August 6, 2014 Update

The last few days have been spent traveling back from Maine to Virginia by way of Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and West Virginia. As I drove this journey of 15 odd hours (spread across several days) and I as I drove it alone in my strikingly blue car, a few questions ran through my mind, provoked by what I was seeing outside my window.

Example: Why is it called the Mason-Dixon line?

Example 2: Why is it called Maryland? Which Mary? It must have been some Catholic Mary-- Bloody Mary? The Mary from William and Mary? She was a Protestant, though.

I've had very little time to read or fiction write the last few days, but did keep my creative brain plugged in by listening to The Iliad by Homer on CD while on my similarly epic journey. (Which is not a correct allusion, because The Iliad is about war, and not a journey, which I came to find out. That would be The Odyssey. I want to reference The Iliad in my novel, in scenes with a character who is a veteran of the Civil War.

From The Iliad I learned, simply:

-War is perennial, and very brutal and sad. It was happening a thousand years ago in desperately gory detail. It will likely continue to happen.

-Women rarely appeared in this book and when they did Homer spent a great deal of time describing their 'ambrosia' scent and the like.

-Poseidon had sea blue hair. Who knew? I thought that was a pretty big revelation when all said and done.

From The Iliad I asked:

-Why do people go to war? Don't we teach children that violence isn't the answer to their problems? (Or perhaps some don't.) It is confusing. This is a question I'm going to try to address in my novel.

This all goes to say that literature and yes, even road trips....can get us thinking...and that is why travel and the arts are just so important.

I hope your reading and writing week has gone well.