Last year, I purchased a potted Magnolia from the supermarket. It is a little frazzled about the edges from the heat and I’ve been watching the two flower buds with some anxiety – sure they would wither and harden. A few days ago, the first one began to loosen and, yesterday, the flower opened on one side. Its lemon scent is heavenly.

the lopsided flower with stamens fallen in a sepal.

stamens scooped in a sepal

I didn’t know about sepals until I was checking Wikipedia to make sure I was looking at stamens. On a magnolia, sepals are indistinguishable from petals so I’m guessing they are the first three at the base.

I moved overhead and looked down and saw more stamens piled in a second sepal. When I came back with the camera, the culprit was there, cavorting amid the stamens with pleasure.

cavorting in loose stamens

looking for juicy bits

yummy yum yum

Curious, I cautiously moved the stem so I could see the heart of the flower.

red stamen scars and curly topped stigmas and a bee, of course

As I watched, this bee took out another stamen and it fell down to join the others.

Today, the flower looks like it spent our very warm night in a pot of tea. Just as well I hadn’t planted the poor thing. I’ll see how the second flower fares in another position.

Inside the flower, the curly bits are gone – replaced by what looked like some spiky red things to my nearly 62-year-old eyes. Apparently, I have a colourful fruit to look forward to. There are several little green bugs lurking inside the flower, too, so I know what my next photography session will be.

I can’t believe it has taken me this long to have a magnolia tree.

On writing…

I have moved past the revision block I’ve had for weeks. I’ve been stuck on lesson 7 and it’s an important one to make sure everything in my novel’s setting makes sense. I had trouble identifying the different things I needed to see during a read-through.

I doubted myself to the stage where I thought let’s just chuck in this whole being a writer thing.  But then I thought of my sister and the promise I made when she died. I will finish this. I will make this dream come true. Of course, I also thought of the money I had paid out to learn to revise in a productive way. I thank my lucky stars I chose to publish on Wattpad because I know some people already love my story despite its shortcomings. To paraphrase Holly Lisle –  it’s already as crappy as it’s going to get.

So, after lots of false starts, some tears, and piles of crumpled worksheets, I decided to do the analysis differently. I put the settings and other elements on index cards instead of using the worksheets. Down to business,finally, and I found myself filling out the worksheets instead of the cards. Huh? Go figure. I know I’m not filling them out exactly right, but the lesson is going to work how it should as I already see how my story start hasn’t carried through to the end as well as it could have.

Progress, at last. A little daunting, as I have quite a few settings and magical explanations to think about and 91 scenes to explore.

Thanks for being part of my journey.  ❤