Prehistory's End
PROGRESS REPORT
New Words: 3300 on Chapter 1 ("Those Who Came First") Part 4 ("The Sun Callers") of Arizona. Chaco Canyon's end and the beginning of the mountain pueblos. And so ends the gigantic prehistory chapter--next up, Coronado's expedition in 1540. I did today's work in two writing sessions, the first at home and then finishing up in the library's computer lab between lunch and work--discovering in the process that if I already know what I'm going to write, then I can write it even in a public place surrounded by talking people. Good to know for future reference.
Total Words: 64900.
Reason For Stopping: First going to lunch with Laurie, and then finished the scene right before work.
Book Year(s): 1133-1183.
Mammalian Assistance: Vegas guarded his boxes and my lap.
Exercise: A neighborhood walk with Tucker the Big Dog.
Stimulants: Dr. Pepper.
Today's Opening Passage(s): The heartbeat before Cheveyo and Cha’tima would have sprung forward with him to lead the defense, Makya grabbed Cheveyo’s arm. “This fight is not for you,” Makya told him. “Yours is to lead our family-lead all of those in this place who want to go home-back safely.”
Cheveyo quashed the flush of anger running through his body. His father was giving him a greater duty: Not just to lead the Hopituh home, but also to lead them once they were there, to protect them from the outside threats that had been slowly grinding their way towards Hopituh land.
Darling Du Jour: There were no Apaches. Any spirits kept quiet, or hid in the canyons. There were, though, a handful of scattered farmers trying to farm and only barely succeeding. Navajos. They remembered the Hopituh, gone from Chaco almost twenty-five years now. They held a little enmity towards Muna and the others and refused to trade with any Hopituh. But they did offer a warning.
“A bad place,” they all agreed.
She dipped her nose towards Pueblo Bonito, but they shook their heads, then again when she indicated Tzin Kletzin, where the Gambler had lived for awhile, and Pueblo Alto, where the Great Gambler once resided.
“All of it,” the eldest farmer told her. “All of it, a bad place. We’re making it better, washing it clean, rock by rock almost.” He sang a few words, indicating they were doing this through ritual and prayer. “But-too many summers. It won’t be clean again for a long time. Not until long after I walk with the spirits.”
Muna considered entering Tsin Kletzin and Pueblo Bonito again, but only as briefly as the summer rain. They were dead places to her now, even though the desert preserved them so well there might’ve been a thousand people living in them just yesterday. The Navajo refused to touch them. There were even still stashes of maize in storage pits.
The place she did stop was Fajada Butte and the Calendar Stones that her family still, though rarely, remembered with reverence. The stones were still in place, as she suspected they would be forever; the spirals behind them were every bit as clear as she remembered. But now they would be marking the Solstices, Equinoxes, and lunar maximums and minimums for no one. After only a moment she climbed down the butte and walked through the nearby gap and left Chaco for the last time.
Non-Research / Review Books In Progress: Turtledove; Finkelberg.
New Words: 3300 on Chapter 1 ("Those Who Came First") Part 4 ("The Sun Callers") of Arizona. Chaco Canyon's end and the beginning of the mountain pueblos. And so ends the gigantic prehistory chapter--next up, Coronado's expedition in 1540. I did today's work in two writing sessions, the first at home and then finishing up in the library's computer lab between lunch and work--discovering in the process that if I already know what I'm going to write, then I can write it even in a public place surrounded by talking people. Good to know for future reference.
Total Words: 64900.
Reason For Stopping: First going to lunch with Laurie, and then finished the scene right before work.
Book Year(s): 1133-1183.
Mammalian Assistance: Vegas guarded his boxes and my lap.
Exercise: A neighborhood walk with Tucker the Big Dog.
Stimulants: Dr. Pepper.
Today's Opening Passage(s): The heartbeat before Cheveyo and Cha’tima would have sprung forward with him to lead the defense, Makya grabbed Cheveyo’s arm. “This fight is not for you,” Makya told him. “Yours is to lead our family-lead all of those in this place who want to go home-back safely.”
Cheveyo quashed the flush of anger running through his body. His father was giving him a greater duty: Not just to lead the Hopituh home, but also to lead them once they were there, to protect them from the outside threats that had been slowly grinding their way towards Hopituh land.
Darling Du Jour: There were no Apaches. Any spirits kept quiet, or hid in the canyons. There were, though, a handful of scattered farmers trying to farm and only barely succeeding. Navajos. They remembered the Hopituh, gone from Chaco almost twenty-five years now. They held a little enmity towards Muna and the others and refused to trade with any Hopituh. But they did offer a warning.
“A bad place,” they all agreed.
She dipped her nose towards Pueblo Bonito, but they shook their heads, then again when she indicated Tzin Kletzin, where the Gambler had lived for awhile, and Pueblo Alto, where the Great Gambler once resided.
“All of it,” the eldest farmer told her. “All of it, a bad place. We’re making it better, washing it clean, rock by rock almost.” He sang a few words, indicating they were doing this through ritual and prayer. “But-too many summers. It won’t be clean again for a long time. Not until long after I walk with the spirits.”
Muna considered entering Tsin Kletzin and Pueblo Bonito again, but only as briefly as the summer rain. They were dead places to her now, even though the desert preserved them so well there might’ve been a thousand people living in them just yesterday. The Navajo refused to touch them. There were even still stashes of maize in storage pits.
The place she did stop was Fajada Butte and the Calendar Stones that her family still, though rarely, remembered with reverence. The stones were still in place, as she suspected they would be forever; the spirals behind them were every bit as clear as she remembered. But now they would be marking the Solstices, Equinoxes, and lunar maximums and minimums for no one. After only a moment she climbed down the butte and walked through the nearby gap and left Chaco for the last time.
Non-Research / Review Books In Progress: Turtledove; Finkelberg.