Northern Word: Arizona Archives

Red Rocks

By Susan on March 8, 2009 10:36 AM | Click here to post a comment

Another pic from my January Arizona trip. This is Bell Rock, near Sedona. It was about 60 degrees, crystal blue sky, and not terribly crowded. When the sloppy wet snowstorm hits Minnesota some time today I'll stare at this picture to regather my mental health.

Writing Prompt: Precarious Paths

By Susan on February 15, 2009 11:12 PM | 1 Comment

You do know that the entire reason I do these writing prompts is to procrastinate my own writing, don't you? So ironic. But here I am again, procrastinating. Here is a photograph I took a few weeks ago at the Grand Canyon of a path, right along the edge, covered in ice. Perfect conditions for taking a "long trip" if you will. So here's your prompts. Fiction: Send your character on a precarious path, on the edge of something. Will they fall off? Aaah, that would be short story. For a longer effort, you'll have to find a way to get them to hang on. Make it literal or figurative. Push them as close to the edge as you can.

Nonfiction: What precarious paths are there in your neighborhood, your town, your city, your childhood?

Three minutes after the picture below was taken, a large hippopotamus wandered up the path, slipped, and disappeared. About half an hour later we heard a big "splat". (ok, I made that up. I've decided to "Fabulous" my life to make it more interesting).

A steady horse

By Susan on February 4, 2009 10:19 PM | Click here to post a comment

In the main part of Sedona, which is surrounded on all sides by spectacular red rock formations and crystal blue sky, is a dependable horse. So dependable, I guarantee he will be there waiting for you if you go.

Writing Prompt: Grand Canyon

By Susan on January 27, 2009 6:27 PM | Click here to post a comment

Somebody lost something down there. What is it? Who lost it? Will it ever be found? Is someone looking for it? How did it get there? Well, there you go. Now you have something to write about. And I managed to procrastinate for the five minutes it took me to post this.

Gaiman wins a Newberry

By Susan on January 27, 2009 12:58 PM | Click here to post a comment

Neil Gaiman, author of numerous fantasy, fiction, and children's books, won the Newberry today for his spooky book, "The Graveyard Book". Neat trick for an Englishman - the Newberry is for US-based authors - but it turns out he lives right here in Minnesota. I suppose if he's willing to endure -20 in the morning he can have a Newberry. Gaiman's "Coraline" is one of the creepiest books I've ever read, and will soon be coming out in theaters as a stop-animation film. Argh! Mother has buttons for eyes! Argh! Yeah, ok, you have to have read it. Anyhow, I have a soft spot for Gaiman because he actually has a decent blog. When an author has a decent blog, it causes me to think he might just be hooked into this modern world of ours enough to be relevant to it.

Below...a couple of pics from the Grand Canyon. At the end of a long and stunning road through scrub and low forests is the Watchtower, a sightseeing structure that overlooks the eastern parts of the canyon. The inside of it is actually quite interesting, with lots of designs that to me looked Hopi.

More from Sedona

By Susan on January 22, 2009 11:08 PM | Click here to post a comment

As I put the finishing touches on another section of the California Redwoods Travel Guide (should be posted Friday or Saturday), here's some more views of the Sedona, Arizona area that I visited last week. This is Slide Rock State Park, which this time of year is utterly empty of people, but beautiful. Apparently in the summer it's a madhouse. Found on Highway 89A between Flagstaff and Sedona in Oak Creek Canyon (a great drive, by the way).

slide rock state park az oak creek view2.jpg

Above: the swimming areas at Slide Rock State Park. The pools are actually quite deep, and you can slide down the rocks into the deeper pools. Nature's own waterslide.

slide rock state park az close hill view.jpg

Red mountains tower to the west of the creek.

slide rock state park az oak creek view.jpg

The state has built some rest rooms into the rocks to handle the crowds. It was a pleasant and unpopulated spot in January.

A Sense of Place

By Susan on January 19, 2009 6:13 PM | Click here to post a comment

One of the things about my fiction writing that is fairly obvious after a page or two is that I pay a lot of attention to setting. I like my characters to be fully immersed in a place, swimming in its details and colors and smells. I usually use settings in which I myself have lived, enhance them a bit, twist them a little. Characters don't exist outside of their setting, they are part of it, they interact with it, and they react to and are influenced by their place.

Last week while touring Northern Arizona I trundled through several spectacular Places. Real places, where real characters live. Looking at a vista like this, in Sedona, Arizona, I wondered how utterly different the world must look to someone raised among the red rock towers of the southwest, compared to those of us who grew up in the mossy redwoods of the California Coast.

The rich red color of the rocks contrasts with the velvet black asphalt of the new road through town.

Impossible rocks perch in the distance.

The sky is wide open here, and the air is stunningly clear. Thunderstorms do come in the rainy season, what there is of it, but the contrast to my wet, dark childhood underneath a thick canopy of redwoods couldn't be starker. I wonder where I would have gone in my life if I'd been born and raised in Sedona? I'd be tanner, that's for sure. And based on the population I observed, substantially thinner and more inclined to wear sparkling jewelry with jeans and a long, multicolored shirt. And perhaps I would be interested in vortexes, these mysterious if scientifically unprovable things that are claimed to exist in the various corners of Sedona's red rock skyline. Or, I might still be here in chilly Minnesota, having left Sedona to look for work outside the Vortex industry. One never knows. But one of the delights of vacation is the chance to script an alternate path to our own lives, and this one seemed sunnier, with better food.

Greetings from the Grand Canyon

By Susan on January 18, 2009 8:40 PM | Click here to post a comment

Well, it was a whirlwind tour, but a thousand pictures later, I'm back from the Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, and Sedona. Just in time to enjoy minus 24 degrees (F) here in Minnesota. Here's a sneak peek at more southwest pics I'll be putting together into some travel essays in a couple of weeks:

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