Thoughts Too Early For Sense

At four-thirty in the morning, some things are oddly clear.

I woke at a quarter to three this morning, pulled the blanket over my head, and went back to sleep, feeling more tired than I have in a long time. Yesterday I worked on the Press all day (yes, 8 hours for this allegedly retired woman) and went to sleep exhausted. But I'd pledged to Bernie that I'd get up with him if he went to the day shift, so I staggered blearily into the kitchen at 3:50 to keep him company (and what good company I am when I'm exhausted and bleary) and make him a sandwich for his lunch. (I hope it tastes good to him. I layered white American cheese, cotto salami, bologna, and turkey sprinkled with Italian spices on a sweet French roll, condimented with mayonnaise and bread-and-butter pickles. Not a dish that I myself would eat except gaggingly at gunpoint. Sweet pickles, too gross.)

After Bern had left for work, I fired up my computer (this is me on the said computer) and had a look at my 2006 NaNovel. After three paragraphs, (after what, almost two months of not looking at the manuscript?) I was very surprised to be able to identify a defining style, one from 40 years ago, that impressed me mightily then and apparently influences me even now.

Kenneth Roberts. God rest his soul, I hope that doesn't make him turn over in his grave, but those first paragraphs, my first novel-writing escapade in a year, sounded like I was attempting to imitate him. Which is not a bad thing, just astounding. I only wish I could write whole novels as eloquently and as accurately as he did.

My father and I occasionally lamented that we ought to have traveled to New England and retraced the route from the Kennebec River where it meets the Atlantic all the way to Quebec, as described by Kenneth Roberts in his book, Arundel. (Mom, of course, would never have gone for it, so we didn't.)

It's 5am now, and I'm still tending the fire we had to re-start because I didn't wake at midnight to restoke it. Only semi-coherent, I wanted to pay tribute to K. Roberts and recommend to all and sundry his books Northwest Passage, Arundel, and Rabble in Arms. He wrote others, but those are my three favorite K. Roberts books, and I've re-read them many times, always enjoying dropping back into his stories.

Thank you, Mr. Roberts, for the stories and for the influence that helped me hop back into the writing saddle again this past year.