It really is magical, and in an almost overwhelming way. Beyond the clutter of chocolate shops (heaven!), horse-drawn carriages and town squares, meandering wherever your eyes and feet take you, you’re still plunging into beauty and enchanting vistas every step of your way. Canals, swans, medieval gables, exquisite masonry, slinky alleyways with views of steeples above lanterns, a trove of architectural treasures… Every night we returned to our B&B in disbelief, so impossibly beautiful is that gem, Bruges. I’ve never seen anything like it…

A Bruges Canal

Center of an Enchanted Garden of Churches (my name for it, anyway)

View Reflected in Autumn Colours on the Minnewater (Lake of Love)

Inside City Hall

Night and the Boats

Red Leaves, Green Benches and an Arcaded Amble (does Bruges even know how to not be picturesque??)

Two Swans in the Mist among the Red Bricks

Door onto the Canal in the Garden of Churches (as I call it)

Canal View (also featuring the guesthouse)

The Iridescent Moon (that turned out to be the sun)

Belfry in the Fog and the Birds Swooping About It

First, at the gym. The sign read “Attention Spinners” (blabla).  I read it as “Attention Snipers,” which of course tempted me to read on.

Then the second door.  I was going up in the elevator and the doors opened for a moment on a floor no-one left at.  Looking back at us, waiting for the elevator going down, was a man carrying a door.  I smiled. Will it open onto wherever he wants it to?

The third door was on the street, on 59th near Park Avenue, in the middle of a bunch of construction. It’s so rare one receives a personal invitation from a door:

A Commanding Door

And yes, my post is about nothing more than that–a loving aching last hug to now.

Central Park view

I set myself two challenges, one mental and the other physical. And I arduously died a million writerly agonies over three chapters that needed minor remodeling. I’m finally done with chapters three, four and five, and am onto six and seven–six being mostly grafted on the page now. Knowing me as I now do (writing demands I face myself very frequently and with greater chances of being unmasked), I realize six is still in its nascent stages. It will take on layers, it will be interwoven (very likely) with other threads to unify it more tightly with its cohorts. But that will happen in waves. For now my immediate tasks are to round out six and to unroll seven, which to me is an exciting prospect indeed, as seven is chock-full of thrill and mystery and delight.

I find in writing that when the road is dark and unseen, it’s exhilarating and frightening–so good times are ahead. As much as the unknown is terrifying, there’s something compelling about it, a lure to a danger that is oneself. So chapter seven from here is heady and wild, and although navigating the “how to lay it out” requires consideration and focus, that fire is intoxicating to the writer-moth. It’s when the work of writing is focused exclusively on technical issues (such as my reworking chapters three, four and five this month), that for some reason I myself set mental blocks which can be so crippling to my progress. But I suppose that’s writing–the struggle for the craft to tell one’s story. And the shattering of blocks.

It was partly to develop my fortitude and partly as a form of avoidance that I set myself a mental challenge this month. I’d heard that Noel Coward wrote his play, Private Lives, in four days. So I decided to write a play in four days. Don’t bother telling me this was illogical; logic has its place and its place ain’t here. Anyway, what a lesson in torment! And yet also in harnessing energy, in discipline, in focus, in breaking through patterns of resistance. In desperation.  I can now add Noel Coward to my short pantheon of famous people I resent for what I’ve experienced thanks to them. (The other person is Matthew McConaughey for this reason.) That said, it was useful.  I found myself recognizing a deeper source of stick-to-it-iveness than I’d hitherto called upon.

My other challenge was easier: to walk 100 miles in October. It’s October 31, 6:52am, and I can tell you that I’ve walked 99.3 miles. Just walking to work and back will bring me my desired total.  Naturally, I can’t leave good enough alone. My goal for November is to walk those 100 miles by November 20.

Heaven forfend I sit back and relax.  And now it’s off again, for I have a chapter six to ready for a chapter seven that will blow it out of the water.  I hope all and sundry are well and rocking!

Ah, and if you’re looking for fun reading, here’s a blog I bumped into during my Four Day Experiment In Self-Torture (also known as “The Play Weekend”). I admit I googled “what possessed me,” I think you can imagine why, and then enjoyed traipsing about the world of this blogger: What Possessed Me.

Painted with Fire - Paalen/Fumage, 1937

another painting by Dao Hai Phong

My internal clock’s gotten very happy about this, and I suppose it’s now trying to please me by waking me as early as my mind can handle it.  Or maybe my own commitment level is such that I can’t allow a simple detail like “nighttime” to get in the way of my arising as soon as I sense myself anywhere near the tattered edges of wakefulness.

And so it is that this week twice already I’ve awoken around 2:10am, bright-eyed and writerly.

Here’s hoping I pick up the ability to nap.  It’s not one of my current skills…

candle at night

I jump to my feet.  I reach for a weapon.  Aha!  My TEACUP.  My Teacup of Doom!

And I run through the house, my teacup aloft, whipping open the doors, pressing against walls.

The assailants must have fled at the first sight of the shadow of my teacup, for my home was safe and empty of villains.

Another victory.

I put my weapon in the sink.  I still have this morning’s coffee cup in the living room in case the villains are so bold as to try again.

Because I’m always ready.  A hero is always ready.

No, no, Jersey–Independence Day is on the fourth, not the first.

But who’s complaining.  I got a lovely show across the river.  Two for the price of one.  One war, mind you, but that predates me by sufficient time for me to simply gaze at fireworks with almost no thought for that to which it hearkens.

Speaking of which, what is it about fireworks that so captivates us??

I’ve been very busily working on my two novels-in-progress.  In recent months I’ve been focusing almost exclusively on my first book.  I’m working on the second draft and discovering for myself the difference between writing and re-writing.

The book is so different right now.  It feels great.  :)  The story is the same, but ingredients are being stirred and prodded and various filaments drawn out and spiked–and suddenly the tale is told differently.  I also feel that my voice comes out in this version…which is great.

I’m enjoying the rewrite.

And I reckon I’m going to do a bit of a revamp on the blog–update my links, etc.  Fun times

How’s everyone else doing?

Imagine - a shrine for John Lennon