Circus Blogs and other stuff

I have found myself a great circus blog to read daily. Of course, the circus season is on its waning weeks now, and soon there will be nothing in the blog to read. But while it lasts, I'll read it daily.

The author of the blog, BE Trumble, is traveling with Carson and Barnes circus and does PR and some other things (I haven't quite figured out what). He has some incredible circus knowledge and likes to share that. Sometimes what he shares is about old circuses that appeared in the same towns that Carson and Barnes is visiting that day, sometimes he just writes an essay on what circus is, or was, or should be. Always interesting. From reading what he writes, he is about my age but has been with circus all of his adult life. So, he has great perspective. I've tried to nail him down for an interview but so far have been out of luck. Perhaps when Carson and Barnes' season ends in a few weeks, he'll be more amenable to an interview.

I got some intense pre-writing work done yesterday, including re-writing some of my notes and adding scenes. I had two Tarot gigs scheduled for the same Bar Mitzvah, an early party of just family, then a regular evening party with all the family and friends. So I had a block of about four and a half hours in between the gigs where I could have gone home, but instead opted to park my butt at the local Panera Bread and catch up on some of my work. This meant I got lunch (chicken salad sammich), endless refills on flavored tea, a piece of chocolate death pie, and a mocha latte. It also meant I could put on my headphones, turn the iPod up high, and work undisturbed for four hours. The problem with tea is that I needed a lot more potty breaks throughout the afternoon.

But, I managed to organize about half of my notes, including all the character development and part of the scene development. One of the great things about Panera Bread is the free wifi...I could continue some of my research while there, because I had full access to the internet. Right now my research is focusing on storm watching. I know how I want to describe the tornado that is the central part of my book, but I needed more details and a clearer idea of cloud development, especially in how clouds look just before the funnel drops. Ironically, I live in the midwest and have been in at least two tornadoes in my lifetime, but I don't remember what it looked like. I remember what it felt like, the massive popping in my ears, the strange feel of the air, the way the wind almost strafes your skin as it goes past. But I don't remember what I saw when I looked up at the clouds. Did you know there are some amazing storm-chasing pictures out there? Incredible stuff, I don't know how some of these people survived their encounters with these storms.

So today I have one small gig, and around that we need to clean house and prepare for the return of my husband. He has been working in Wisconsin all summer, and will be home Tuesday or Wednesday this week. It will be chaos here when he returns, and it will be noisy, and I may find myself parking my butt at Panera Bread once in a while so I can get work done. It's either that or our new public library, which also has free wifi and a coffee shop.