Sunday, August 28, 2016

Sunday Update - Week 34

Or 33 depending on whether you started numbering the weeks on the last week of 2015 or the first full week of 2016.  :shrug:

Anyhooo...

Not a lot of writing things this past week.  The only actual writerly thing I did was pick up an old manuscript and start editing it again.  I'll post something about that on Outside the Box tomorrow morning.

I did some reading.  Finished the book I've been slowly working through.  Slow because of me, not because of the book.  The book was good.  Where Angels Fear by Kasey Mackenzie.  I've loved her Fury books, so I gave this one a whirl.  I still like her Fury books better, but only just.

I went fishing on Tuesday.  Didn't catch a damn thing.  Went fishing on Friday, caught a stringer-full of bluegills.
We ate those last night for dinner.  Yum.

Yesterday, I was playing around with the image of me holding those fish and came up with this...
7 fish... 7 books... it was a natural progression.

Oh, and I cut my hair yesterday because it was driving me nuts.  The right side looks awesome.  The left side looks like it always looks - like it was slept upon.  (Even when it's professionally cut, it looks like that.  :shrug:)

Hubs and I got some major weeding done on Wednesday.  And we are weed-free in all the places we should be weed-free once more.

Lastly, in the writing vein again, Fertile Ground is still free.  Today is the last day.

Anything going on your lives this past week?



Thursday, August 25, 2016

This n That Thursday

The way to tell the difference between male and female kingfishers is that the female has brown on her chest while the male's chest is all white.

Not sure what gender that one is because it never did turn toward me.  Camera shy little bugger.

We had an internet outage the other day.  While I was on the phone griping at... talking with customer service, the guy out there in whatever country handles service calls for my provider looked through my service history and exclaimed "I talked to you in May of last year."  Well, yeah, I can totally see that since I call several times a year, but I don't remember anyone named Ozumel.  Maybe he was Steve last year.  I found myself wishing he was Jen, because she was awesome.  At least I've gotten them to stop making me run through all the troubleshooting.  It's not my equipment.  It's never been my equipment.  Doesn't matter, they sent a tech to look at my equipment anyway.  Wasted his time because he declared that there was nothing wrong with my equipment.  Luckily, I was fishing when he was here or he'd have gotten a 'Well, DUH'.  On the way home from fishing, I saw his truck parked outside the building where their equipment is housed.  Shortly after I got home, I got a text message telling me it was fixed.  Tada!

Because we live in a 'vacation home' area, I'm usually the first one to call during an outage.  Hell, I'm usually the ONLY one to call.  To all my neighbors... If you get here on the weekend and your internet works, you're welcome.

Sometimes I talk about stuff like the above on Twitter.  I use the hashtag #ruralworldproblems.  Hehe.  It's not really a problem, per se.  It's just part of living in the back of beyond.  I'm extremely happy we even have DSL out here.  And a paved road.  Bonus!

Now, off to Wallyworld for me.  After I pay bills.  What's on your this n that today?



Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Gone Fishin'

If you need me this morning, I'll be here...

Turn right at the rock, down the ledges until you hit water.  I'll be drowning worms around there somewhere. 

Just as well since the internet is spotty today. 

What are you up to?

(Leave a comment and I'll approve them when I get home.)

Sunday, August 21, 2016

Sunday Update - Week ?

I'm too lazy to look up the week number.

So, anyway, this past week... 

I sent my edited copy of Up Wish Creek off to the editor for her second round of notes.  Fingers crossed that when it comes back on the 30th, there is very little pink ink.

After I sent that off, I pretty much did nothing writerly.  I watched a lot of Olympics.  Read a little.  Did some marketing stuff.  Took some walks.  Went fishing.  Caught up on some cleaning.  Vegged.

Yesterday, Kira jumped and went after something.  Out of the corner of his eye, Hubs thought he saw a mouse run under the fridge, but he wasn't sure.  We moved the fridge.  Yuck.  No mouse, but tons of dust bunnies.  I killed those.  Then I went through all the cupboards looking for signs of mouse infestation.  Sure enough, I found it.  Yup, the mice are back.  So, I took all the stuff out of the cupboards that the mice can access, washed everything, and set snap traps in the empty drawers.  I also found where they might be coming in again... still... Behind the drawers, there's like a half-inch gap between the wall and where the cabinetry begins.  About three feet worth on each side.  I'll need to fill all that with steel wool, but not now.  I am so not in the mood to remove all the drawers, crawl around on the floor, and stuff steel wool in 6ft worth of gap.  Steel wool is not the nicest stuff to stuff.  Ya know?  Anyway, I'll get to that once we think we've gotten the majority of the mice out of the walls.  Got two of the little bastards last night.  Almost got a third, but he managed to chew himself off the sticky trap.  (For the record, I hate catching mice on sticky traps.  The sticky traps are for spiders.)  There are now two snaps traps in the closet where Houdini mouse made his escape. 

Living in the woods is fun. 

What's going on in your world?

Thursday, August 18, 2016

Thursday This n That but Mostly This

Yesterday, at Wallyworld, I opened my trunk to stick the groceries back there and found a frog nestled in the gap between my trunk lid and the gasket for the trunk itself.  Little gray tree frog.  And if it had stayed still, I would've loaded the groceries, closed the lid, and it would've been no worse off than it was the rest of the morning.  Instead, Ms. Frog decided she didn't like the lid being open and would move to a shadier area.  Except, ya know, it was the freakin' parking lot.  I snatched her up.  What to do with a frog in the middle of a store parking lot... Hmmm... I couldn't put her anywhere nearby because she would've fried on the hot asphalt or gotten smushed by a car.  Besides, she was 30 miles from home.  It would've been rude to just dump her in unfamiliar territory.  Except I had no container to put her in, and I sure didn't want her hopping around inside my trunk, or inside my car.  Long story less long, I put her in the cup holder in my console and closed the console.  There was a little fun frog wrangling when we got home, as she did not wish to be picked up and would've rather hid under the passenger seat.  But I got her and put her in the hydrangea.  All is well in Sandersonville once more.

My crepe myrtle is finally getting ready to bloom.  All the other myrtles in the area are bursting with color already.  I was afraid this was an off year for mine.  But no.  YAY!

This is all the this n that I have for you today.  What have you got?

Sunday, August 14, 2016

Sunday Update - Week 31

Not much to report this week.  It's editing all the way down.

As of right now, I've got 22 pages left.  So, as you can tell, I've been cranking on this to the exclusion of pretty much everything else.  I eat, I edit, I clean.

Speaking of cleaning, I bathed the cat.  Then I did some spot-cleaning on the carpet where she usually lays.  The next day, I deep cleaned the bathroom. 

I haven't really read much.  I'm partway through a book I bought last month.  Can't remember the title right now. 

Watched a boatload of Olympics when I was taking short breaks.  USA!  Woo!

I seriously want to go fishing this morning.  It's all rainy and cool.  But no thunderboomers.  Perfect weather for me.  But 22 pages.  And I promised myself I'd get this to the editor by tonight.  I had hoped to get it finished last night, but I had a problem with a scene and couldn't figure out how to fix it.  I ended up printing those pages off and rewriting the old fashioned way - by hand.  It's fixed, but those few pages took about an hour out of my steady chug.  Oh well.  It's so much better now. 

Anyhoo, I should probably get back at it.  If the siren song of drowning worms doesn't lure me off.

Lure me off... get it?  ROFL

Thursday, August 11, 2016

Thursday This n That

I washed the cat yesterday.  And then I used carpet cleaner on the carpet where she likes to lay - because clean cat on dirty carpet = dirty cat again. 

And no, I wasn't trying to procrastinate.  She needed a bath in a major way.

I'm actually procrastinating as I write this Wednesday night.  No, it's not procrastinating.  It's taking a break.  Yeah, yeah, that's the ticket.

I'd rather be fishing.

Yes, I do like cheese with my whine.  

I do this thing on my Facebook Page where I share crime-related news articles - usually with a thought or two of my own.  I shared one such story a few days ago and it blew up into a shitstorm.  Commenters being snotty, not being respectful, pushing their own agendas.  It had more pageviews of that than anything writing related ever gets.  And I deleted it.  Like this blog, my page = my rules.  There are plenty of other places to pull that crap.  I don't need to up my view count that way.  And if it's the only way to gain more pageviews, than I guess I'm doomed to have only a few here and there.  C'est la vie.

A friend of mine's daughter got accepted to Florida State.  Another homeschool kid like mine.  I remember when I first met them, she was just a wee little pixie in a princess dress.  Now, she's off to college.  Gah, I feel old.

Okay, that's all I got for now.  Back to editing for me.  How are things with you?

Tuesday, August 9, 2016

Reading Resolution

Okay, so I made a resolution for 2016.  I know, I know.  I'm not a resolution keeper.  But I thought this would be good for me and that I'd be able to do it.  I would read and review one new-to-me author every month.

I tried.  Really I did.  I bought a book in January by an author I'd never heard of.  And I tried reading it.  Ummmmm.  DNF.  I tried several times in February.  DNF.  (I actually didn't read a single entire book in February, but I was deep in getting a book ready for release.) 

March, I read and reviewed two books by new-to-me authors.  One I had been meaning to read and one I'd never heard of.

April, I read and reviewed one book by someone I'd never heard of.  But it was on my Kindle for a long time.

May, nada. 

June, I read and reviewed one.  It was a free download, if I remember right.

July, I read and reviewed five books by authors I'd never read before.  Two of them, I'd been meaning to read and the others were new to me.  Some I bought and some I got for free.  (Can't remember which ones are which, though.)

So far this month, I've read and reviewed one book by someone I hadn't read before.  Someone I should've read a long time ago.  A writer I've known - online anyway - for years.  I feel really bad that I haven't gotten around to reading and reviewing books by people I like, but I'm working on it. 

Anyway, I'm up to eight new-to-me books downloaded, read, and reviewed this year, and while it hasn't been one a month, the average is there. 

What are your reading goals looking like this year?  Did you make any goals beyond how many books you plan to read?  Read a classic or two, read new authors, try new genres? 

Sunday, August 7, 2016

Sunday Update - Week 30

Well, that's another week to put behind us.  Not that it was a bad week, but I'm ready for the next week.

I got the edit stuff for Up Wish Creek last Sunday.  As such, I've been an editing fool.  Mornings, afternoons, some evenings.  I've been trying to edit during the day so I can write at night.  That's not always possible, so I've skipped writing a couple nights so I could edit.  The result?  I've done 161 pages of editing in 6 days.  I have like 54 pages left to edit on this level, then I need to swoop back through and address a few bigger issues.  Having said that, I hope to have this back in AWE's hands by mid-week.  (Yeah, wish in one hand, spit in the other and see which one gets full faster.)

In other writing news, I'm up to almost 34K in Early Grave.  Even with editing every day.  It's not going gangbusters, but I'm happy it's still going at all. 

If you missed it, I posted a cover reveal and teaser snippet for Up Wish Creek over at The Killer Chicks on Friday.  Cuz, like, I've been sitting on that cover since May and the wait was killing me.

I know I said I wouldn't go fishing until the editing was done, but Friday I couldn't take it anymore.  I caught a couple nice panfish.  Finally, we had enough fillets to make a meal, so I cooked those up for dinner Friday night.  So yummy.

I might go fishing this morning, too. 

We now have 5 distinctly identifiable fawns coming to the yard with their mommies.  Dot & Dash, Vee & Jumble, and Blur.  We previously assumed Vee (previously Unnamed Fawn) was a single birth, but yesterday he was here with his mom and a fawn we'd never seen before.  I'm calling her Jumble because her spots are kind of all over the place.  They'll all lose their names with their spots because once they're spotless, they're almost unrecognizable from each other - until the boys get antlers then those ones get new names. 

That's all for me today.  What's going on in your lives?

Thursday, August 4, 2016

Thursday This and That

My head's been totally up my editing lately.  But I'm gettin' 'er done. But, man, try to explain to people out there in the world why you are the way you are and they look at you like you're batshit crazy.  "Edit brain?"  Yes, I have edit brain.  It means I'm so focused on editing words that I'm not quite in touch with reality right now.  Leave a message.  ;o)

The Kid turns 23 next week.  Part of my brain still maintains I am not old enough to have a 23-yr-old child. 

The bird of the day on my calendar is something called a red-legged honeycreeper.  Weird bird.

I was at the bank yesterday.  Spent a good half-hour talking to the gals.  Then I went to the post office and chatted with the gal there.  That's pretty much my big in-person socialization.  It'll happen again the next time I'm at the bank (couple weeks or so) or the post office (once a week).  Not every time, but it works for me.

We had steak and brats for dinner last night.  That's it - steak with a side of brats.  Hubs grills one steak and two brats.  We each get half of the steak and a bratwurst of our very own.  With mustard for dipping.  Yum.  The steak is usually something called a 'Front End' - like a New York Strip but cheaper and, I think, tastier.  The brats are Johnsonville Beer Brats or regular brats that I have beered. 

O'Doul's non-alcoholic beer is a pretty good liquid for cooking bratwursts.

I finally used up the last of the zucchini my neighbor brought over.  Four loaves of zucchini bread.  Three for us and one for my friend at the bank. 

What's the this n that skinny for you today?


Tuesday, August 2, 2016

The Writing Spectacle

:cue carnival music:

Welcome to The Writing Spectacle!  If you've been here before, welcome back! 

I'm feeling a little bit like the juggler in the center ring today.  Or maybe the side show freak who juggles kittens or something.  I know there's definitely juggling going on.

So, what am I juggling?  Life.  Editing.  Writing.  Marketing.  Business.

Life:  Like every other person in the world, I have things I have to do to maintain life - eating, sleeping, etc.  I have housework that still needs doing.  And I like to read, too.  Plus, I do want to occasionally spend time with Hubs (who's juggling his own items at the moment.)

Editing:  I got the edits back for Up Wish Creek on Sunday.  I spent about 4 hours yesterday working on those.  I'm up to page 27. 

Writing:  I'm in the middle of writing new words for SCIU #3, which I am now calling Early Grave.  I'm up to almost 31,000 words and I can't set it aside for the editing of UWC because if I set this ball down, I'll have a devil of a time picking it back up.  (Which is why I haven't gotten back to Natural Causes yet.)

Marketing:  If I don't market my books, they don't sell.  If they don't sell, I can't afford to publish more books.

Business:  It's the beginning of the month, which means updating all the spreadsheet data in case I do sell books.  I also need to do some shipping at some point. 

I had to set aside other balls - like fishing which I'll pick up down the road a spell, and exercising, which I need to cobble onto the life ball or I'll be back to the atrophied lump I was at the beginning of the year.

Who wants to place bets on how long I can keep this up?  This early in, I'm not sure I can do it, but since I have to do it, I will do it.  It'll get easier once I get the rhythm of it.  Right now, though, I have to get cleaned up so I can go vote.

And the calliope plays along.