Monday, April 09, 2007

Rocks and Writing



After waterfalls, I have to say I like rocks. I like the coast and the beach too (especially in New Zealand) but there's something about rocks that appeals to me. These are three at Lancefield, about an hour north of Melbourne, and there are quite a few more of them around the place. Some much bigger. These rocks looked very patient, and old, and rugged. Many of the rocks in this area are rounded - I'm not a geologist but I imagine this is from glacier movement a very long time ago.
It's a calming experience to sit by these rocks and listen to the birds and think about whatever comes into my head.
The rest of the time that I spent near these rocks in the past two days went on reading, staring at gum trees, looking at birds through binoculars, and reading a finished novel draft that now needs rewriting. Thinking time is writing time just as much as typing time is. I like to ponder a draft as I read it through and look for holes and glitches in the plot, and weaknesses in description, character motivation and dialogue. And write comments to myself for later in-depth re-thinking. This is just the first stage but it gets me going on the long road of revision.

4 comments:

Tracey said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Tracey said...

Is it granite? Looks like granite with that rounded shape. Which would make it volcanic. I'm reading an educational book on Australian landforms at the moment, and they have the mountains carved by glaciation mostly in Tas, though some in SA, Vic (in the Alps) and NSW. Not really Lancefield from what I can tell on the maps. And in the photos, the glaciar-carved rocks are much more jagged -- think Cradle Mountain, which is one of their examples.

Of course, I'm no geologist either... Good book, though. I'm enjoying it.

Anonymous said...

As Tracey says, they're more likely to be of volcanic than glacial origin in your neck of the woods. I've got a bunch of geological maps somewhere. Not sure if they cover Lancefield. (Actually, I'm not even sure if I know where I've put them.) Will have a squiz. Not that you probably wanted to turn this post into a geological survey ...

Sherryl said...

When I think glaciers and rocks, I guess I think of Yosemite, where you have that amazing long valley with "rounded" edges. In New Zealand, volcanic often means red earth and scoria and mountains (and mud pools and geysers).
How does a volcano make round rocks? Maybe I should borrow your book, Tracey!