NaNoWriMo 2011 - How to Leave

This is the beginning paragraph/s of the piece I am writing for NaNoWriMo 2011. I'm taking it slow, mainly because its coming to me very slowly. I know what the heart of the story is, what I want to happen for this character, but its like being in a terrible snowstorm, all I can see are the brake lights of the car directly in front of me, which I follow, hoping, together, we stay on the road. I can't really see where this piece is heading. I'm just trying to stay on the road.

I tend to overthink absolutely everything, so I'm chosing to see this process as positive. fyi: this is a first draft, so tense problems and general messiness is the norm, and I am really going to try to leave it alone, and not edit a thing, (although I already have a wee bit, but no more!)

How to Leave
Danna

The honey locust tree is a cluster of thorns and ancient bark. Its roots have held to the rich soil since the ground was first home to herds of mule deer and pronghorn sheep, later home to Shoshone, and later to pioneers, and later still to a blur of inhabitants until the present day. The finger-shaped leaves have fallen from the branches weeks ago, and the tree looks like an angry drunk, all tangle and fist. Because of this, or in spite of this, a great horned owl and red tailed hawk have taken up residence in the tree’s upper branches, in shifts: the owl at sunset, the red tail when the owl decamped at sunrise. Both bring their kills to the tree. Small bones and an assortment of feathers and sinew circle the base of the tree, a kind of unholy halo.

When an underground spring burst through layers of loam sand and silt clay to the surface, it quickly insinuated a a meandering row-wide swath through the newly plowed dirt toward the lake to the west, both the owl and hawk, waited patiently for the hidden to furtively dash from the underbrush, and follow their noses to the source of the sweet water.

The spring, the last descendant of the ancient Pliestocene sea that once covered the ground, went undiscovered until the first snowfall. The woman who lived in the property in front of the alfalfa field, walked out in the glint of morning light and saw a mirage of crystal shimmering across the field and thought for a moment she was witness to an artwork created by the finger of an ancient god.