Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

I had two goals going in to Sunday - to wake up Monday morning with no "Beast" car in my driveway and to have a deision on how to sell/donate the items still left in my father-by-marriage's house. So today as I wake up, take my shower and bring my mind back up and running, one of the two were accomplished. I am still waking up to a "Beast" in my driveway. Not for lack of trying, though.

My "Beast" is not a topiary, it is a rust-bucket.
It is time for it to go...

My nephew and his friend Chris came by around noon to try and get "Beast" operational. They spent almost an hour working on the engine, finally determining that the brake lines weren't something they could trust on the road. They then discussed bringing over a car trailer which another friend owns, but taking a careful look at the underside of the car, they determined that the frame was completely rusted through. That makes the truck completely unsafe and, basically, not repairable - at least not as a "project" piece. So...the "Beast" is still with us. I'll be contacting the Disabled American Veterans today. According to their advertisements they take any vehicle and will tow those that do not run. They are welcome to whatever they can get from the scrap value, I just want a clear driveway again.

I suspect that the DAV's tow truck will be a bit more modern than
this one, but this one is a beauty, isn't it?

While standing outside watching the boys doing their car thing I had a chance to meet the wife of our next door neighbor. Chris and Colleen have three young children - Annika, Braden and Jake.  They seem to be a very nice family. We spoke for a while and they left for their home. Shortly afterward a lovely dog came by to say hello - a real sweetheart that I hadn't seen before. Looking at his collar, I found out his name was "Charli". Taking a chance, I escorted "Charli" next door and asked Colleen if he belonged to them. Apparently they are dog sitting for her brother while he is on vacation. I'm happy "Charli" came to visit me. It would have been a shame if he had just wandered out in a strange neighborhood. He's home safe now.

Charli had a look similar to this Golden Doodle, although
I don't know exactly what breed he was. He was a very
friendly dog, though, and I'm happy he is back home now.

After all of this excitement we went to my father-by-marriage's house and I called Boyd Christenson to come over and take a look through the house. Boyd's name was given to me by Chickie who shares cycling classes with him on Friday mornings at the local YMCA. She said he was a really nice guy and he was. He was at the house a short time later and we went through room by room, floor by floor, looking at everything. He'll send me a contract and I think we'll sign it.

He'll photograph everything, group them into lots, and put them onto an on-line auction that will run for about ten to fourteen days. Then he sets a day/time frame for final bidders to collect their items, collects the payments, and about five days after that, pays us the proceeds minus his commission. I'm absolutely willing to have him do this and send these items to new homes where they will be appreciated, or to resellers who want to put them into their second-hand shops or on-line sales. More power to them. My goal is to have the house ready to put up for sale by the end of September and Boyd's auction will allow us to stick to that schedule. After the items are collected we'll give the house a good clean, donate the last few items to Goodwill or throw them out, and contact Jim and Mary, our local real estate agents. By the end of October the entire thing may be wrapped up and life may return to normal...so to speak. Just in time for NaNoWriMo...yeah, normal may be a total pipe dream.

My bar had this on tap, so no bottle. I chose it because
it was a dark stout, and also because it comes from
Colorado. Would I buy it again? It's almost too sweet for
my taste, but it wasn't bad. I'd seriously consider another glass.

We ended the day at Grumpy's with beer and food. I usually have Guinness, just because I love it. But in honor of my friend Ann (just_ann_now) who adores beer and craft beers, I tried a crafted stout after my first glass of Guinness. I wrote the name down because I knew I wouldn't remember it. It was called Left Hand Nitro Milk Stout, a dark stout with a slightly sweeter taste than Guinness. It was quite good, but I'll return to my Guinness next time - I guess I know what I like :-)

Oy! I Don't Have A Photo...

I got my Author's sheet from the publisher today. Most of the information that they want is easy - website address, blog address, a summary of the story and a brief bio. But one of the things that they want (of course, because it only is sensible and reasonable) is a high-resolution author photo. I don't have one. I have photos of myself, which is a vast improvement over fifteen years ago when I wouldn't allow a photograph to be taken of me.

This pic of me was taken at the State Fair this past Labor Day.

I'm torn between making a quick appointment for a professional photo which I will probably hate and which will cost me more money than I have right now, or going with something that's a bit more candid. Candid I can do, formal...not so much. I'm basically someone who is intense about my own life, but laid back when it comes to interacting with the rest of the world. I've considered myself to be an artist for a long time, and I interact with the world on my own terms as much as I can. I try to be true to my art and I consider my writing another part of that artistic vision.

I've been reading Steven King's "On Writing" which was recommended to me by Elfscribe. I'm finding a lot of similarities in approach, but what I have found really helpful is how my current schedule is mirroring his recommendations. He recommends writing daily. His goal is 2000 words each day and he writes in the morning and continues writing until he has achieved his 2000 words. If things are coming easily, he might exceed that number, but he won't do below it. That's very similar to the schedule I set for myself to achieve in NaNoWriMo, and I'm finding it very comfortable, although my sleep is suffering because I had to push my morning wake-up time even earlier. After I have my 50,000 words down, which will probably be by the end of the weekend, I may relax just a bit more. I'll let myself sleep that extra 20 minutes again, waking up at 3:30 am instead of 3:10 am. And if I don't have my 2000 words by 6:00 am, I will just continue working on it at the coffee shop to achieve the goal. I work there now, but now it is to extend my 2000 words into 3000 words.

My characters are changing directions, but to where?

The only absolute I can say is that I'm loving my historical character more than I ever thought I would. I've been neglecting my contemporary character to concentrate on him because he's so challenging. I'm not sure if this novel will go the direction I had originally intended, but I'm on the surfboard and I've just caught the curl. I want to ride the wave.

Court and Contracts

Tomorrow I have to go to court and plead my case in front of the City Council. This is NOT the way that I wanted to spend my Tuesday afternoon. It became necessary because of hoops, bells and whistles that the city has instituted to fight abandoned houses that just become tawdry run-down properties and often can lead to lowered property values and increased crime. However, that's not our house. Our house is dearly loved and we've been working on renovating and fixing it up to put onto the market in the summer of 2013.

When I moved up to Minnesota in the late 1970's (yes, I'm that old *sigh*), my DH and I moved into his grandmother's home. She was a feisty German woman who, along with her husband, had moved to Minnesota in the late 19-teens. They purchased this little house from the carpenter who had built it and who had lived in it for two years while he built another home for himself. It's a beautiful house - very small but sturdy. It is a typical arts and crafts house, 1-1/2 stories high with a full, unfinished basement of poured concrete walls. It has outstanding hand-finished woodwork - hardwood floors, solid doors, wide moldings, and built-ins all over the place.

The city has decided that since we have not lived in the house for many years, nor had tenants that we were renting it to, it is a vacant house. This means that we have to pay an additional $1100 tax to the city for the property. But, more than that, it means that to be able to put it on the market in 2013 (which is our intention) we now would have to have a series of inspectors come through and certify that the house is properly cared for, totally up to code, etc. I understand where the city is coming from, but we went through this earlier and were assigned a class 1 status meaning we just needed to keep the property up and all would be well. But, someone new came into the Fire Inspections department, determined to impress her new employers, and my file was one that was pulled. So, because of her push, we've been dropped to class 2 status and that's not good. Tomorrow I get to state my case in front of the City Council and try to convince them to allow us to resume our class 1 status. If that happens, I'll have that house ready to go on the market in the summer and it will be sold before the end of 2013. It's a dog and pony show.

I've also been reviewing my contract for my short story "Dragon Seeks a Wife". I already had them change the few things that were actually germane to the document, and so I will sign it (with the certain knowledge that I will NOT be getting rich on this story - LOL). But there are typos, dropped punctuation, etc. that also exists in the contract, even though this is a second run-through. So I'll also tell them about those even though they won't have to change the contract to reflect those changes. But it would be really, really nice if they did change it one more time...just saying...