Writing and the Weekend

So, when I arrived at the shop yesterday I was determined to rework my "Out of the Box" story completely and spent the day thinking about it and reading the wonderful link that a friend had sent to me on writing murder mysteries (much of which I already knew, but some of which was a wonderful relevation). Last night I began the actual re-write and, although I'm only three pages in to what had already been nine pages, I'm feeling much better about where the story is going.

This is the final weekend of Renaissance Festival. It seems like yesterday when I was posting that the season was just beginning. It's looking like we'll have beautiful, warm weather. Cloak weather for the first hour or so, but then not needed until the sun goes down. Yesterday morning there was a fire at the Fest grounds. It started in one of the food vendors at 6am or so, and spread to six other stalls before finally being brought under control. Five different fire departments were involved because there are no fire hydrants or large-pipe water up there, they had to truck in all of the water needed to fight the blaze. The fest opened yesterday slightly late, but no-one was hurt, and that's the most important thing.

I'm looking forward to my fall activities - a small gem and lapidary show in two weeks, and maybe a visit or two to an art exhibit before I have to start my holiday hours. I still want pretty things to look at, though, so I present the pic above for your eye candy for the day. The pic is aspen trees in the fall near Marble, Colorado. I grew up nearby and we visited Marble several times while I was growing up. It was a beautiful area. Marble's quarries supplied most of the marble used in the Federal buildings in Washington DC and many other amazing structures. I loved our rare trips out there and remember them with great fondness.

Fighting With a Story

Aarrgghhh! I'm in the midst of writing a murder mystery story for an "Out of the Box" challenge, and 3/4 through. I revise as I write, going back to the beginning and tweaking. Reading it with a more critical eye last night, I realized how shaky my premise was. Now it will require a MAJOR rewrite and it's due next week! *sigh* I'll keep the main characters and quite a few of the supplementary ones, but I need to make the protagonist more believable and give him a reason for his actions. That reason has gone through a few evolutions and has been lost. I need to refind it. It's like a giant spiral... Call me frustrated!

And Chickie has today and tomorrow off. If we get busy at the shop, we'll have a preview of what next year might be like and I suspect I will not be happy. As much as I may like my DH, as a co-worker he is not as effective as I would like. But without our sales numbers increasing dramatically, we just can't handle the payroll numbers we are doing, so things have to change. I suspect I'll be looking at 2012 as just a year to get through so that I have 2013 and my future shining brightly ahead of me. Oh well, thank goodness there is still beauty that I can focus on, and as long as I have that I'll be all right. So, I think I'll share some of that beauty with all of you today! (I couldn't make up my mind between the two waterfall pics, so you get both of them!)

Somewhat Accomplished

So yesterday was my "day off". Aside from errands, I worked a bit on my Game of Thrones original character for the deadline next week. I did take a few hours out to beta a chapter for my friend Iris. She used to send me her work pre-betaed and I would correct from there, but her primary beta has quit so it's just the two of us now. Her writing has improved over the past two years, so even though there were still plenty of corrections/suggestions that I had for her, it wasn't a total sea of red when I was finished.

I got Photoshop CS5 installed onto my DH's computer. There are a lot of new tools, so I downloaded the user manual PDF into my Dropbox account so that I can read through either at work or home and find out how to play with the software. Since it is on DH's computer, though, I will only be accessing it on Wednesdays for this year and who knows when next year. But, when I have to get my own computer upgraded, I'll have to install CS5 on this one too since my old Photoshop won't work any more. Hopefully I'll be comfortable with the new features by then.

DH has his head in LOTRO from the time he comes home (after dinner) until midnight or so. He's progressing in Dunland, and I haven't done anything with it except get the software update downloaded and installed. *sigh* I'd rather write or review or plan my Solstice cards or...or... Oh well. Happy Rosh Hashanah to all of my Jewish friends. A sweet year ahead of you!

Day Off - Errands, etc

So it's my day off. That means I have a list of errands a mile long to accomplish this morning, and I think I'll start designing my Solstice cards while finishing some pending writing projects this afternoon. Yesterday, I finally received my new books of checks from my printing company. They were no longer offering my Michael Whelen dragons, but replaced it with Ciurelo dragons instead. I can live with that. Instead of the dragons of Pern I get fighting and independent dragons. Either way, great fun to see when I have to pay bills - LOL.

I only use checks when I pay bills. I could pay them on-line, in fact did so a couple of years ago. But when the bank messed up and allocated a payment to the incorrect account, I was less than pleased and discontinued the practice. I also found that physical checks, in most cases, actually arrived sooner and my payments were posted faster. Go figure. I guess I'll be a post office supporter for the rest of my life, although it may well be phased out of existence within the next 50 years or so. (No, I'm not planning to live to be more than 100 years old unless my health is exceptional because I don't think I'd like looking at myself in the mirror in the mornings and I'm curious about what's next on this interesting journey that we are all walking.)

So, since I have to run out in ten minutes to get on with my errands, etc., I'll wish all of you a wonderful and artistic day.

Looking for my Husband...LOL

So, the Isenguard Expansion for Lord of the Rings Online came live yesterday. He downloaded it as soon as dinner was over yesterday and started playing. I think he finally went to sleep around 1:30 this morning. He has today off, I'm sure he'll be playing for most of the day. He'll barely poke his head above water for days while he is playing the new areas and working at getting his characters back up to the new cap level. I'll be playing it myself this weekend with my old characters to get them capped up too. It'll be fun.

I am head-deep in writing right now. Bumed that I didn't even get Honorable Mention for ALEC in August, but, I knew I was going out on a limb with the direction I chose and I'm OK with it. At least I can bring my story "Love and Loss in Three-Quarter Time" out into the general air now and my September story was submitted on time. I'm busy with my October community challenge of "Outside the Box" which is turning into a much larger story that I had ever intended, I have a drabble to do this morning, and there were a couple of other things of interest. Additionally I need to invent a character for Game of Thrones. Although I already know what character I want to do, I have to find the appropriate graphics to go along with it. The deadline for this one is next week, so I'd better get going on this soon. Too much to do - but all fun!

Winding Down, Ramping Up

So, next weekend will be the final weekend of this year's Renaissance Festival. We've had a great time and usually good weather and we hope that this coming weekend will be beautiful weather for shut-down. It's a long day for us because we open in the morning with the gates still closed, and we end up in the night closing the fest down and wishing the best to all of our friends until the next year. We'll buy next year's season tix on Sunday as well, I would have bought them yesterday, but totally forgot to bring a credit card along with me.

Yesterday was "Adventure on the High Seas" day (Pirate day) and the second annual Rib Fest (so VERY good). DH and I totally pigged out on ribs. They were also having free tastes of the new Guiness Black Lager (very nice, lighter in taste than standard Guiness, but darker in appearance) and Jeremiah Weed Lightning Lemonade and Roadhouse Tea (both really, really good). We celebrated our wedding anniversary a week late and had a totally enjoyable time. Next week will be Irish weekend with Irish vendors and Guiness beer tastings. Call me happy.

I'm continuing to write, of course, but I'm behind on posting them to my various archives. I'll try and catch up this week. I have only 100 or so pages left in Feast of Crows, then I can continue on to Dance with Dragons and finally be caught up with George RR Martin's Game of Thrones saga. Thank goodness for my NookColor. It makes catching a page here and there much easier and makes lugging all of these books around lighter. Time to focus on work...have a terrific Monday.