Castle in the Clouds

It's official. We all knew it was coming, and now it's here. I've lost my freakin' mind. My memory has always been questionable. I can remember the most bizarre details and facts, but not what I had for dinner yesterday. I'd like to say this has always been true but I honestly can't remember. Maybe once upon a time I remembered not only the bizzare and unwanted things but those things I deemed truly important. In the last week I have forgotten three major events. Not things, people. Events! I missed two open houses last weekend. And, no, I didn't blow them off. I truly, honestly, sincerely FORGOT! Okay, so both of them were on the same day and it stands to reason if I was going to forget one of them, I would forget both. Now I might have been able to shrug this unfortunate "oops" off if the lastest instance of senility hadn't happened less than a week later. My nephew, who is adorable beyond words and I just love to pieces, had a b

Okay, so the line edits were a breeze. It stands to reason, then, the actual revision would take a bit more time and attention, right? Right! The good news is I think I've managed to redo the opening chapter without forgetting to re-introduce any of the necessary threads I had felt compelled to cut. As I progress through the novel I'm discovering I really loved the word "was" during the rough draft stage. It seems as if every other sentence needs to be slightly restructured in order to do away with the unnecessary "was"es. Fun, fun! Not that I'm a purist. I will admit I've left in a few here and there. Something else slowing down my progress is my desire to create a nice and tidy NewNovelist file for the final revision and polish. This organization, while painful now, will become a lifeline to my sanity when I begin writing the sequel. So many little details have escaped my memory. Taking the time to not just read them but to extract them an

It took me two days to get through the grammar and clarification corrections on Return of the Fallen . I expected to take a bit longer, but I'll manage I'm sure. So now I'm onto the revisions. I'm cutting scenes, adding words, and praying what I'm writing makes sense. If I leave out something important the whole story will fall apart. Threads will unravel. This makes me more than a little nervous, but I'm pushing myself to keep going.

Minor Annoucement: The book formerly known as Dragonborn will henceforth be referred to by its newest title, Return of the Fallen . There. Now that that's out of the way I can get onto the writing news. I am editing RotF. My beta reader, Brenda, has given me her electronic and manuscript notations. I have already worked my way through 100 pages, which leaves approximately 450 more to go. I must admit I'm feeling pretty pleased with my little self right now. I have a plan and plans are good! I intend to fix all the little grammar issues first, clarifying where necessary without adding or deleting too much. I expect this will take the rest of the week--she really didn't find too many errors (thanks to all the wonderful critiques I had from my crit partners at FM & the Mighty Quill). Once the simple fixes are taken care of I will then address the two major aspects of this revision. The beginning needs to be strengthened. The action needs to be tighter, more

The Dog: Came racing down the driveway as I pulled in Friday night. Didn't even need the hubby's magical voice to bring the little darling home. Funniest thing...she was clean! Someone had bathed her. She's so fluffy and soft right now. Christian: I made a trip out to see my newest little nephew yesterday. He's so darn tiny! I can't believe my oldest son was the exact same birth weight. It seems impossible to reconcile the 8 year old giant with the tiny, frail infant I held in my arms. Writing: rotflmao. I'm hoping to get back to it sometime this week. Scrapbooking Gift: Completed and delivered to the lucky grad. Damn, am I ever grateful to have that thing out of my hair.

Seriously. You have no idea... I've been doing the single mom act all week because the hubby has been in Chicago attending a conference. I really don't care for the single parent act. I don't know how people who have no choice but to be a single parent do it. I think we should award each and every one an award for heroism. Because seriously, it's a lot of work. It's exhausting. It's time-consuming. It's difficult. And that's just scratching the surface. The boys had five games between the two of them this week. My Monday, Wednesday and Thursday evenings were consumed by cleats, baseball bats, gloves, and rushed dinners. Last night was made even more exciting by having to have my oldest son to the field 45 minutes early for pictures. None of this would have been so bad if I wouldn't have had offered to make a scrapbook for my co-worker's daughter. She just graduated from High School and the Open House is this weekend. Of course, I di

Well, it's a boy! This means I now have 8 nephews from my side of the family and 10 nephews overall. It's so funny when you consider my parents have 10 grandsons and 1 granddaughter. Christian Alexander was born last night at 11:16 pm. He weighed 7lbs, 6oz and was 20 1/2 inches long. He has a fair amount of light bown hair and an impressive set of lungs. My sister's blood pressure was dangerously high (195/120 I think I remember her Mom telling me), which is why they decided they couldn't continue to let nature take its course. Although she was contracting, she wasn't really making any progress and the doctor didn't want to mess around with the blood pressure issue. By the time I got to the hospital she was already in surgery. I kept my brother-in-law, James, company until the rest of the troops began to arrive. Sarah (my cousin and good friend of my sister's), and my dad and his fiance had a little bit of a wait but not much. Within 20 minutes some

My baby sister is finally having her baby! It's about time, too. She's looked ready to pop for several weeks now. Of course the baby doesn't seem to be rushing out to meet any of us. It seems content to move at its own maddening pace, which is somewhat faster than a snail. The contractions are slight and not doing much. The only reason they admitted her to the hospital was because of Chrissy's blood pressure. It's been high on and off for a few weeks. Since the baby is due tomorrow, the doctor seems to be willing to move things along regardless of the baby's wishes. If the contractions don't strengthen and begin dilating her cervix, there will be pitocin. I'll keep you posted. Hopefully I'll have pictures of my newest neice or nephew to post very soon!