On this 11th day of the 11th month of 2018, 100 years after Armistice Day, the poppy is a flower of remembrance and sacrifice. Fitting, then, to post this picture of an original oil painting of a girl in a poppy field that hangs in my husband’s home office. This particular work was done by C. Manzke in 1914, the year when Ralph’s mother was born. The painting was given to her by a pharmacist in Kiel, Germany, with whom she was doing an apprenticeship in the years leading up to World War II. Our painting is actually a reproduction of a famous painting: Poppies in the Field, 1902, by Pa’l Szinyei Merse. While the original work is impressionistic, I like how the copy bears a slight resemblance to folk art.

On this 11th day of National Novel Writing Month, I worked exclusively on elements of setting, both in my imagination and by taking a long walk along Minnehaha Creek to observe significant sensory details of place.

My word count today was 1,203. Not bad. Eleven days down, nineteen to go.

#NaNoWriMo18