Katerina is hopelessly addicted to stories. She loves to experience the stories of others and to create her very own. After all, all she is is a story.
April 20, 2017 Estell Manor Park THE RUINS OF a munitions plant lay hidden near the bank of a river in the Pine Barrens of New Jersey. The plant, now only a broken shell of crumbling brick walls with empty windows and doorways, had once been filled with activity—as well as explosives—during the Great War. A century later, nature has reclaimed her land—but the memory of the past yet remained, ingrained in each leftover brick of the former plant. The nearby river appeared completely ordinary, flowing calm and smooth and blue—but, oh, what it must have witnessed over the decades, the centuries! The river watched as the munitions plant was built, brick by brick; the river watched as workers labored to birth deadly, unforgiving weapons; the river watched as the building fell into decay and the woods slowly but inexorably asserted their ground once more. . . . The ruins of a powerhouse and, beside it, a still-bubbling artisan well kept the former munitions ...
On Thursday, May 17th, the wanderer finished the first draft of her Irish novel, The Voyage of Bran (the first draft of a novel she's ever fully completed). The first 50,000 words of the novel were written during the month of August 2017, and the final 20,000 words were written during the first half of May 2018 (which means the entirety of the novel was technically written during a month and a half-long span!). The finished first draft is 70,883 words, 38 chapters, and 280 double-spaced pages long. On May 28th the wanderer leaves to make her return to Ireland. This time, she will be visiting the Emerald Isle for ten days, staying in turn in Belfast (her first venture into Northern Ireland!), her old summer hometown of Galway, and Dublin. She cannot wait to explore places both old and new, and to collect more inspiration and muse for her Irish novel. This time last year, before she came to Ireland for the first time, her novel was only a collection of ideas and scribbles...
June 1, 2017 The wanderer's backyard I try to keep my garden of optimism neat, but pesky pessimistic weeds make it a grueling feat. The vines they come a-creeping ere my hands have left the ground, smothering my flowers every time I turn around. I plant new seeds and watch them as they wither and decay; I prune my plants with care and sigh as each leaf falls away. I dig and dig but ne'ertheless the weeds invade once more, till eventually I fear I'll be consumed by this wretched chore. And then one day a bird alights beside me in my garden: it pecks and plucks the rotten weeds and my flowers bloom again. In other news, Phillop the lopsided willow has almost reached the ground, and the chipmunks are merrily larking about as usual. Life prevails, weeds or no.
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