There’s that word again, Mr. Wolfe. Are you just messing with me now?
(p. 68 in The Wizard, by Gene Wolfe)
Indescribable
Blog
Writing Retreat 2020
Minnedosa writing goals
- Finish the last scene in “The Slow Apocalypse”, first draft
- 1,500−2,000 words a day in either Translations or “Dried Flowers”
- Photos of the Milky Way (possibly a video) and Comet NEOWISE
- Photos of the countryside
- Daily bike ride
- Some kayaking
The cabin doesn’t have wifi anymore, so I’m going to have to post stuff from the coffee shop. No promises of any kind of regular schedule.
A comet, an aurora, and the king of planets
Last night was nice and clear, so I grabbed my gear and drove about ten minutes west of town, hoping to catch Comet C/2020 F3 (NEOWISE).
It was about 10:30 when I got to my spot, and the sunset was still too bright to see the comet. I noticed Jupiter on the other side of the sky, so I snapped a couple shots of it first. I’m not 100% sure, but I think I got all four Galilean moons in the shot, too.
5 sec, f/1.8, ISO 100, 50mm
Then the sun set enough, and I swung back around to face northwest.
5 sec, f/1.8, ISO 100, 50mm
As I was getting ready to pack up, I noticed a haziness to the northeastern sky. I knew thanks to SpaceWeather.com that a coronal mass ejection had just arrived, triggering some aurora. So I put my widest lens on my camera and snapped a few more shots.
30 sec, f/2.8, ISO 800, 11mm
All in all, a good night. I even got to wave at the International Space Station as it went by.
These things happen
And then I got home, and made some notes, and it turns out that the “brilliant story suggestions” introduce some more conflict, at the cost of moving a few scenes around.
No spoilers for the short story, but it a) makes my antagonist a more interesting character, b) makes my protagonist have to make a very difficult decision, and c) allows me to illuminate how the protagonist plays games with the truth.
And now, to actually finish this draft.
Rideau Park
The Brandon one.
14 images in a panorama, each 24mm f/2.8.
Two sentence Tuesday
All the lies he’d told her were, so far as he knew, still undiscovered. To his credit, they were few, and mostly unimportant.
₣rom “The Slow Apocalypse”
I’m working on the last flashback section of my short story. It’s still in first draft. I’m not sure if these lines will survive the eventual edit, but I feel like they’re important.
Clouds
A bird and a reflection
I’m not sure what the bird in the photo above is; anyone know? It’s a wading bird of some kind, spotted down on 1st Street North near the river.
Here’s a larger version of the picture, in case that helps.
Update: According to my sister, who I think is correct, it’s a blue heron.
Also on 1st Street North near the river: a lamppost reflected in a pool.
A tale of two skies
We didn’t get the worst of last night’s storms. There was some lightning and thunder, a little bit of rain, and a 2½ hour power outage, but we caught the edge of the storm as it went by.
We did get some interesting skies, though.
Looking southwest at sunset 
Looking northeast at sunset
[twenty20 img1=“4043” img2=“4045” before=“Looking SW” after=“Looking NE”]
The river is high
But I guess 155mm of rain in a single day—honestly, in about 6 hours—and then another, what, 30mm in about half an hour a couple days later will do that.
Taken on a 20km bike ride on Canada Day.
I’m glad that’s not my truck 
A bug sunning itself on the bridge 
The storm knocked down some trees
[twenty20 img1=“4036” img2=“4037”]
The white lines in the image above show roughly where the water should be.