29. June 2009 by Starr.

Today, after a splendid weekend…I find myself needing to organize and rework my surroundings, which helps me to reorganize my thoughts.  VanMeer Manor is the place in my mind today…so there is the place with which I will slip into the rabbit hole and do what I do…

 Saturday I met a stranger at a conference center in St. Louis…it’s interesting when we meet someone that we feel an instant “connection” with…a friendship….a kinship?  To the woman with a heart for Christ that I met, from Waynesville…Godspeed to you as you teach those children and find your path in  your new surroundings.  Sometimes we need to find ourself in a new place, to find a new place within as well.  I don’t know your name but I know you’re reading this…my prayers are with you, my sister.

 Now…to open the door to which Maximillion will have previously polished the doorknob to it’s gleam… 

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23. June 2009 by Starr.

 Yesterday, I  spent the day floating down the Current River with family.  Some of my family was missing, however, and I was quite aware of their presence not being with us.  But the day was fruitful and the water inviting.  Time out of my home-office is necessary for relxation of the mind.  It always amazes me how, when in moments where I am “winding down,” the best ideas occur to me.  When I’m still and just listen and relax, my mind opens to new thoughts and ideas.  Yesterday was a day of play and reflection, today is a day of networking and research with adventure and fun sprinkled in.  I can’t think of anything I do for work as anything but great fun…and I can’t think of any adventure where I can’t find something within it to use in a story or an article.  Adventure and work just go together…that’s the blessing of getting to do what I love, as a career.

While I’m at Mansfield, I plan to visit the Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Museum and Home and visit the cemetary where she and her husband, Almonzo, are buried.  As a writer, I look up to Laura Ingalls Wilder.  I have always enjoyed her Little House books, and loved reading them as a young girl.  I also read them to my classes when I was teaching.  Her books survive the times and almost anyone who reads them, can take away from them many lessons and valuable insight into life.  I can only be so lucky as to be able to do that with my own readers.

“It is the small things, that are the most important, after all.”  Laura Ingalls Wilder

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6. June 2009 by Starr.

Last night, various characters from “Something’s at the Gate” were in my dreams.  Sometimes it’s hard to get them out of my head, and I don’t want to, anyway.  I like that they’re there.  I think it’s a good thing, that they are real to me.  For, it causes me to truly care about what they’re going through…what they think and feel and where they are going, or aren’t.  If characters aren’t real to me, they won’t be real to readers.

 The two male characters, Rats and Mekiah, continue to butt heads and compete, not only in my dreams, and how I see them, but in scenes when they are together.  It’s not that they want to upstage each other, but they each have their goals targeted.  They both want to win.  They both want to live.  They both want to die. 

A couple of weeks ago, I heard Mekiah clearly say in my head, “It’s like I swallowed a dark potion of no regret…and it has overtaken me.”  Today…that’s where I begin on this beautiful sunny Saturday…at the point at which Mekiah swallowed that potion.

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4. June 2009 by Starr.

I like to focus on the little ideas and the little signs, as much as the large ones.  Especially those ideas that just nag at me and don’t seem to want to go away.  Those are the ones I pay especially close attention to.  I have always believed that is one of the ways God guides me.  He gives signs along the way to point me in the right direction or sometimes, just to give me a little nudge that may indicate that I’m on the right path, or working on the right idea.  I know that God must have an awesome sense of humour, because some of the things He has used over the years as signs or ideas have been quite unusual, like the Pickerel Frog I saw in a small cave near Alley Mill , for example.

 In various scenes in book one of the Enduring Forever Trilogy, Something’s at the Gate,  there are several scenes down in the cave system where herbs, flowers, roots and mushrooms are used to make healing salves, tonics and etc., so when I was rolling an idea around in my mind about a specific poison that Wynter, the main character needs to make in book two…I knew she needed to do it down in the cave, but I wasn’t sure how or what she was going to use to do it. 

 While I was at Alley Spring, I had scenes playing out in my mind’s eye that I was planning to construct from that area, I was paying close attention to the wild flowers, water cress, trees and other fauna.  Then the frog was pointed out to me, which, at first, was just a flicker of an idea, but of course, I questioned at first if the idea of using that frog in that poison would work at all.  After a friend did research for me on that frog, I learned that the little frog in the cave was the Pickerel Frog, which, even though a small amount of it’s skin toxin will not stop a human, it’s toxic secretions definitely have poisonous qualities to other frogs, snakes and mammals and in large doses can be harmful to those who have not developed an immunity.  That was when the “Aha!” moment hit.

 This is the only poisonous frog native to the U.S., and it’s only seen active from April to October, for the rest of the year it is in hibernation in bottom debris and silt of their aquatic habitats.  I had already been seeking something to assist my character with her poison, inside a cave, in the summer, that would also fit the other criteria she needed as far as other mammals and snakes…and this little frog is the perfect tool.  I honestly didn’t think of that, nor did I even know about this type of frog.  That frog being in that spot, that day, in that little cave, was a small sign…a small idea, that is the stepping stone to help pull my plot along. 

 When I see signs like that or feel ideas come into fruition, even before I’ve started writing the first line of that scene…I know I’m onto something. 

 ”Ideas are like stars; you will not succeed in touching them with your hands. But like the seafaring man on the desert of waters, you choose them as your guides, and following them you will reach your destiny.” - Carl Schurz

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3. June 2009 by Starr.

Dr. Rolfe Mandell at work.Dr. Rolfe Mandell at work.

Today is a great day for reflecting!  As I spend some time relaxing and unpacking/unwinding from my trip, today I plan to spend a little R & R time then reading over emails and posts in my group on facebook before getting busy.  I will be transcribing the notes from my interviews from the dig site this evening and I can’t wait to begin working on the article from that information.  I am emailing one of the editors at Ranger Rick this evening, to toss them my angle and I hope to peak their interest in the interesting work going on at Alley Mill.

I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Rolfe Mandell, who is Associate Professor, Archeology, and Associate Scientist, Geoarcheaology/Quaternary Geology from the University of Kansas.  It was thrilling hearing his thoughts about the dig site and about the artifacts they have found there, dating the Dalton era, which is about 8,000-7,000 BC.  Drawn to the spring water, the cliff wall for shelter and the probability of good hunting in that area, the Dalton people used the area at Alley Mill for a campsite.  I am looking very forward to joining Dr. Mandell and his crew around June 15th for another dig at Alley Branch Cave, about 1/4 mile from the mill.  He will be looking for artifacts in this untouched and unspoiled cave that has not been open for public access.  I look forward to writing about that excursion, as well and am thankful that they are letting me tag along.  Since my novel also has many scenes within cavern structures, I hope this cave will ignite some new inspiration for me.

 I also enjoyed meeting Jack Ray from Missouri State University, who is a Research Archaeologist.  He has been the on site supervisor for the Alley Mill expedition from the beginning.  He was able to give me valuable information and was ever so helpful and pleasant.  Jim Price from the Missouri Conservation Department and several other volunteers from the Missouri Archaeology Society (Ozarks Chapter) and grad students from Kansas University were there.  I look forward to posting some pictures on my website and group in facebook on some of the exciting things I learned from each of them.

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1. June 2009 by Starr.

     Recently I was swinging through Eminence, Missouri, to explore the sites in that area.  It is a lovely place where the two rivers meet, and is surrounded by natural springs, caves, and interesting landmarks.  While I was at Alley Mill, I stumbled upon an archeological dig on the site.  I had the pleasure of meeting archelogists from Kansas University, as they were preparing, along with some students from the university, to excavate the area.  They had already found tools that had dated back to the Dalton area.  It is fascinating to be standing in a spot where you know others stood, in a different time, a different place…10,000 years ago.

      I was honored to be invited back to the site to take photos and interview the archeologists, along with a few others who would be working there today and tomorrow.  I have been enjoying my research in preparation for this journey.  I plan to not only write some non-fiction articles on the dig, as well as the archeologists themselves, but use the information gathered for my novel.  I also plan on exploring various other sites in the Eminence area today. 

     Today is a beautiful, sunny day here in Missouri. . . the perfect day for research and working on location.  I’ll take pictures to share by posting on my site.

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