Sunday Snippets

I have been writing about caterpillars and chrysalises and butterflies in my current WIP mystery. Aaron, one of my MC's, is very involved with the process and can tell you anything you want to know about it. In looking for a photo for this post, I found this one, and am wondering what kind of caterpillar was nibbling on THESE leaves.

This weekend, my son and his family moved from one house to another about three miles down the road. That meant we got to have grandson O. for a sleepover. What a voracious reader he is! He read for the whole time we were here, except for about a half hour, when he played computer. He only stopped when we went out to piano lesson and dinner, and then was right back at it again.

On Thursday I went to our local police station to get fingerprinted so I can be a school volunteer at O's school this year. What a lovely experience...had to wait over an hour to get fingerprinted, and then had to PAY for it, all so I can volunteer. It is good that they check people out, but...

Have continued to write regularly on my WIP mystery. The kids ALMOST have the mystery solved now. Sent the first two chapters off to my son to critique, because I want to be sure my MC, who has autism, is authentic and not a stereotype. He gave me several good suggestions, so I have a direction when I get to editing. But that is good...and I will get to it as soon as I finish the story, which should be within a couple of weeks.

After several days of concern over the path of Ike, I think we are out of the woods here in Eastern Florida. We had a little rain from Hannah, so we have been lucky on two counts this week. Thoughts are with any of you who are in Ike's path, and who have had problems from Hannah, too.

Catching Up

It's been awhile since I posted, so I'll catch up on all the things I THOUGHT about posting earlier, but never got to, and a few others...

1. The mushrooms in the photo are ones I found on our golf course...am not sure what kind they are, since I could not find them in my Field Guide to Florida book. However, I like them...makes me think that there is a story in them somewhere.

2. I WON a book! I was so happy to do so...it was a great read, and from a relatively local author here in Florida, too. Danette Haworth ran a contest on her blog to give away Violet Raines Almost Got Struck by Lightning. I finished reading it last night, after receiving it in the afternoon mail...great story about change and Violet's coming of age.

3. It always amazes me how easily kids can amuse themselves. I am away from teaching now, so am not seeing kids as much, but the other night, when out walking with my grandson, we stopped at a field and he spent the next half hour throwing a small pebble into the 4-inch tall grass, and then running out to find it. Possibly more kids would do things like this...the types of things WE grew up doing...if we could get them away from the technology more often and not over-schedule their lives as much. I am sure there are a lot of kids out there that DO entertain themselves simply, but of course, they are never the ones we read about...

4. MG novel is completely revised now and has a few queries out to agents...(am starting small). I'm happy to report that I have started on another book--which surprises me, since I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to write next. But with the brainstorming help of several friends and relatives, I am now well on my way to writing a chapter book mystery.

5. Sometimes I wonder if I should have a blog or not, and if anyone actually reads it. I know there are a few that do, but I question if I ever have anything to say that is worth sharing with others...

6. We are blessed to be safe and dry here in Brevard county where Fay came to visit and stayed a few extra days. We never even lost our electricity! My heart goes out to all the others in the city and county who were not as fortunate, and found their houses under water. I do not envy them the major cleanup.

Now, back to writing! It is good to be working on something new...much more motivating than trying to finish something that has taken forever.

I feel as if I have accomplished a few things this week, and that is a good feeling.


1. Most important, I am getting close to finishing major revisions on my WIP--in fact, I expect I will finish today or tomorrow. FINALLY! I am at about 35,000 words now, which really surprises me, since Knowing Joseph was closer to 20,000 words. That is not saying that the book will end up with that many words, only that to me, it indicates an improvement in my writing...I am learning to develop my stories more.


2. I have started working on setting the program for our Space Coast Writers Guild Conference in January. It looks as if we are going to have some great topics AND great speakers. Cynthia Lord is going to be one of them, and I am really looking forward to that.


3. I have been taking a lot of pictures, and then was invited to join a newly-formed 'digital club' for people who want to share their photography and learn more about their cameras. I went and learned one thing...that I know NOTHING about taking pictures compared to the others there, so I will have to work extra hard to get myself on board. Right now I am of the 'zoom, point, and shoot' type, using the automatic setting, but would really like to know more about adjusting the settings to get the picture I really want.


4. And last, but not least, I am scheduling 'book' things. There is a book fair in September, a couple of school presentations in October, a speaking engagement and book signing at a Family Health Fair in November, and then two more book fair opportunities in December. Things are beginning to happen!


5. Still to do: update my website, to start.

Also had fun with my grandson the other day...he wanted to go 'exploring' in the woods, so we did. Here is what we saw. A squishy log great for jumping on

And lots of trees and branches to climb over, crawl under, etc.

Few for Friday

1. I have finally returned from an extra (unscheduled) ten days added to my four-day vacation to PA. It took that long to fix my car in VA, but we had a very nice visit with my cousin 250 miles south. My car's engine is fixed.

2. I no longer have that car...we bought a new one as soon as we arrived home. We had planned on trading it in anyway...just did it a little quicker.

3. I have been having fun playing with my camera. The above picture is one of many I took while in NC. I took many nature shots in addition to the great number of wedding pictures.

4. I am finally getting caught up with crits I need to get out, bookkeeping, mail, etc. and plan to get back to writing today. I worked on my WIP some while away, and think I have finally hit upon the order in which I want to put the revisions together.

Our car is still being held hostage by the garage in Virginia where it is getting the engine fixed, and probably will be until about Thursday, so we are spending some quality time with my cousin Ann, and Bruce, who live 250 miles south of where our car is, in North Carolina. We are glad to be here, since otherwise we would be in a motel for the ten days it is taking and we are also having a nice visit and vacation that we would not otherwise have had. The above picture is of one of the many birds on their back porch this morning...I am thinking a baby cardinal because of its fuzziness.

What about this one? It does not have the tuft of a cardinal...might it be a tananger, or maybe a purple finch, or something else? I could not match it definitively in the bird book that is here, so please help me out.

Have done only a little writing (but in my head, not on paper) since becoming stranded--a poem about a butterfly that I am going to write down today. I also think I will be able to work on my WIP today, too...we are having a quiet stay-at-home day for the first time since we arrived. No golf, no shopping, no going to visit an old classmate. So I am off to work on writing.

A Few Things for Friday

This has been a busy week here in my hometown in Florida.

1. My daughter-in-law and two grandsons came to visit from Germany, by way of Georgia, where they are spending the summer. They and another son's family had fun going to the pool, to the zoo, and to Kennedy Space Center...not bad, considering they were only here for four days.

2. Over at Live Journal, Cindy Lord issued a challenge to post a photo a day of our home towns, so since I like to take photos, I took that on...had fun running around town and my neighborhood, taking photos of all the interesting (or not so interesting) things I could. If you want to see pictures of where I live, check out my LJ blog, which is USUALLY the same as this one. Here is a sample:

Harbor at Crane Creek, Downtown Melbourne
3. Also, Jo Knowles invited all her friends to participate with her in the 15-a-day challenge, where we are to write for fifteen minutes a day for a month, created by halseanderson. I have joined that, and am doing okay, so far.

4. Because of the challenge, I finished the first draft of RUSSELL'S VICTORY, an easy reader companion book to IT'S TIME. I sent it off to my editor, and am now reworking the beginning of it.

5. Also, I have gotten quite a bit done on my MG WIP, so the challenge has done well in motivating me to actually sit down and work.

6. We're heading out next week for a wedding in PA, so still need to do a little shopping to see if I can find a new sundress to wear.

Hope you all have a Happy Independence Day!

Another Week

I seem to have missed the Friday post I promised, but really had nothing to report. We had Thanksgiving yesterday, so Thursday we spent a leisurely day on the golf course, and then cooked steak on the grill for dinner to celebrate our 43rd anniversary that we DIDN'T get to celebrate last Wednesday. I even had one of my better rounds, breaking ninety, which is a very infrequent thing for me.

Am still working on rewrites...got stuck for a day or so this week, because I couldn't make up my mind if I want to stick with the first version, or to go in another direction completely, which will involve writing several new chapters and dumping the many of the old ones. A hard thing to do, especially when some of them are quite good--or maybe I should say I am quite attached to them, but they definitely would not fit into my 'new version.' I think I have decided to go in the new direction...it ties various parts together better, and cuts down on the great number of characters needed to send the MC from one environment to a totally different one. So progress is being made.

On Wednesday I had fun making a 'Thanksgiving craft' with my grandson, which started with going into the woods in search of brown pine cones. We found quite a few old weathered grey ones, but not too many brown ones, so it is a good thing I had some good ones from the craft store to back up our efforts. We made turkeys from pine cones and colored pipe cleaners, although O. insisted I call them by their correct name--chenille (whatever), which he read off the package. We stuck name tags on a post in each one to be used as place markers on Thanksgiving Day at his house. Today he was going to take one for show and tell at school. And now we can start on Christmas craft projects, since he likes to do a project each week.

I have just returned from our monthly Children's Writers' Club, where our presenter talked about the availability of grants for writers, and gave us several good websites for them...if anyone is interested in obtaining such a grant, let me know, and I'll send you the websites she gave us.

Have a good week, and have fun preparing for the holiday season.

This and that...

Guess I'll stick with the plan and list five for Friday, although not much has been going on.

1.The weather is finally 'cool' in Florida...down in the forties last night, and only into the sixties today. Very nice for outside activities during the day. I know that is nothing like much of the rest of the country has, but for me, who is cold if it goes below 80, it is cold enough.

2. I have scrapped several chapters of my WIP and am rewriting a whole section of the book. I think it is going well, and will test it out on my crit group in a few days.

3. I have been enjoying the Robert's Snow Cure for Cancer artist interviews on several websites. Check out the artists' snowflakes for the upcoming auction.

4. Plans for the Space Coast Writers' Guild annual Pen-to-Print V conference are progressing nicely. This week I have been following up with the agents, editors and authors who will be presenting to take care of any final details. I have enjoyed setting the conference up with so many great presenters.

5. I started my Christmas shopping today by ordering a magazine subscription for my grandson with autism. He really loves non-fiction, so the Kids Discover magazine seemed like the perfect gift for a kid who doesn't really like or use many things. Am hoping I can find a good magazine for my 12-year old grandson, too. Any suggestions?

Moving Along

It is such a relief to have finally completed my WIP...but now the hard work begins... made easier, of course, by my awesome online critique group. One of the reason it took so long to write, is because I was not happy with the ending I had in mind. Finally, I wrote it anyway, and now I can see WHY I don't like it, and where the changes need to be made. It is so much clearer, once the whole story is down on paper.

So now I am in the middle of deleting whole chapters, writing new ones, and moving some chapters or parts of chapters around. I don't remember having to do that as much with my first book, but I guess every book is different, and I really knew what the first one was about from the beginning.

The other thing I have been doing is working with the speakers for our Space Coast Writers' Guild's (SCWG) January conference. It's fun to write back and forth with all our speakers and get things set up...am really looking forward to the conference...AND to the SCBWI-FL conference, also in January, where I will be on the First Books panel.

Last, but not least, hubby and I are going on a trip to Germany for two and a half weeks in September, to visit my son and family who are there courtesy the US ARMY, and to see some of the surrounding countryside. We were there twelve years ago, and I could not get over some of the castles. 'This is a relatively new/young castle,' the guide says...'built in the 1300's.' Our whole COUNTRY isn't that old!

Oh, and I have a new release date for Knowing Joseph...in February.

Good news, bad news

Aug. 9th, 2007 at 9:17 PM
Finally! I have completed the first draft of my WIP and am ready to begin the editing process. Fortunately, I have had many good critiques on the book, so it should be easier for me the second time through than it was for me to finish it the first draft, even though I already know I'm going to be making some pretty significant changes.

That's the GOOD news.

The BAD news is ...well, I'll tell you later.

On another note, just look at the form on this kid! He might be the next Tiger Woods! We took my five-year-old grandson out on the course for the first time last Friday, and he actually did pretty well...golf---well that was okay, but it was more fun to push the gas pedal on the cart and to dump sand in the divots on the fairway.