Okay, so I am upending my blog for the month of November, because I have decided to try to do NanoWriMo again. Last year, I think my half-hearted attempt led to about 45 aimless, frustrating pages about politics in Minnesota in Fall of 2002. It’s a project I haven’t touched since last November I think.
The difference this time is that I think I have a really good idea, and I am going to marshall the resources of my blog to maintain momentum. I think I’ll even use Twitter (which is still stupid). But as you can see, with this oncoming sea change, I’ve decided to hit my blog over the head with a hammer and move things around and add some rounded corners, because everyone knows that rounded corners are an important component of websites this day & age.
I am not sure what I will write about my writing, except that I am going to try and put a little something on here every day to gauge where I am and what I have done. And of course, some kind of word counting widget because I am really taking this seriously, seriously?.
The cool thing about this theme is that there’s a lot of room to play around in it, and I fully expect post November and even running up to it a little that I will try to write about things I watch. It’s an important writing exercise, and one that I have failed at ever since Eugene & I went to Minnesota. This was a very good trip, and with the stress and alarming ridiculousness of work lately, I have been thinking back on what a good time it was. Sure, there were a few moments of despair: the feeling of getting flanked by mosquitoes every night, the frustration of the first few moments we set into Gunflint Lake to paddle, with the wind whipping across the lake, pulling our canoe in the opposite direction as we attempted to right our way. But all in all, it was hard work and we made it, and even though the part of the Boundary Waters we were moving through was mostly burned down recently, even the spareness of the landscape was comforting.
Here is a picture of our route, which I know is duplicated from just two posts ago, but I’ve overlaid in four separate colors the route we took. I am not sure of the exact portages, as I know we missed a couple here and there and probably took a couple we hadn’t originally planned on, but for the most part we were able to navigate and know where it was we were. I finally felt like I got to relax a little there, and the past two months I have been thinking about it, and hagiographing moments where we worked together, paddled along, and didn’t flip the canoe over (I did that part on my own).
Our route: we started on the lower right, in Gunflint Lake. Midway through the second day, we began to fantasize about ice water and fresh lemonade. On our way out, in Grand Marais, we ate at a fish stand and the ice cubes did not disappoint. Nor did the Root Beer Lady.
