White desk with pink notebook, roses, keyboard, and gold paperclips that Francesca Varela uses to copy edit for romance, science fiction, and fantasy authors

BLOG

  • Jupiter and Saturn

    1–2 minutes

    We chased the sun, its red hulked glow dipping into the mountains,the river running high, and overcast,spanning out at the place where the hills drift apart, and we caught the sun, up on the dark curve of a hill, over a field grown feral with winter stalks of queen-anne’s-lace, just as the clouds burned a

    Read more…

  • Storm

    1–2 minutes

    There you are,the feathered edge of the cedar, black and purplein this bloom of dark water. Together we hearthe rush of far-off wind,the trembling leaves,the gathered rain,flowing in small canyonson the bark,and with each gust I worry you might slip over my head that the flow of water might loosen your roots,and there is nothing

    Read more…

  • Winter Wind

    1–2 minutes

    I walk through the foreston a drifting afternoon, and the near-solstice lightcuts through the ferns, painting them gold, painting the air silver,and I stop to listen to the single warble of a hummingbird,and to breathethe sun-touched air, when all at once the trees sway,the tilting dance, the pre-wind brush back,before the gust rolls through,and I

    Read more…

  • Cedar Rain

    1–2 minutes

    There is a cedar treewho I visit on each hike,and when it rains,the water hangsin its fine-woven branches,as though in a spider web–in small, clear globes,that reflect dark green fog,and licorice fern,and youth-on-age, and my own face, too, and the water running heavy through the creek,and the little brown birds jumping from one branch to

    Read more…

Francesca Varela specializes in copy editing for romance, science fiction, and fantasy authors