Perfection – Mystery, fantasy and romance at the dangerous ends of the earth

Machu Picchu Redux

By Karen Abrahamson | May 3, 2011

Machu Picchu caught in the coil of the coil of the Urubamba River (2011) Photo (c) Karen Abrahamson

Okay, I guess I have a type A personality. If it isn’t right the first time I’ve been known to do something again and again and again, until I get it – if not right, at least closer to right. I’ve been known to go back to the same place again and again and again to get THE photo I want, when previous attempts didn’t yield what I wanted. With writing, I’ve been known to trash manuscripts 2 or 3 or 4 times before getting what I originally envisioned.

Terraces (2011) Photo (c) Karen Abrahamson

Given this, it shouldn’t surprise you that I decided to return to Machu Picchu after blowing out my legs on the Inca trail so that on my first visit to the site I was basically stationary. So up I got at 4:45 am on April 24, to catch the train to Aguas Caliente, an hour and a half train ride as the Andes unwound their scrub grass into jungle. Picture dawn light on magnificent glaciers, and then we slid into Aguas Caliente and I had to catch a bus up the mountain. And there I was. Again.

The Orchids of Machu Picchu (2011) Photo (c) Karen Abrahamson

Not that my ankles were 100% yet. Nope. I was still using a walking stick and my left ankle was still swollen and sore, but darn it, I’d come all this way and I darn well was going to enjoy the view. So I set off uphill, up innumerable steps to the guardhouse that perched along the path between the Sungate and what was once the main gate to the city. There I sat on the edge of a terrace and overlooked the city, trying to believe I was really here. It was still incredibly busy with tourists, but this time I could move away, an take cover in the shade of bamboo farther up the terraces.

The Guardhouse, many steps above the city (2011) Photo (c) Karen Abrahamson

I ambled (read limped) around the ruins and found the series of fountains the Inca had built. Now don’t think spraying water and dolphins or cherubs – these are a series of small pools fed by a single spring that still supplies the ruins with water from far up the mountain. The story goes that each small pool has its own voice. I think could almost make out the tonal differences out over the myriad loud tourists. So I focused on the liquid song and, on as hot a day as this was, and after seeing children crying because foolish parents forgot to bring drinks, I could believe that the Inca built this series of fountains as homage to the importance of water to life.

There were swallows soaring and song sparrows trilling and generally it was a glorious day – except for the tourists. The final straw for me was some children who were determined to separate a very young baby llama from its mother because they wanted to pet it. I mean where were those darn children’s parents? I was about to use my walking stick and not on the llamas! Thankfully another tourist intervened before I got myself arrested. But I did get some photos I’m happy with and so here you go.

Enjoy! Ciao, from Peru!

The last view of Machu Picchu (2011) Photo (c) Karen Abrahamson

Finding the Perfect Jacket

By Karen Abrahamson | January 17, 2011

Let me start by saying there’s no such thing. You might get close, but perfect is beyond anyone in my humble opinion.

Searching a Paris shop window for the perfect whatever. Photo (c) Karen Abrahamson

I spent a good portion of my Christmas shopping time also looking for the jacket I was going to carry on my trip to Peru. Now I know my trip is three months away, but when you are as tall as I am, finding clothes to fit you is never easy and finding specialty clothes to fit me is even tougher. Shirts and jackets and fleeces that on most women would reach down to the hips, on me barely clear my belly. Trousers—well let’s just say they are never cut long enough.

So finding a jacket that would be very lightweight, but rainproof enough for the rainy season in Peru, warm enough for the mountains, but still breathable enough when I was climbing UP said mountains (probably uphill both ways) was no small task. I needed to start early. I needed to plan where I would go to look. I needed to plan it all and find the perfect jacket.

I didn’t find it.

Everything was either too short or too short in the arms, or it was a man’s jacket and fit like a box. I finally settled on a jacket that they had to order for me and I’m hoping it will do the trick. Not quite as long as I wanted, not quite the fit I wanted, and it has a hood you can’t hide. Maybe it will work, and maybe it won’t, but the trick is to try it.

Why am I telling you this? Because finding the perfect jacket is a lot like trying to write the perfect book.

Over the past three and a bit months I’ve been writing another novel, this one a romantic suspense set in Cambodia, that I call Shadow Play. Writing it, and the last three books I’ve written, have been some of the most difficult creative exercises for me. Why? Because I wanted them to be perfect. Because I knew if they weren’t perfect, they wouldn’t sell. Talk about the wrong emphasis (selling).

The result was that I was so caught up on all the qualities I couldn’t seem to find in my own writing, that I couldn’t seem to see anything good, and if there’s one thing that can shut down the creative brain it’s the editor on your shoulder telling you it’s not good enough.

Luckily, I’m immensely stubborn and I have some great writer friends who helped talk me through these crises of faith, but the most important thing was to keep reminding myself it doesn’t have to be perfect. In this day and age of computers you can write the story, like I did, and discover the characters and their background through the writing process. Then you can go back and reshape the manuscript to fit the characters you actually wrote.

As I write this, I am chuckling because of something I tell my students in an investigative report writing course I teach. Of course I forgot to apply it to my novel writing.

Apparently there were researchers looking at people’s styles of writing and where writers placed the majority if their times in the planning, drafting, or redrafting process . The researchers surmised that people would spend most of their time planning and drafting with a small amount of time on redrafting.

What they found was that they were wrong.

There were actually two approaches to writing: one was the person who spent most of their time planning and writing. The other was the person who just wrote and found their report through the writing and redrafting process. These people rarely did planning. Both types of writers came out with a reasonable product at the end of the day, but both had deficits in their writing toolbox.

Why is this important? Because the best writers can use skills in both planning and redrafting.

When I initially read this information I laughed because I had virtually gotten through school with never writing a second draft, but it told me I had a serious deficit in my skill set. Writing novels has changed that.

I’ve spent time learning the skills of redrafting and now I no longer have to write the perfect novel first draft. With Shadow Play, the next few weeks will be spent going back and redrafting the front end of the book to be more compatible with the latter half. Maybe not perfect, but pretty darn good.

If only it were as easy to add four inches of fabric to the not-so-perfect jacket.