Sunday Update - Week 32

Ugh.  I'm almost not inclined to do an update this week, but that's only because something happened Friday that overshadows the good stuffs.  But I'm here.  So let's try putting the updates out there in a lump.  And if you don't want your day harshed, don't read the last big paragraph. 

First off, I rewrote 11428 words on Bloodflow last week.  That puts the manuscript at 44441 and about 40% written (based on the previous manuscript's page count - which includes stuff I know I have to chop, so isn't the most accurate indicator.) 

Also, I've been tweezing another manuscript to get it from 109K to under 100K to meet a specific set of guidelines.  Right now, I've shaved it down to 15402 by simply snipping out little unnecessary words and phrases without changing the overall makeup and voice of the book. Sure this is the slow way to cut words, but I really would rather not arbitrarily cut a whole scene without a damn good reason.  So slow and steady wins the race.  And I'll have a tighter book when I'm done.

I haven't made much progress in my research for the super sekrit idea.  (I don't remember Le Morte d'Arthur being this freakin' dry and boring when I read it years ago.)  On the upside, I don't need to do a whole lot of research to actually write the book.  It'll just be a richer and thicker broth the more I know about the foundation.  Know what I mean? 

Since I haven't been doing the research, I've had time for reading.  Yay!  Unfortunately, I started and discarded two books this week.  One because it started out as a light romance - where animals play a critical role (I love me some light romance with critters as secondary characters) - and then the hero who lives with his mom starts thinking about the heroine and runs up to his bedroom to... ummm... and the action is described in detail.  Umm, NO.  Yeah, yeah, normal part of life and all that, but I don't want to read about it in detail.  Ew.  It all felt very 8th grade.  The next book was so full of grammatical errors, but I tried to keep going, because I liked the premise. Then the story just sort of fell apart about a third of the way through.  Bummer.  It's all good, though, because I redeemed my faith in writing by diving into a novella by Monica McCarty called The Knight.  She's so awesome and her characters are so true, she makes me love historical romance (even when I don't really with most other HR authors.)

Harshing Ahead:
So anyway, I haven't said anything about the deer lately.  Well, we have this one who somehow hurt her back right foot back in late June/early July.  She's getting around okay, I guess.  Not great, but well enough to survive.  And she had a fawn.  Little Short Stop seemed to be doing okay, too, until recently when we noticed she was alone most of the time.  Then about a week ago, we noticed she was a little thin.  Everything went rapidly downhill from there.  She started sleeping up next to the house and she wasn't eating much when she went to the food pans.  Friday morning, she curled up in the corner of the house, but she still looked alert when I peeked out at her around 10am.  By 3pm, she wasn't even bothering to twitch away the gathering flies.  And then she was gone.  We laid her to rest in the woods.  We assume her mom stopped nursing her either because of her own injuries or because she recognized the fawn had something really wrong with her.  Anyway, it was really disappointing and has tainted my mood this weekend.  Then last night just before dusk, the mom was over there looking for ShortStop.  So sad.  And it made me a little irrationally angry at her for waiting over 24 hours to come looking for her fawn - but that's me trying to put human emotions and values on a deer where they don't belong. 
:endharsh:

So how was your week?  Anything good to talk about?  Tell me something good.