Author Archives: Lucy Weaver

Water and Roses

For the prompt “tea as magic.”

As in most cases, with human endeavor, it pays to be mindful of the details. I prefer glass for my instruments, so my teapot is clear glass decorated by a few golden stripes along the outside. My cups are small and round, in the Middle Eastern style, also made of glass. The whole set sits on a golden tray. Gold for life, for the sun, but also for softness and bending. Around my tea set in glass bowls sit my ingredients. Rosehips for the possibility of love. Dried petals of the hibiscus flower for dreams. Lemon peel (organic, there was a sale), for purification. Blackberry leaves, hawthorne, orange, mint. I wasn’t going to be using the mint today, but I took some out of its tin and put it in its bowl all the same, next to my favorite Assam. There had been a time or two when I had been happy to have mint close to hand, when dark things came calling.

I use a circular table made of maple wood that I got from my grandfather. The only fire I use is to heat the boiling water. Today my main ingredients are rose, hibiscus, lemon, blackberry. A few pinches of other things, well crumbled, go into the pot as well, and then I meditate as the water warms. Purification. An opening of hearts. Golden light sloshes within me in time with my heartbeat, like the tide on fast forward, out to my fingertips and back to my heart. I feel the pulsing steadiness of my center, as I let my intent encompass the room, feeling its boundaries. The doors through which my will does not pass, because I do not care for it to be so, the round window in one wall looking out over my garden.

My kettle, made of true iron, begins to steam. I hope the Senator likes his gift.

Easter and spring rituals

Winter Aconite in bloomIn the hills of western Massachusetts, the first flowers that bloom in my garden are winter aconite. Winter aconite is a small yellow flower in the genus Eranthis and the family Ranunculaceae. The Ranunculaceae is the buttercup family, and I must admit it isn’t one of my favorites. I favor water lilies and oak trees and peas. Still, when winter has so starved you for color that the green of a new bloom of algae is as welcome as swaths of bluebells or fields of lavender, I’ll take what I can get.

Traditionally, the first accepted sign of spring here is when the red-breasted robins arrive from their winter away. I’ve seen a few so far this spring, and skunks out hopefully seeking mates, a quest to which we leave them with all good will and the hope that they will do so far away from our backyards. I associate spring with the pale robin’s egg blue of the shells pushed out of the nest once the baby birds are done hatching. The association between Easter and eggs (and chickens) is a strong one, especially in the Norwegian tradition of my family. Here’s a tutorial about Norwegian egg painting, which also show up during family Christmas-time. Our creativity as a family has tended towards food coloring plaids, not the delicate designs some artists can muster.

Easter TreeWhat else symbolizes spring? New sweets, hidden carefully around the home, symbolize the thawing of rivers and the availability of new treasures and trade. Apple or cherry branches, brought inside to sit in water, bloom early when ‘forced.’ The promises of fruit and abundance and above all, to me, color. Winter is a pale, monochrome time, and reminds me of living on an army base (an experience I enjoyed but which brought home to me the importance of color in our lives, as I started to climb the off-white concrete walls). Yellow aconite, red and blue plaid eggs, pale blue robin’s eggs and red robin’s breasts. Green algae and pink apple blossoms. That, to me, is spring.

Tell me to write things

Hiya! I am hoping you will help me with some chronic writer’s block I’ve been suffering since I sprained both of my wrists about a year and a half ago. It was very unpleasant and thoroughly messed up my writing habit, because writing with no hands available was complex.

Here’s how it works. You leave me a prompt, which can be anything, and I will do my best to write about it. I will write at least 300 words per prompt, and may write more if the urge strikes me. I’ll be taking prompts all day, March 30. My goal is to finish writing all prompts by Saturday evening, so there will be livewriting and I’ll try to hang around in the comments if there happen to be any comments. Stranger things have happened.

Now, if by some happy chance, you want me to write more than 300 words or on more than one topic, my writing rates are $3/500 words. Alternatively, if you just want to throw in a tip, you can do that too. Money is very motivating to me. I use it to buy tea. Paypal linkie:

 




 

As I said above, prompts can be about anything, but I’ll also write story extensions if that’s what you’d like. I’ll write fanfic, too, but only if I’m sufficiently familiar with the universe in question. Stories I’m currently working on:
*Tapestry
*Brenda and Zombies, part of my zombie humor universe
*Medieval fantasy mystery series that needs a name
*Colony X, a new sci-fi story.
*The fanfic adventures of Zita (Taste the Rainbow)

Written so far and to write:

Almost-Livewriting

Just a quick note that I’m going to be doing something called a prompt call tomorrow, Saturday the 30th. The basic idea is that I’ll write 300+ words to any prompt people leave, including ‘please continue this story.’ More details will be posted in the morning, and the call will be open until Saturday midnight hits in the last timezone. I will try to have every prompt written by Saturday midnight my time (US Eastern).

You can pre-prompt if you like! Leave them in comments here, and I’ll start writing in the morning. For multiple prompts, my rate is $3 for 300-500 words or one Tapestry update, whichever is longer.

Longer Letter Later

A friend of mine commented last week that I sign almost all of my comments on her writing blog with ‘longer comment later.’ That’s how I feel about my writing right now, but I don’t want my notes to myself about writing Tapestry and the other stories I have percolating to be entirely ‘I am not writing as much as I would like.’ On that note, I am very pleased with how this latest batch of writing is going. I think I’ve conquered some plot holes and moved the story towards where it needs to be, and done some important things I’ll need later. I’m holding steady at a few posts a month, which is much better than no posts for six months, as has happened in Tapestry‘s history. Life continues hectic in a lot of non-writing-related ways, but I feel pretty optimistic about things there simplifying and sorting out as well.

Cooking

I ran into a neat recipe that I need to include in Tapestry – spiced potato shreds. I love including random recipes there.

I am working on moving to a different working/living situation, where I would hopefully have more time to write.

Back like Jack

My newest buffer goal is to have one week in buffer. I can generally write a maximum of four updates in a sitting, so I’m going to say that three updates a week is a good minimum.

Cloth of Kings is the title of Book Three of Tapestry. The trilogy after that is, and this is pretty tentative and subject to change, Jungle Dreams, River Dreams, and Mountain Dreams.

I won’t bore anyone (particularly myself) with what I’ve been up to for the past six months. Roughly speaking, three months of having sprained wrists and three months where I don’t have that excuse. Oh, and I went on vacation in Vermont in the middle of a historic heat wave. Did you know that in Vermont, no one realizes their air conditioner is broken until the third day of 90+ degree heat? True story.