There is always an excuse for not writing. Last week we traveled out of state on a vacation. Finding time to write was harder than normal, but it wasn’t harder than I expected. The writing was unsurprisingly useless, so I am throwing it away. For the first time in 1000 Days history I’m taking crap writing and I’m pitching it.
As a matter of full disclosure I should note that there are more days in the last gap where I didn’t even try to write than there are days where I wrote and I’m throwing it out. I wouldn’t want you to think things had changed much around here. Tomorrow I’ll work out the date for day 1000; today I need to get to writing.
Evening came quickly to the Tall Rock River, but it lasted for hours. Bale admired the shadowed jungle rising out of the water a hundred feet or more. The canyon’s rim might have even been another hundred higher than it looked from where he poled his flat-bottomed boat; the slope tricked the eye. The deep, black water remained placid for miles between his home and [his destination], but it shallowed in two places. The first—an hour into his journey—from a long-ago slide that created a broad clumsy waterfall. And the second, just ahead. He passed the portage so he could slide out of the day-long shadow and into the golden beams of sunset where a westerly branch of the canyon allowed one last peak of the sun. [trying too hard here]
Let’s just get this mess posted.
256 words on day 970
Hopscotch Portage
Two days in a row again. Nice.
Bale poled upstream of the put-in, out of the shadow of the steep jungle slope, to feel the sunset warm his arms. Evening came early to the Tall Rock River, but it lasted for hours.
That’s nearly all I meant to write yesterday. Sometimes I get caught up in the mechanics of reproducing the mood of a photograph I use to spark my daily writing that I forget to just write the even and let the reader make up their own mood.
Moving on…
The flow of the slow black water wouldn’t let him enjoy the day’s end long. He angled the square bowed boat so that it would drift downstream onto the sand bar of the put-in.
Hopscotch Portage was as far upstream as Bale had ever been without his father—it was as far upstream as he’d ever been alone. Any other night might find two or three riverers on the down side and maybe a handful on the top side he could chat with or share a fire, but it was opening night of the [something] Rendevous. The Tall Rock was empty save for him and the otters.
He bounced the stern just before hitting the bar and slid in smooth and high without needing the pole to correct. Stepping over the crate amidship and hopping from the bow, Bale made it to shore without getting his feet wet.
xxx words on day 971