"Start on page three." - Kurt Vonnegut

I like to call this Matt's First Pumpkin-Carving Experience. Note the dual faces. Yes, that is a bagpiper on one side and a funny face on the other. Happy Halloween y'all.

Shetland has been cooperating since we got back. Mornings are bitterly cold, bearable when clad in snowboarding gear, but beautiful. The North Sea has a seductive sheen in the mornings, glistening from the sun, calm after an evening of chaotic flow. A few mornings ago, I shared some rocks with six beached seals. Some were spotted, others brown, others gray, and all were fascinated with me. They didn't talk, but stared - their black eyes are mesmerizing. Perhaps it's the Kansas girl in me, but there is something magical about seeing seals in their habitat. And birds, and jackrabbits, and all the other animals that live every day somewhere. In Shetland, though, people exist with nature. There is talk of the whales someone spotted, the sick seal who washed up on shore down south. It's a healthy respect for living alongside the creatures who were here first. That said, there are no paper or plastic recycling facilities on the islands. Paper is burned for fuel. Plastic is tossed away with everything else. This is frustrating, even as a temporary resident.

We went south for a walk along the coast the other day. Scotland has a fab law that allows trespassing. Those who walk the peaty fields must respect the path and the animals, but have no limits as to where they go. This black-faced sheep followed Matt, then backed into the corner and stared at me. I figured he wanted to be immortalized.

I like this photo (above) because it shows the sense of how it looks here. This is around 50 meters from the coast (below). It really does feel like wilderness when you're the only two people for miles. It's always weird to think that this island is in the same country that claims London.

I fell in love with the sea when I moved to Seattle in 1996. Kansas is a two-day drive from any sort of coast. I had always found solace in the Colorado mountains, skiing down a piste or hiking or rafting. I never really understood the allure of the sea. Of course I didn't - I'd only been to southern California and to the busier Florida beaches. The ocean meant bikinis and surfing. Then I found a spot in Ballard, near Ray's Boathouse - this tiny park with swings that look out over Puget Sound and the Olympic Peninsula. That became my spot. A lot happened in my three years in Seattle, and that spot was a place of healing in many ways. The sea became sacred.

The endless faces of water fascinates me. The stillness, the chaos, the anger, the resilience, it's all overwhelming. The Shetland sea is a chameleon. Some days, the waves swell a hundred meters from the coast, push and push and thrash the rocks with fury. Other days, tiny ripples lap at the shore. Sometimes the swells are light, splashing on to the shore enough to hit the sidewalks. Seals like to body surf in these waves. I like going out to see what kind of sea is visiting that day, that moment.

I finished the first round of edits earlier today. I am, as ever, disgusted with some of the crap that came out of my brain. That said, some of it is okay. My guinea pigs have spared the barbarous slagging that the first novel received (and deserved!), so perhaps I've learned something already. The next phase is to re-read without stopping or editing, making notes on a separate piece of paper, checking things like consistency and characterization. I'm also doing NaNoWriMo with a story idea that's been kicking around in my head for awhile. We'll see how it goes. I've never just started a novel without having years of notes to rifle through to find a compelling story.

Editing is tough; you end up cutting things of beauty. And the unnecessary. Hemingway wrote an amazing short story: "For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn."

Life as a t-shirt

You know those t-shirts/hats/mugs/etc. worn by classy types that say 'London-Paris-New York'? Lived it. Yep. Amsterdam to Paris, baby, and watch us go.
I've always liked Amsterdam; it's a pleasant city, and I didn't even know there was a Red Light District the first two times I went. (I was 8 and 13, but still.) A girlfriend from university lives there with her husband and 10-month-old baby in the Jordaan, a leafy, brick and stone suburb about twenty minutes from Dam Square and the train station. Our first day was spent on their boat, weaving around the canals in the sunshine. It's the best way to see Amsterdam, from a boat with friends. We spent the rest of the week meandering around the town, shopping and stopping for coffee and wine in the sunshine. Perhaps I've become too accustomed to Italy, but I was shocked at the cleanliness of Amsterdam's streets. Few cigarette butts, and people actually use the rubbish and recycling bins. And the Dutch are very house-proud; flowers were still in bloom on verandas and porches, and even the more crumbling properties were tidy. Yet the tidiness wasn't intrusive; it didn't feel forced, or pretentious. And the air quality is fantastic. The dependence on bicycles shows when you can be out all day and not worry about treading through smog. Unlike in Paris, the next stop on the miniscule-Euro Tour.

I have a prodigious fear of Paris. Not that I've been treated poorly there, or have some inherent loathing of all things French; on the contrary. My last visits to Paris were thrillingly spent on various literati tours attempting to re-live A Moveable Feast. I've sang songs beneath a moonlit Eiffel Tower and dealt with transportation strikes (each time, by the way). And gained tons of weight in lovely restaurants. It's more to do with my absolute lack of French language skills. I can't even fake a merci without sounding like an asshole. This is difficult for me. And Paris is an intimidating city. It's lots of big, important, fancy buildings and has such a rich history that I know absolutely nothing about. It's my ignorance that makes me fear Paris.
(That's a pile of books at Shakespeare & Co.) I am lucky enough to have friends in Paris and a boyfriend who speaks enough French to flirt with waitresses, so this fear has now subsided, a bit. There is something quite fabulous about meeting up with friends at the Louvre for an afternoon of wandering and drinking among some of the most famously photographed places in the world. Sigh.

And the ruggers. All day Saturday we saw people in bright-blue France tops. We started the day in Montmartre, as I'd never been, where we happened upon a food and wine festival beneath the Sacré-Cœur. Matt was getting all sorts of love, thanks to a kilt and keen purchasing of both a bright blue beret and numerous flags to attach to his bagpipes (see above photo. He's the one on the right.). Then we moved on to the Seine, where we wandered most of the afternoon before hopping the RER to Stade de France. The atmosphere before the match was amazing. Somehow Matt learned La Marseillaise on the bagpipes and the crowd was magnificent, following him and singing at the top of their lungs. Shame about the rugby, but at least the pre-game was fun.
And now it's the end of our two-week soiree from Shetlandia. Back in Aboyne at Matt's mum's place, after three packed days of house-hunting in Inverness. Matt just put an offer in on a fabulous place on the river; we'll see what happens. It's not fun, this house-hunting madness. I've always fallen into my accommodation, so this is new to me, and it's tiring. But I'm excited about the move, and about Inverness.

Writing. The book is salvageable. I am actually happy with the state of it. I think my subconscious learned some lessons after the drama of the first book and the flow of the story is more consistent. I like the characters. I like the story. I actually forgot I wrote some of it, and found myself trying to remember where and when I put that sentence together. I wonder if all writers find themselves surprised by their own stream-of-consciousness, especially when it actually works out. I'm looking forward to being back in the routine of Shetland, of waking up and making tea and turning on Sven and typing the hours away.

"Traveling is like flirting with life. It's like saying, 'I would stay and love you, but I have to go; this is my station.'" - Lisa St. Aubin de Teran

a must-read

The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid. I finished it and immediately read it again, which I haven't done with a book in many moons. It's up for the Booker Prize and I hope it wins. It depicts the awkward, conflicting, passionate relationship a young Pakistani man has with a post-9/11 New York and, indeed, America. It's uncomfortable in places, and irritating in places, but clearly depicts the inner frustration of a young man desperate to forge an identity true for himself. There are some wonderful, pithy bits of prose, yet some overt metaphors and allegories that a child could identify; all in all, it is an intelligent and provocative book, and well worth a read. And perhaps a re-read.

Also reading: Paulo Coelho's Eleven Minutes (which came out in 2003, when I lived in Lisbon, as Onze Minutos, with a HUGE marketing campaign in Lisbon which got irritating after three months of seeing Coelho's face everywhere)...and the Rough Guides to Amsterdam and The Netherlands, as we'll be there Saturday for a week.

Oh, and the first draft is DONE!!! Giving it two weeks to simmer, and will print it out for the visual effect of a green or purple pen slicing through, page by page, desperate to keep my chin up as I read page after page of nonsense...

It's never too late - in fiction or in life - to revise. - Nancy Thayer

Let me start this with a shout-out to Bitwrathploob whom I sadly missed at the rugby last weekend. Sigh. Maybe one day our paths will cross again. Come to Shetland!

Matt's schedule this week is 4-11pm, so we've got the days to play. Today it was too rainy to cycle, so we drove south instead and found ourselves at Jarlshof, a fabulous archaeological site at the southern tip of Shetland. There is something quite moving about wandering around ruins dated back over 3000 years. It consists of layers upon layers of stone dwellings, most of which were hidden by turf until the late 1800s, when a violent storm ripped the turf away from the coast. It's a fascinating place, especially the 'wheelhouses', which divided the homes into rooms while supporting the turf above. Archaeologists think this place may have been a stopping point for passing Viking ships en route to Greenland, Norway, the Faroes and the UK. The place is drenched with stories, and wandering through the immaculately preserved ruins twists perspective on its head. Some of these buildings were used for 400 years, others for 1000. We toss figures like this around, and don't ever think of the lives this included - that's generations who lived in the same house, shared the same life.

The sun decided to come out in the early evening, so I took a walk. It is difficult to explain the peacefulness of Shetland at dusk. The hills gracefully float atop the sea, the clouds flirting with the sun and the hilltops. Bursts of sunlight shine in sporadic places on the hills, and the sea stretches out forever, to a horizon brightened by faraway blue sky beyond. The wind tonight came in gentle gusts, beckoning rather than shunning. For a brief moment, it was the most beautiful place on the planet.

I turned a corner at the top of a hill and saw a crowd (read: 10 people) gathered at a stone wall, staring at the sea. We've got an oil platform coming to town. Two large tugboats pulled a rig into the harbor, and this is Big News. As I walked back to the flat, I noticed more and more people sitting at the shoreline, watching the rig slowly slide through the sound. Oil is a big thing around here. Apparently BP wanted to drill, and Shetland got itself 1/3 of the profits before they allowed BP to consider the project. This island could easily be self-sustaining, with the windmills, the oil, and the sea. Tough characters here.

Website of the week: No Catch, a Shetland company dealing in sustainable seafood. I've had the cod and it's delicious. Book of the week: Kevin MacNeil's The Stornoway Way. One of the best Scottish novels I've ever read. It gives a glimpse of island life that is painfully honest - he got into a load of trouble with the locals (though he is from there) after it came out. He includes explanations of Gaelic words and expressions as footnotes, which are as amusing as the book itself.

Am now midway through the re-read of my first draft and, again, I am appalled by some of the things that came out of my fingers. Grammatical errors! Inconsistent characterization! But I've not thrown Sven across the room yet, and am still thinking about this story all the damn time, so I suppose it is salvageable.

I keep waiting for the Northern Lights...