A few weeks ago I went on a quick girls’ trip up the North Shore to a gorgeously quiet cabin resort. Part relaxing-few-days before the insanity of the holidays hits, part traditional fall writing inspiration trip, we holed up in a two bedroom wooden cabin with no TV, no kids or spouses, and no concrete plans. Just books, snacks, and a blissful few days by my favorite inland spooky freshwater ocean.
One of my favorite phrases for Lake Superior is that she doesn’t give up her dead. Superior’s combination of extreme cold and extreme depth makes her dark waters inhospitable to the sorts of bacteria and critters who decompose dead things, and so shipwrecks that settle at the bottom stay there, unbothered. And those who drown can sink, never to rise again.
Since I was just a little ‘un, the thought of all the things that could exist, natural and supernatural, in the dark depths of that lake have often been on my mind. I have whole book series’ planned and outlined around them.
I have notes and inspiration and all the motivations to wrap up the novel in the next month or so after spending time at various excellent beaches and the view from our cabin. We did a little road trip starting at Black Beach in Silver Bay, spent time sitting on Iona “Pink Beach” near Split Rock Lighthouse watching waves crash in and out of secret caves within the rocks, hit up the requisite shopping at the agate store and Christmas store in Beaver Bay, all the fun usual things.
Then we stopped somewhere new, and discovered the following…interesting…signs:
This post is a little late going up because things are wild at my house right now with construction and holidays and such, but I have more coming in December and January as book reviews and writing have taken a front-row priority again. If you’re in the States, hope your Thanksgiving was wonderful and your short jaunt through the weeks leading to Yule are as slow as possible, because good GODS there is not much time there.
No Pithy Phrase 