The first cactus flower of spring!

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Originally uploaded by ellarien.

By the books, it's about a month early and two thousand feet below where it ought to be, but here it is; a claret cup cactus in bloom on the UA campus. It's a pity about the grass; I actually hand-weeded a bit around the thing, and picked out the stone chippings people had dropped in among the spines, one day last week, and got stabbed for my pains.

Struggling

Yes, I did write some words today -- in a notebook on the bus this morning. Later on I may type them up and add some more, but I'm getting to the bit where it isn't fun, already, and only hoping I can push through it and get my flow back.

EDIT: About 500 words total, in the end; heroine dressed and off to have breakfast, thanks to motherly friend who turned up with her things. I need to find some way to bring in a bit more detail about her instrument, in revisions; so far I've established that it means a lot to her, but not why, unless I actually use the essay-written-when-she-was-twelve that I wrote just before I ran out of steam last time. I've had some vague notion of using stuff like that as interstitial material between chapters, but that might be a bit too fancy and slow the action down too much.

( Whiny details about lack of flow. )

( Amateur angst )