Spring Is Late

Posted on by A.R. Geiger

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Not really.

It’s not late.

It’s only March, and March still feels like an arctic tundra in Colorado. I’m ready for warm temperatures and days that are not windy and freezing. We’ve had a couple. One or two. I even worked outside on my porch one evening. With my jacket. For about fifteen, twenty minutes. Then I got cold and went inside.

I’m ready for spring, basically. I’ve been on walks and hikes and tried to spend as much time outdoors as possible.

It hasn’t worked out for me.

I’ve frozen a couple of times.

I keep hoping it’ll somehow magically be warm when I step outside, and somehow, it never is.

My editor is sending me pictures of her gorgeous warm weather in Missouri. The trees have leaves, everything is green, and the river looks like heaven.

I’m so jealous.

Since I’m working from home for the next few weeks, it would be the absolute perfect time for warmer weather. I could work outside on my porch, get some actual sunshine, maybe get a tan. I can hope, right?

Maybe if I plant enough of my garden for this year, it’ll get warm. I’ve been adding to the collection of sprouts growing on my kitchen counter. I have peppers, three kinds of squash, and turnips growing there now. And some flowers. And a few other things that I’ve forgotten. Peas maybe? Basically, I’m just going to wait until everything pops up and figure out what I have then.

I’m going to have a fun garden.

Hopefully.

Most of it will be in pots, however. I’m going to do a container garden. So I can bring it in and out of my house and keep it safe from deer, grasshoppers, too much sun, frost, freak snowstorms . . .

Basically, Colorado.

Colorado kills gardens. Even in the spring.

Which, by the way?

Hasn’t arrived yet.

It’s late.

Are you ready for spring yet? Anything poking up where you live? Tell me about it in the comments!

New Life

Posted on by A.R. Geiger

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I planted carrots this week.

Carrots, zucchini, and radishes.

And bought turnip seeds.

I’m kind of excited. Spring may never actually get here because Colorado is constantly freezing and unrelentingly windy, but I will have radishes growing in window boxes in my house anyway.

We’re still not sure about the carrots and zucchini. They haven’t sprouted. When I finally get around the planting the turnips, I’ll let you know how those do.

I don’t really expect to live off of fourteen carrots, six zucchini plants, and an undisclosed but small number of radishes, but it’s nice to actually have something new and green and living in my house again. It may be cold and rainy and windy and snowy and muddy all at the same time in Colorado, but I have radishes sprouting, so Colorado can’t stop my tiny corner of spring.

Don’t tell it I said that because it totally probably can.

Anyway, despite the freezing weather, the quarantine, and my lazy butt that never seems to get much done when I’m working at home, life is moving on, and I’m excited to move with it. As long as we go somewhere warm that has sun.

Because I need sun.

Despite it being the WRONG time of year to plan for a garden, I am making tentative plans for a garden. Along with my assorted veggies, I have some flower seeds to plant, a gorgeous lavender plant, way too many trees to get started, and a vague idea about planting saffron, which apparently grows well in Colorado and likes our crazy dry-as-dust ground.

Saffron has purple flowers. And is a very expensive spice. So I’m tempted to give it a go.

However, like any good gardener, I am keeping an eye on the weather, and I’m pretty sure I have at least two months before I can plant anything outside. I think. Maybe.

Except we have blizzards in May sometimes, so maybe I’ll plant everything inside and just let it out for some sun on the days when the ground isn’t frozen.

Do you have plans for growing things this year? Tell me about it in the comments! When do you put things outside?

The Death of a Faithful Companion

Posted on by A.R. Geiger

60591187614__8ca26f69-213e-4cbe-b3ee-181e64ab4704-1I’m in mourning this week.

My car died.

I’m devastated.

Okay, not really. Because it was old and shabby and sounded like an airplane motor and smelled like diesel fuel. I tried not to hold it against it, but I did a little bit. Or a lot. I suffered through a lot of teasing because of that car. When I drove it, I sounded like I had aspirations for Nascar. The muffler was trashed, see, but I couldn’t tell people that when I stopped at a stoplight or revved my engine too loud in Walmart when I tried to park.

So it sounded like I just really liked my car and wanted to rev it really loud.

All the time.

But, despite its oddities, it was a good little car. We went a lot of miles together. I drove down to Missouri in it two years ago for my first solo road trip, it took me back and forth to multiple job interviews, and it was there for my first day as an apprentice scriptwriter.

I should have called it old faithful.

Actually, its name was Nat.

But, like I said, it’s dead now. Maybe I can resurrect it. But I kinda doubt it. It was about time for a new car anyway, and since I’m working from home for the next two weeks because of the crazy virus, I won’t actually need a car for a little while. So I have some time to go shopping and figure out what I want.

I’m a little excited. I have a bumper sticker from the famous Mark Ludy that I absolutely refused to put on my ridiculously loud, smelly, old car because I definitely did not want to waste it. Maybe now I’ll be able to pull it out and use it for my new one.

As long as I actually find a new one.

And my new one doesn’t sound like an airplane.

Any old faithfuls in your life on their way out? Tell me about them in the comments!

Sick Days and First Drafts

Posted on by A.R. Geiger

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I was sick this week.

No, not with a virus.

Just a cold. I promise.

But it meant that I was out of the office on sick leave. Mostly, I just slept on the couch. And watched Toy Story. And drank way too much water and downed vitamin C’s like candy, because who has time to be sick, anyway?

Thankfully, I seem to be on the tail end of it. For which I’m grateful.

Being sick messed with my writing schedule, both at work and in my personal projects. And lately, my personal projects have been anything but perfect. See, I’m writing the first draft of a story.

And first drafts are hard.

You know why? Because I don’t know what happens in the story. I don’t know who all these characters are. I write ten chapters, then half of it gets deleted because the story took a different turn than I expected and what I wrote doesn’t fit anymore.

Characters do things I don’t expect them to do.

Things pop up in the most unexpected ways.

Settings refuse to let me see them, so I have to feel my way around in the dark and hope for the best.

It’s all very confusing.

You’d think I would be better at first drafts by this time. After all, I’m a writer. A (sort of) professional. I get paid to write stories, and every story begins with a first draft. (Unfortunately.)

So I should have the process licked by this time, right?

Right?

Well, not exactly. Because the reality is, first drafts are hard. They don’t make sense. The characters wander in and out and change as you write them, and the setting never looks quite the way you imagined it would. Some parts are wordy and boring and others happen so fast that you forget to put any emphasis on the important bits.

For goodness sakes.

But, first drafts are not supposed to be beautiful. They aren’t supposed to be put together, or comprehensive, or elegant. They are supposed to exist, inconsistent characters, choppy dialogue, major plot holes and all. So I am embracing this new story in all its messy wonder, exploring this world without worrying about the gorgeous chaos I am causing. The characters can change and the setting will grow, and I will snoop my way through all of it until I have made a lovely, glorious mess of colors and lights and words scattered across the page in a completely incomprehensible muddle.

And when the first draft is finished and the last words are written, I can start completely over and make something understandable out of it.

When I get over this cold, anyway.

What kind of things are you allowing to be messy and beautiful in your own life? Tell me about them in the comments!

Snow Days

Posted on by A.R. Geiger

I’m snowed in.

Again.

Can you tell? This is the view out my front door. By the way, can you spot the deer in this picture? There’s a big old buck sleeping under the trees behind my swing there. You can just make him out if you squint.

Poor thing.

We’ll see if I get to work today. We have about five or six inches of heavy, wet snow, so it’s going to be a toss-up. Maybe my dad and I will risk it. Maybe we won’t. Who knows? Not me.

Is anyone else sick of snow?

Like, I love snow. I love Colorado. I love the wintertime. There’s nothing better than the feeling of watching snow fall next to my wood stove with a cup of tea and a book to read (or to write).

But enough is enough.

Seriously.

My driveway looks like a war zone. First ice, then way too much snow, then mud when it melted, then more ice, then more snow—you get the idea. It may never be the same. I mean, it was a dirt track in the first place. Now it’s a mud slide.

Plus, I have already gotten stuck—like, really, really stuck—once this year, been late to a meeting that was centered around my presentation (boy, that was fun), and had more snow in my boots than I ever care to think about.

It’s cold in Colorado.

Unfortunately, there is no end in sight. We’re at the beginning of March and snow doesn’t usually stop for another two months. Last year we had a major three day blizzard in May, so I’m hunkering down for a long wait.

So, since the snow is pretty deep, I’ll probably end up working from home today. Since I brought my computer home on Friday, that’s fortunately an option, and I’ll go back to my days as a homeschooled child, sit around the kitchen table at the Big House with some of my younger siblings, and work while they do their math. Maybe I can convince my mom and my sister to join us while they do their artwork, and we’ll have a school/work party with hot chocolate while it snows, and I won’t have to brave the rough roads and try to figure out how to get through the drifts in my short boots.

That is, if I can actually get out of my house and down the path to the Big House. That snow looks pretty deep.

What is your favorite way to spend a snow day? Tell me about it in the comments!