As I work on characters, I think of how the way they look at their circumstances changes everything. Take two characters facing the same events. One of them is grumpy, seeing only the negatives. The other chooses to see the positives. It makes quite a difference. I know I prefer to write about those who choose the positives. Just as I prefer living with such people.

A good lesson for me.

Summer is busy. Always. Garden, company, trying to pack all the good living into a few weeks. Sometimes it’s crazy. I could bemoan my busy-ness of find the good in it all. So in an attempt to do so I am going to list in no particular order things that make my summer good.

1. the garden. Peas, beans, raspberries, new potatoes. Despite a cool, dry spring the garden is bountiful. Here’s a peak at the raspberries. Yummy. We also had saskatoons and I made pies. Yummy.

2. birds. I love the birds of summer. Watching them, listening to them. Baby robins just learning to fly sit on the branch of the Mayday tree and mommy bird pops berries into their mouths. Barn swallows build a nest on the corner of the house and divebomb cats and people when the babies are getting ready to fly. A humming bird comes by each morning and evening to drink from the flowers.

3. Cats. Or more accurately, kittens. One of the best things about living on a farm is the fun of having a batch of kittens every year. So far I have had no trouble giving them away–even though it’s hard to say goodbye. This year we had 2 batches born about the same time with 4 in each batch. The two mother cats shared mothering duties.

4. Flowers. What can I say? Summer is a riot of flowers.

5. Company. It’s great to see friends and relatives. To catch up on the news. To sit and drink coffee and visit on the patio. To barbecue hamburgers.

6. Travel. Never enough time but at least I managed a research trip to Idaho. Hopefully I’ll make a few days trips yet before winter sets in.

7. Grandchildren. I love seeing them, listening to what they’ve been doing. I especially love getting news ones. Two new ones so far this summer and one more to go. Here’s a sneak peak at two babies and a five year old.

8. Last but not least is that all these wonderful things make me realize how blessed I am. Blessed by friends and family, blessed by the beautiful country I live in and blessed to know God loves me. I hope you too are finding things about you that make you rejoice.

When I am in the middle of writing a story I have a system going in my office. I know exactly which pile has the necessary information I seek and I can put my hand on it without searching. To others it no doubt looks untidy but as a little sign says, "Don’t mess with my desk."

However, my five year old granddaughter can’t read and the other day when she visited, she decided to surprise me by cleaning my office. She did a great job. The desk was clean. (Yikes. Where did all my piles go?). She dusted, vacuumed and put everything away. EVERYTHING. It took me two days to locate the copy of my Sept. release, Dakota Child, that I had besides my mouse. It took me three days to find the list of titles I had under consideration. It took me four days to discover where she’d hidden the books I wanted to list in my research library. It took me five days to find the battery charger. I still haven’t found the dental floss I keep handy. It was a nice thought though and gives me plenty of chuckles as I try and locate the missing items.

That reminds me of a conversation I had with a writing friend. When we first start a story there are so many ideas floating around. But where do they belong? Or do they? There are so many options to consider and each must be followed to a reasonable end to see if it fits. It’s like the writer’s brain is about to explode from all the ideas demanding attention. We discussed how to tame this beast. The best we could come up with was to spread out a big sheet of newsprint and create a mind map that tracked each idea. This is an illustration from wikipedia.

  The goal is not to make it pretty but to use it to nail the ideas to the paper and free up some brain space.

I’d like to find a way to keep ideas neat and tidy but I suppose this is the best I can hope for. Because from the chaos come the story. Somehow the story dances through the conglomerate of ideas and gathers the ones that fit. It’s a scary process. But also exciting.

And just as my piling system works, so too does the chaos of ideas.

Story ideas come in such varied ways. Sometimes like a train coming down the tracks at high speeds. For instance, reading a journal from the past can give me a clear idea of a story. Or touring a museum and having a curator explain some historically significant event gives me a setting and details that could well turn into a story.

Other times, ideas come like perfume on the breeze. I can almost smell it, almost identify where it’s coming from. There are occasions when I track the scent down until I discover its source. But other times, it remains illusive. Just a hint. Just a feeling.

The scent on the breeze came to me the other day while I was traveling across the country. It came in the form of a blue bike.

I first glimpsed it as I was taking picture of historical buildings. Just a glance in a doorway. I barely paid it any attention. But something about it drew my attention. I took a closer look.

That blue bike continued to tug at my thoughts. Who owned it? Where did that person live? Was she the owner of the shop where it was parked or there on business?

I continued on my travels and returned a few days later to the same town intent on doing more research. Unbelievably, I saw the blue bike again.

Now I was really intrigued.

For many of you, that would not be considered much of an idea. But for me, it is the beginning of a lot of questions and musings. Mind you, the blue bike will not make a story. It’s just one fragment. It takes more than one good idea to create  full-blown story. Perhaps hundreds are necessary.

Eventually, you will see the blue bike in  a story. It will be owned and ridden by a girl. She is the heroine of the story. You’ll have to wait to learn more. (Just like I’ll have to wait for more ideas.)

PS. Let me know if you see this blue bike in YOUR travels.

My client has been waiting for weeks for his new handicapped-equipped van. He wanted to go on a trip. I promised him I would take him. Last Saturday he got his van.        Monday we registered it, insured it and headed out. We returned Friday. He got to see lots of things, got annoyed with me for exploring out-of-the-way places and hopefully is now satisfied to stay at home for awhile. (Actually, I think it made him restless to be doing more, seeing more, going more. Sigh.)

That was one reason for the trip.

The second was for research. We explored the South West corner of Alberta where the historic ranches started. The countryside is beautiful and several of the ranches still operating. Here we are at the Bar U, now a national historic site.

We stopped at Fort Steele, a restored mining town, where we learned about panning for gold and saw the NWMP barracks of 1888.

We browsed through some pretty little towns in the Crowsnest Pass.

We crossed the American border and spent 2 days exploring around Bonners Ferry in Idaho. It’s a pretty place today. I think it was quite primitive back during the gold rush era.

Here’s the ferry Bonner started to allow the gold seekers to cross the Kootenai River.

We drove up the hills, crossed creeks, reached a rough dirt road crowded up to the side of a mountain until we reached Boulder City–a ghost town.

This is it. But it was worth the drive.

The third benefit of the trip was what Julie Cameron in her book, The Artist’s Way, refers to as filling the creative well. Not only did I learn a lot of history, my senses were saturated with the color and magnitude of the scenery we drove through. It’s hard to pick out a few to share from 500 photos. (Yes, that’s how many I took and yes, I am busy putting them into a research scrapbook. I expect it will keep me busy most of the coming week.)  I have selected a sampling of the beauty we saw to share with you.