This is not just the Weather Channel..

I'm actually writing too. And reading.
One of the best gifts of being here (and there are so many) is the time to read, and really read, immersing into books and stories. I’m learning from many mentors: Alice Munro about slowing down, really understanding people from tiny small gestures and moments. Russell Banks is helping me veer away from sentimentality -- I’ll never write like him but I need a shot of the darkness and despair he captures so well. My own friend Michael who writes with such heartbreaking beauty, long intertwined stories that can take a disjointed week to read at home, but here, I can just sink in, take a whole morning, and absorb so much.

A few people have begun to leave early. The snowman who was born during the blizzard is melting down. There is less than a week left and I’m feeling simultaneously urgent, bereft and glad to be going home.

Meanwhile, it has taken me this long (weeks) to fully immerse in my own work, to wake up and feel inhabited by the story all the time, to feel like finally know it, know what I’m supposed to be doing.

I think I will do NanoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), just to try and keep up some sense of momentum when I get back. We begin next Tuesday, November 1st although I’m not starting a new novel on that day; I’m just going to keep going with what I’m already doing. Any other takers out there?