Howdy Posse!
I try to get at least 2,000 words written every day.
If you want to be a professional writer, it’s good habit to write daily.
But it’s also good to get up from the chair now and then.
Saturday I dropped my canoe in the mighty Oconee River (which is down to not much more than a mighty trickle because we haven’t had a good rain in a while) and got in a seven mile paddle.
The section of river we went down is one of my favorite routes.
We pass through the remnants of an old mill where you can still see a large portion of the rock dam they built. We hit the confluence of two rivers where a mill dam was added to about a century ago and converted to generate electricity. It’s been a long time since those turbines have turned, and over the summer they opened up that dam.
So there’s some extensive history on that section of river, as well as a lot of natural beauty. Most of that section has a great canopy of big hardwoods. The leaves were just starting to turn, so it was as pretty as it could be.
When we first put in on that section, we have to run through about a mile of rocky shoals as the river drops several feet through a garden of boulders.
I’ve run this section when the river was rolling, and though there was a fair amount of whitewater and rapids, the rocks were hidden well below the surface.
That’s a fun ride when the river is rocking along like that, and the rapids and drops get pretty exciting.
But Saturday, the object was to find the river between the rocks.
I paddle a big, lumbering 14-foot canoe I call “Big Turtle.”
The Big Turtle doesn’t maneuver in and out of tight spaces easily, and it doesn’t sit on top of the water like a kayak or a whitewater canoe.
When the water level is down, in some spots in the shoals, there literally isn’t water to float my canoe. Most of the guys I paddle with have experienced the “walk of shame” where they have to get out of their boat and walk it down the shoals.
It’s a dicey thing because the water in between the rocks can get deep, even when the level is down, and the rocks are often slick to try to walk on. Also, in October that water runs cold.
So my goal Saturday was to work my way through the shoals without getting out and walking.
It required a lot of back paddling. It meant really taking my time to find the right channel. I had to dig my paddle in and turn the hulking Big Turtle through some tight spots. A couple of times, to find the water flowing through the shoals, I had to paddle from one bank to the next looking for the right route.
My buddy Rodney has a little C-1 canoe that glides on the surface of the river and will turn a 180-degree turn if he just brushes the river with his paddle, so he slipped down those shoals like he was on a water slide at an amusement park.
When I got to the bottom of the shoals, Rodney was there waiting for me. We talked for a minute about how much fun it was picking our way through the shoals.
“It’s like a puzzle,” Rodney said. And then: “But the important question – did you have to get out and walk your boat?”
I was proud to report that my feet stayed dry.
THE GLORIETA GRUDGE
So, you may know already that my latest release is now out. “The Glorieta Grudge,” the third book featuring the character Rab Sinclair, launched last week.
I’m excited to hear what you think about it.
NEXT MONTH’S NEWSLETTER
I’ll have a little delay getting out next month’s newsletter.
I’m pretty excited that in November my oldest son and I are driving through Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.
We’re going to an independent author convention in Las Vegas, Nevada, but I decided to turn the trip into an opportunity to do some research for some upcoming novels.
We’ve plotted out quite the meandering path that’s going to take us to some of my favorite spots and also to some places we’ve never seen.
So when I send the next newsletter, I’ll share some photos from our trip.