet in person and on the internet.  Get involved!  It can hugely help your writing.  Just be sure you spend the bulk of your time at the keyboard, not flapping your gums.  A fave of mine:  Absolute Write Water Cooler.  Nanowrimo also has forums up for most of the year--they clear them out and start over every year starting October 1, coming up soon! 

Happy Writing everyone! 

Reading and Writing--It's good arithmetic

It's the final countdown to Kristine Kathryn Rusch's and Dean Wesley Smith's master's class.  It's starting to feel real.  

Serious writers constantly educate themselves.  I was talking to a veteran writer--over 60 books to his name, and countless short stories--and he told me that he was always looking for opportunities to improve.  

Reading is essential.  Not just reading how-to books, but reading books similar to the ones you're writing to remain familiar with the market, and master works and best sellers, interchanging pleasure reading with analysis.  A friend of mine with a good number of published books under his belt told me he spent about a year looking just at beginnings and endings of successful books.  That's the analysis part.  The pleasure reading part is important too, though.  

Reading as a reader removes a barrier to the writing and allows you to immerse yourself in the world.  When you emerge, then you can think about how you felt when you were reading, and how you feel now that you're done.  It may inspire you to try to get your readers to have similar feelings, or make you decide that the writing is ineffective and you won't pick up a book like that again.  Then you can take steps to make sure your book evokes the good stuff, or doesn't let down your readers in the same way.  

Now, tastes vary wildly.  There's room for all kinds of books in the world.  But I would not want to write a book that I wouldn't want to read myself just because one just like it sold millions, or the market for paranormal romances is better than it is for epic fantasies.  It's taking a big chance to write a book that you wouldn't read.  Why?  Lots of reasons, but the main one is, if you don't like that kind of book, how could you possibly know what it is about, for example, a romance book, that keeps readers coming back for more if you don't appreciate romances?  It's not going to be some element you can guess about and then slap on the page, like sex, or a melodramatic confrontation that leads to a kiss.  The entire work has to evoke a feeling that the reader wants, and readers are sensitive to disdain, false intention and insincerity. 

My blog entries have been really long lately, so I'll talk about more ways that writers educate themselves in the future.  In the meantime, if you're a writer, don't forget to read! 

Rock and roll gardens

Snap, crackle and pop goes my neck as I turn and tip my head side to side and tilt my chin around.  It's been a busy past few days at the computer.

I'm building a new rock garden.  This is another one of those 'what have I gotten myself into?' moments.

I've got two basic techniques that I use to build rock gardens on slopes.  I'll start with a picture of the second kind taken shortly after I finished half of it.  Notice the stepping stones and stairs that come across the lower part of the photo and up the right side already have grass growing around them.  If you're willing to dig a path, edge it, and fill gravel around the steps and stairs of your project, you'll be able to fend off the grass better.  I don't have that kind of landscape.  Ours is a rough and tumble kind of place, more appropriate to weedwacking than real weeding.  Formality here would not only be a little out of place, but difficult to maintain without a lot of money.  The paths might look nice, but would look weird with the weedy, unruly beds that lack mulch because I can't afford to buy 10-15 yards or more of mulch each year.  

Notice how the rocks fit together like puzzle pieces in some places, and have larger gaps in others.  You can plan where plants go by deliberately arranging spaces for them, or you can see what happens when you play around with color and form focused entirely on the rocks.  BTW, those steps may look wobbly, but they are incredibly solid.  That takes practice, patience, strength and skill.  Don't leave exposed overhanging rock unless you have either knowledge or good instincts in terms of stone masonry, engineering, or other applicable stuff.  I used a combination of broken rock (you heard right, I actually broke up rock) tamped under the stones, plus I made sure the vast majority of the weight of those stones were set on solid ground, plus I used very large stones (all heavier than I am) and for the largest overhanging stones, I made sure the next big stone up was resting on it.  It usually took about an hour to set a single overhanging stair.  Dig, test fit, dig, test fit again, dig, test for wobble if the fit looks good, get at least a dozen fist-sized rocks, ram them under the overhang until they break up against each other, test that the rock remains solid when I stand on the very edge.  Repeat with next rock.  (For a rock resting on another rock, you ram the smaller support stones in from the side, not the front.)

Free terrace:  I get big rocks (80-100 pound or bigger if you can get them,) dig holes for them that hold about 20-25% of their bulk, and weed out as many weeds and their roots as I can as I dig.  You don't want to overdig--undisturbed earth that supports topsoil is usually nicely compacted, and you want that solidity to prevent your garden from settling.  If the rocks have a large, irregular feature like a point that's going down, I make sure I dig the hole to accommodate that.  As I dig the holes I often bust up the slope, usually with a mattock, behind where the rock goes so that I have plenty of room, and so that I know there aren't going to be grass roots or blackberry roots back there--they'll be much harder to get rid of later.  Then I place the rocks so that they fit against each other well.  Sometimes I set the smaller rocks so that they're a bit behind the big ones.  

I push dirt into any gaps under the rocks I might find.  I also try to rock the rocks (rock and roll!) to see if there's an attitude that's sturdier than the others, and press dirt around them with my knuckles when I'm satisfied with the position.  When the dirt is level with the surrounding soil on the face and back of the rock, I start tamping with a tamping bar all the way around the base of the rock (except the side where it's against another rock, of course.)  This uses a surprising amount of dirt, and I can often cram dirt under the rock with the tamping bar by going in at an angle.  I also tamp in small stones, fist-sized or smaller, when available for added stability.  Don't overdo the tamping, though.  You can actually tamp the rock out of alignment.  And alternate front and back sides.  When the rock is secure, I start pulling dirt off the slope above it to create a level area.  Sometimes I vary the height of this flat-ish, terraced area, and prevent watering and rain runoff/erosion by inserting rocks at soil level changes.   Then, I start the next row up with the same process, making sure to cut into the slope for the holes for the base rocks, rather than setting them in the soft dirt I just pulled forward to form the terrace.  The idea is to set the next layer so that their weight doesn't add to the load on the lower level--they are going to simply hold back the slope for the next terrace, and will be supported by compacted dirt directly below them (plus whatever you tamp around them.)  This kind of rock garden forms a stair step terrace and can be hard to keep weeded.  If you have the patience, leave it unplanted for a season, and then spray all the weeds that come up.  After planting, maintain with Preen.  Or just do what I do and curse and weed and plant big shrubs in there so that they crowd and shade the weeds out (and mulch.)  This kind of rock garden does best with plants that will drape a bit over the rocks, and it's good to alternate small trees and shrubs with ground covers like snow-in-summer.

Pocket slope (pictured here, year three, with a pile of new stones to extend the garden on the left side):  I call it a pocket slope rock garden because there aren't terraces--the garden follows the existing slope--and I use very little if any local soil.  The soil I add in goes into pockets between the rocks. 

 I get a bunch of landscape fabric, enough to cover the entire slope plus some extra, since it will go into depressions under the rock, which takes extra fabric.  Again, I start at the bottom, using my largest rocks.  I dig a hole for each rock.  Then I take my first rock and I carefully set in and remove that rock repeatedly to make sure it's an excellent fit for the first hole.  I pack dirt firmly around it so that it leaves a good impression, and then lift it out very carefully.  (Sound painful?  It is.)  I put down landscape fabric for the run, with the length running down the holes for the other rocks, and the edge of the fabric set so that most of it won't show on the ground in front of the rocks (some peeking through is okay, even good, as it'll keep down weeds.)  I put in the rock as carefully as I can, in the same position, and start tamping under the landscape fabric under the rock (carefully, as not to tear the fabric,) adding soil underneath the landscape fabric as needed.  If you have a short slope, tamping isn't that important, but for a long, steep slope, this first line is critical and you have to have those rocks in solid--they will be holding a lot of weight.  You might even consider having half the weight of the rock underground for this first course.  For the next rock, you have to lift aside the landscape fabric, and fit the rock to the hole again.  When you've got a reasonable fit, lift the rock out, put down the fabric, set the rock in, and tamp.  Keep going until you run to the end of the line.  For the next row, you want to fold the landscape fabric over to expose the soil above your base rocks.  Make impressions for the next set of rocks, but don't be as worried about getting them in perfect or deep, except for the biggest of them--those will be your foundation stones.  

This kind of rock garden looks best if you vary the size of rock.  Even if you set most of the rocks in pretty shallow and don't bother to tamp much, make sure none of them move if you walk on them.  I usually make cursory impressions for a whole row, lay down the landscape fabric, and then set them in their places, rocking them and adjusting them as needed. Keep an eye on that landscape fabric--you'll want to add the next course of fabric when it looks like the highest rocks on your course will start to overlap onto dirt.  

When you've got the slope covered with rocks, get some clean, weed-seed free dirt.  I prefer a very sandy mixture--it's much easier to weed it, and rock garden plants prefer it.  Fill the gaps between rocks, paying special attention to larger gaps where you can put larger plants--you may even want to lift the stones and get a little soil underneath them, so that your new inhabitants' roots have somewhere to run under for support and still have organic and mineral matter to hold nutrients for the roots.  It may appear at first that you've created a kind of sloping rock wall, and it may even look bland and somewhat ugly.  Don't worry.  Get yourself a bunch of succulents from friends and neighbors (or if you must, the nursery but they really multiply quickly so avoid buying them unless you really have to.)  

Add rock cress, lewisia, compact ornamental grasses, penstemon, super tiny dwarf evergreens (make sure they can handle full sun!) or even bonsai-style trees, and other rock garden faves.  Tight crevasses are great for sedums.   When weeds inevitably appear, they tend to lift right out of that sandy soil, which never compacts.  When grasses take root their roots can't get through the landscape fabric, so even if they get under the rocks, you can lift the rock slightly and yank them out (except for the base rocks--there you've got some work with a weeding fork ahead of you.)  This last photo shows the rock garden after about two years.  These days it's quite overgrown, with the rocks peeking through here and there.

I'm working on a free terrace this time.  My very first rock garden was the pocket kind, though.  It's inundated with strawberries, but only because I'm reluctant to yank them.  When I get around to it, it'll be a cinch to weed.  When doing this stuff, don't work alone--a big rock can roll onto you and leave you injured and pinned, where you'd be vulnerable to all kinds of nasty medical ailments like shock.  Wear latex-dipped gloves--they're clingy, and you'd be surprised how many squished fingers I've avoided because I was able to slip my fingers out of the glove just as the rock started to pinch.  When tamping, wear safety glasses--it's very easy to hit the rock by mistake, and a chip could fly back at you.  

Happy gardening!

Mabon, and more about roses

If you're not a plant geek, you can scroll down to the end of the following geeking out.

Kai offered some excellent advice in comments and I wanted to respond here because there's so much wealth behind the words. She'd been told "waist high at Thanksgiving, knee high on President's Day." I couldn't have said it any better. That's perfect, better than my suggestions, which are low limits. I did give those low limits for a reason, though.  I just foolishly didn't explain, so I'm really glad Kai said something!

Waist high is too tall for most young roses (4 years or younger) and some of the modern 3' garden roses developed for today's smaller gardens. And waist high may be too low for some of those mature climbers that are practically trees now. So take a good look at the rose in question. Is it mature or is it young? Does it have long canes that could easily snap or develop severe cold damage in winter's strong storms (more on this second item later)? How is the root system? Err on the side of being conservative, while bearing the conditions of your rose and the local winter in mind.

Three cases in my garden:

'Greetings'--This is a very dense shrub rose that rapidly gained height in just a couple of years. (I highly recommend this rose, btw.) Keeping it relatively open so that air can get into the interior (which helps prevent diseases, something this rose is not prone to so it's not a big deal) can be a challenge. But more challenging is to reduce its sail area for winter. Big young rose=underdeveloped roots with lots of plant above ground to catch the wind. I thought I'd pruned it hard enough the first year, and I was wrong. It rocked back and forth so hard that it created open funnel-shaped space all the way around the stem quite far into the ground--a screwdriver could go in several inches and not touch dirt or plant. To prevent this I should have cut as many of the smallest stems as I dared, and counterintuitively, cut the stems down much lower than I would on such a large rose, and then staked the plant. Now its root system is developed enough that its highest roots won't tear and allow the rose to rock. I'll probably still stake it, though.

'Lagerfeld'--This is a lovely, very long-stemmed lavender rose. It also has relatively thin stems. Just about any length on this rose, which is five years of age now, seems to be too long. I thought I cut it back far enough last autumn and it still had lots and lots of damage on it. It recovered, but it put on a poor show this winter. This year I plan on keeping the stems pretty long--perhaps hip high--and I'm going to try to tie them together and then place some sort of insulating material around the crown. Hip high probably sounds weird--isn't that shorter than waist high and therefore not 'pretty long'? Not in this case. At waist height most roses have lots of branches. This one does not. In fact, it almost looks like it wants to be a climber. It's fragile and doesn't hold heat well at all, making it iffy for up here on the hill. Normally if a rose can't make it in our climate, I just let it go, but I love this rose so I'm willing to go the extra mile for it. Sadly, I can't recommend it in the Pac NW, because it is such a princess even in a sheltered area.

'Happy Chappy'--This is a ground cover rose, which y'all will probably say aha, rules go out the window. Well, yes and no. Think horizontal length when pruning, rather than height on the body. Distance from the crown is what you're looking at (which brings us to another thing later.) Mine is brand new, and the profile was low enough and the young branches bendy enough that I wasn't too concerned. It could hide below the worst winds in the flower bed and be squished almost flat and probably not break, even with its branches being more brittle in cold. But an exposed specimen or older specimen would need pruning just like any other rose. Also, you suddenly have a new consideration. Snow weight. Beware heavy weight on thick, old wood that's a few inches off the ground but otherwise following the ground. Snow building up along the length might cause the rose to snap in a bad place. So it might be an idea to take off more of those little branches than you normally would, or just make sure that heavy limbs are supported against the ground at enough points that you're not too worried about too much lever arm.

What's the harm, you might think, of just leaving a rose as it is and then pruning off cold damaged or broken branches later? Well, even well-pruned roses sometimes succumb to winds and cold by snapping off underground or well below the crown. I lost three roses this last winter due to snow weight--sad, but I could have lost them all if I hadn't pruned them. And cold damage isn't like frostbite on a person. I believe (I don't know for certain--I'm not a botanist) that plants have mechanisms to stay warm in winter that have to do with their sap system in the bark--the core of the plant is not like a human body keeping things warm, if that makes sense. The more stem it tries to keep warm, the less chance it'll do a good job. What I've seen is patches, seemingly at random, all over the stem from top to bottom, and there may not be a good place to trim off the cold damage. It's all damaged, though sometimes I'll see slightly less damage very near the crown. If the damage goes all the way around a stem, everything from that point up is partially girdled and the stem will die, slowly, over the course of the next few months as warm weather sets in. (Yeah, the rose gives you plenty of time to think it'll be okay--it'll even put out leaves.) If the stem is cut short, then it appears that it can use its resources over a smaller area. That's my theory, anyway, and I'm sticking to it.

Now, about those crowns--different areas plant their roses at different depths. Some very cold areas have to have that crown at or slightly below ground level. Here in the Pac NW, the crown can be quite high and we can even grow that extreme case, the tree rose, where the crown can be as high as shoulder high. (I bet there are even taller ones.) But the rule Kai mentioned still works. Adjust height for crown. I plant my crowns a little lower than folks down in the valley. Some are only a couple of inches above the ground, and some are at ground level due to storm damage (sometimes they come back after they break, and sometimes even as the same rose if you are fortunate and have a self-rooted rather than a grafted rose.) Adjust for height of crown. I'm guessing Kai's Nana is from the valley area, and that some of her crowns may have been as high as mid-calf.

If you want a serious education on rose pruning, wander Portland's Rose Garden later this year. You'll begin to see the rhyme and reason of rose pruning--how each rose is pruned basically the same, but with respect to its individual form. Those guys really know what they're doing. Or, at least they used to. Anyway, the roses come out looking great every year, so it's close enough for government work.

End of Plant Geeking.

It's Mabon. From now on the nights will grow longer. The weather will remain warm a for a few more weeks, but now that the heat's been turned down on Earth's stove, we'll start to gradually cool down. Around here, the first frost hits pretty close to All Hallow's Eve, so it's easy to pretend it's still summer for our purposes. But the wind is moaning tonight. Soon the Wandering will grab hold of me, just in time for a trip to the coast. We feasted quietly. This is a subdued holiday for me, one that highlights mortality and shadows, but also stars and the moon and reflection. We don't have to start enduring yet, but we have to prepare, and accept that the season of plenty will end. For those of us who've lived through the cycle many times before, we know spring will come, but we don't take for granted that we will personally see it.  

If you're one of those people like me who like to have emergency stores, now is the time to inventory and replace old stuff with new if you haven't been using it and turning it over. I don't worry too much about having enough food for the zombie apocalypse, but I'm happy to have it just in case, and besides--when we get snowed in, it really, really comes in handy.  

Blessed be.

Cleaning up around here

Programming Hell for OryCon 31 is done.  The work isn't done by a long shot, but there's enough schedule down that if OryCon happened tomorrow, things would be okay.

This time of year is clean up in the garden time.  We've had some rain, so the ground is relatively soft, but not so much that things are muddy.  The thing about fall clean up is that if we don't do it, the following spring is unmanageable.  We had some of that going on this year.  Not only is the grass impossibly high and weeds fill every bed, but the blackberries (enemy number one around here) build on themselves, making a tough problem even tougher.  And last, because it's not work, but does detract from quality of life, if I don't do adequate clean up, I won't be able to enjoy the hundreds of daffodils that come up in the spring.  

Winters in the Pac NW aren't terrifically long, but they're very gray, and except for that spot in February when we get nice weather off and on for a couple of weeks, the only color we might see before June are daffodils and forsythia.  Some people get crocuses and tulips, but not us.  Deer and bunnies love crocuses and tulips, and if they don't get them, the slugs will.

Speaking of slugs, if you garden and you're looking for some gardening tips for fall clean up, here's my list:

Lightly fertilize fruit trees

Last mowing

Last weeding

Plant new bulbs (not every year)

Rake leaves from under trees into flower beds, paths, and onto compost pile. *

Put down slug bait to reduce the overwintering population

Prune roses**

Remove weak or crossed branches on trees (very important in our high wind area)

Cut back blackberries as much as possible

Mulch if possible

Some people have quite extensive lists.  Google fall garden cleanup.  Mine is short because of the area I have to deal with, and because some of the finer tuning you can do to a garden is wasted on my wild landscape.  Happy gardening!

*Most people with well-sculpted gardens should not rake leaves into their flower beds.  This will help overwinter pests right where you least want them.  It's better to bag your leaves or compost them.  If composting, make sure the leaves aren't the last thing to go on the pile.  They'll just blow away.  No matter what you do, shred the leaves if possible.

**Around here it gets cold enough that it's a very bad idea to prune back roses as hard as the experts suggest.  Those extra branches help the plant shelter itself by collecting leaves and snow.  I prune down to no lower than 12", and leave a few small branches.  This helps my survival rate immensely.  Then, come the last of the really cold weather before first bud (or Valentine's Day, if I'm impatient) I'll finish pruning the roses, with main limbs cut down to the lowest strong bud at least 6" off the ground, and I remove most or all of the minor branches.

Spiiiiideeeerss!

I'm an arachnophobe.  I've gotten better over the years through desensitization, but there are some things that still make me freak out.  I don't know why!  I know spiders are small and easily managed.  This doesn't help me.

I know most of them don't have painful bites, but it's not the bite that freaks me out anyway, though I don't consider their bites trivial either.  I don't know if an arachnophobe can adequately describe how a spider's movements send a shudder of alarm through the system, though it's not all that different from the movements of a beetle, a bug I'll willingly (and in the case of a ladybug, eagerly) pick up.  The sizes and textures that spiders come in, again, aren't that radically different from many insects.  There are lots of hairy, spikey, long and short legged insects of various dispositions that have spider-like qualities.  It's not the webs per se either.  I have a fascination for webs.  Yeah, they're unpleasant to get across the face (bleh!!!!!) but they're not radically different from tent caterpillars or spider mites or any number of silk-producing critters.  In fact, in a side-by-side comparison, tent caterpillar nests are weirder, nastier, dirtier, and more extensive in most cases.  But what freaks me out?  The spider web.  The spider crawling on the wall (or on me!)  Teh yarg factor when it comes to spiders has no comparison in Kami's little world of fears.

Last night, little baby spiders hatched.  I think more than one nest has hatched at the same time, because we have them both in the kitchen and in my office.  Normally I get all weird about killing spiders.  There's something just as unpleasant, if not more unpleasant, about killing them or having them killed as there is having them running around in my space.  Whereas a squished fly fills me with satisfaction, a squished spider sends shudders of horror through my system.  I know this makes no sense!  

Anyway, I'll make an exception for massive spider slaughter when it comes to baby spiders.  There's nothing for it but vacuuming.  Because they get everywhere.  They drip from the ceiling, and make little spider highways that dangle and loop and bridge from light fixtures to corner nooks and across doorways.  At least with baby spiders, my arachnophobia doesn't go into full heebie jeebie panic dance mode.  Even my twisted, pitifully insecure, irrational brain won't respond with a full adrenaline dump to a pale dot drifting through the air.  But I still find it really, really unpleasant, and now I itch all over.

Oh, oh!  Maybe I can make a comparison that non-arachnophobes can relate to.  Lice.  My reaction to spiders is like most people's reaction to lice.  You don't care if they're not on you personally, right?  The horror--and nothing feels clean for a long time, and there's the obsessive laundry washing and bagging of toys and going to the store for shampoos, combs, anything ...  except with spiders, I don't have to poison myself.  They're much easier to get rid of.  My emotional reaction to them, however, is just about the same.  Close enough to get a feel for it.  And just like parents of middle school students that have to deal when the inevitable time comes when the child comes home with a note from the teacher, I have to deal with spiders, especially when I garden.  Unlike lice, however, spiders often just drop right in front of your face with a happy "Surprise!"  And they're everywhere.  All the time.

Some spiders are just so cool, I can appreciate them.  Preferably at a distance.  Tarantulas are one group I can tolerate pretty well.  And the common yellow and black garden spiders argiope aurantia (which around here are actually uncommon) are full of awesome.  (My local ones tend to be yellow and brown, but they're the same species.)  Maybe because they're polite and remain outside at all times.  Anyway, though I wouldn't be thrilled to have one crawling on my arm, the fact that this is unlikely to happen fills me with admiration and relief.  Most large orb weavers drop to the ground as quickly as possible when their webs are disturbed, and leave us poor humans alone.  Now that's a spider I can like.

Soil Toil

People who've never had acreage sometimes think they really want acreage more than anything in the whole world.  I love my acreage, but ...

I worked outside from about noon until dark, with a couple of breaks for food and water.  At one point I was working hard enough that sweat dripped off my nose, my usual signal that I've hit that stage in exercise where I'm actually changing my physique instead of maintaining what shape (or lack thereof) I've got.  What did I accomplish for all this effort?  The individual pieces, clearing about 80 feet of paths, cutting the blackberries from around a bench, and weeding about 500 square feet of garden, sounds like a lot.  When you look at the acreage, though, it's hard to tell the difference between what it looked like yesterday and what it'll look like first thing tomorrow morning.  In fact, I'd have to guide you to the area so you could see it and compare it to the unweeded, uncleared areas.  And when I mean I weeded, I mean I took out the noxious and unsightly stuff.  I left behind heaps of what people would consider weeds, including seedlings that will later need to be pulled, and what I call benign weeds that will stay--various varieties of daisies, native thistles, goldenrod and stuff that either feeds birds or is somewhat ornamental.  If I tried making this all look like something out of a landscaping magazine, I'd be very, very unhappy with what I have.

That's life with acreage.  If I put in a hard day's work every day the weather allowed for a year, and I had enough money or other resources (like donated plants,) this place could be well-groomed, with wild areas that lacked invasive weeds, and little hiding places with seating made from our local rock and downed trees, and there'd be multiple paths down to the woods, and all the veggie and flower beds would be edged so that the grass doesn't grow into them quite so fast.  

But I'd be neglecting everything else to do this.  So I make a little progress every year.  Sometimes for several weeks I'm out there putting in 8-14 hour days so that things look reasonably decent.  Sometimes I have to let it go for a few months, and then I have to make up the lost ground.  Spring is the usual time I lose lots of ground.  It's too wet to mow most days and the grass grows like crazy, and the ground is often too soggy to work in any way, including weeding.  

Strategies that people can use in small gardens are often out of reach here.  Like mulching.  About 5 yards of mulch will put a dent in things.  I'd need twice or three times that to lay down a properly thick bed of mulch that will reliably keep weeds down (and help make the ones that pop up really easy to pull.)  That's just the ornamental part of the garden.  Add in the veggie part and I'd need another 10 yards of mulch to do that right.  Around here (buying a yard at a time) that's over $500 worth of mulch.

The same sort of time/volume things come up for everything--planting annuals, seeding, deadheading, fertilizer, border plantings, edging paths, pruning roses (I have lots, though you can't really tell,) mowing (we have about 2 acres that need mowing,) putting up and maintaing fences, and all that other stuff that helps maintain a property.  Our goats help with keeping the brush and grass down on about an acre and a half, though we still have to pull tansy out of their field.  The rest is all us.

If this sounds like something you want to devote a significant portion of your life to, then owning acreage is probably a great idea.  If you want low maintenance, forget it.  Seriously.  You're better off with a tiny yard with no lawn, just a bunch of shrubs and a thick layer of bark dust (our local term for bark chips.)  Sometimes when I come in, arms scratched and sunburned from wrist (where my gloves end) to shoulder, yanking out thorns from blackberries and roses, a rash below both knees down to my ankles from grass, hands aching, exhausted and thirsty, I long for a tiny yard with no lawn and a thick layer of bark dust.  But then I get a tall glass of cold water and stand out on the deck, surveying my garden, and it all seems worth it.  Even when it's a mess.  Even when it's overwhelming and seems like it'll never be right and beautiful.  

It's the journey, not the destination.