The Locomotion Commotion

My title to this post is sappy. Yes, I know, but with the amount of time I've spent researching arboreal locomotion lately in an effort to, for some reason, incorporate a sugar glider into a short story of mine, this fixation and the resulting corniness can only be expected. I've learned a lot but these are two facts that stick out to me:

- squirrels have reversible feet, ie, their ankles allow their feet to swivel 360 degrees
- prehensile tails in many animals that live in trees actually have an adhesive patch on the tip

Oh, the movements and adaptations of the various animals that I've studied are more than enough fodder for fiction...the imagery and symbolism and sheer wonder of these creatures and their ability to conduct arboreal locomotion is good stuff, the kind of stuff you won't soon forget after reading. See for yourself.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arboreal_locomotion



The fiction that has flowed so far is here, incomplete, but on its way to being something...I think...


Facts like, the ins and outs of arboreal locomotion, a tree to tree
movement that kept the animals safe from predators and
with easy access to otherwise unreachable food. To have that
life, Rae Ann thought, the nights of a marsupial with membranous hands,
curled into its mother’s pouch when the flying was over. Did they know
about the torpor they’d experience too? Did they know it before it
happened to them? Rae Ann would rather hibernate. The distinction was one
without meaning.

The Big Read

So, April was a banner reading month for me particularly given how busy my schedule has been otherwise...and with that in mind, here is what I've been up to:


For now, here is how my 2013 reading year is shaping up:

1. The Paper Men William Golding
2. Tinkers Paul Harding
3. Wild Cheryl Strayed
4. The Long March William Styron
5. Reading Lolita in Tehran Azar Nafisi
6. Everyman Philip Roth
7. Border Crossing" Pat Barker
8. Beasts Joyce Carol Oates
9. Ironweed William Kennedy
10. The Misalliance Anita Brookner
11. The Rum Diary Hunter S. Thompson

April Reading:

12. As I Lay Dying William Faulkner
13. Point Omega Don Delillo
14. A Lesson Before Dying Ernest Gaines
15. Bel Canto Ann Patchett

Currently, I am reading, FINALLY, Thomas Wolfe's Look Homeward Angel. Yep...I've avoided this book for the last 3 years and it's time. It's calling me. The first two paragraphs stop you and you read them again and again and you feel drawn in, at least I did. There's something waiting for me in this novel and I'm scared and excited at the same time to find out what it is. Here's how the novel begins. Judge for yourself.