Oh Lordy but it's been busy here at Chez Dragonfly this past week or so. We are deep, deep in the heart of baseball season now - a time when I have to count words written on the page rather than in a nice and neat (and Saved) computer document.
Have I ever mentioned how messy I am? My writing notebook currently looks like I've squashed a hen's nest between the bindings; little bits and pieces hanging out willy-nilly. And the only hope of finding any golden eggs in there relies upon well-crossed fingers and some head-tilted-to-the-sky prayers.
Yesterday, during Doodlebug's baseball game, the wind picked up to something resembling pre-tornado. And then some smarty pants too lazy to get water from the fountains turned on the hose... the one with holes in it. The entire bleacher section got sprayed, which would have been nice had a cold front not blown through earlier and had the wind not been blowing like mad. After the cold shower, my pen ran out and I decided that the writing gods were telling me - not so very nicely - to just quit already. So I listened.
But may I just say... their timing stinks! I had a breakthrough last weekend and have been really itching to get it all down. For a bit now, this whole WIP has been stifled by the simple question of how to introduce a hidden speculative world within the current world as we know it... quickly, and without acres and acres of back story, exposition, info-dumping, or flashbacks. Exactly. A right pain in the hind-parts to answer!
I caught BabySis last weekend, planted her on the ball park bleachers with me and made her talk book.
Note: It is dangerous to sit on the uncovered bleachers near 3rd base while writing and not paying attention to foul balls. Just sayin'.
It worked, though! Breakthrough! I now have a rough outline of a new beginning (only my 4th beginning scene re-write).
That weekend, after BabySis left, I made a mad-dash scramble to scrub my house before my cousin Bubbles and her boyfriend, Mr.Bubbles, came to visit. Two things: 1) Never, EVER, leave a full vacuum unattended with a well-meaning 10 year old. You will find that in his attempt to help you empty it, he has dumped half the contents back onto the carpet. 2) I can't say enough about warming oils. They cover sweaty baseball boy stink better than anything I've encountered. Well, those and the Brethe machine. It was a close one but I think we managed to make Shaggy's room smell a little less like a high school boys' gym locker room. Bubbles??
Once Bubbles and her guy got settled in, we all - Mr. Clean & I, Doodlebug, Shaggy & his girlfriend, Shaggy's friend, "Boss", and Bubbles & Mr. Bubbles - went out for a nice Tuscan Italian dinner. And books! I bought Joshilyn Jackson's newest ---- SUCH a good read. Then, we all came home and groaned about being too full.
Seriously, I did not even stop off for coffee. I was that full. (I did whine about the lack of coffee later, when all of that food had digested, though... heh.)
Cousin & Mr. Bubbles left the next day for more of their whistle-stop tour of Southern Texas family before driving back to the Peach state. Hopefully they had a good trip. We certainly Loved having them here.
Then, it was back to baseball and has been ever since. It's been a hard season for Shaggy this year. The team he's on is made up of boys from two towns - who also happen to be rivals. That certainly makes for some interesting teamwork, or lack thereof. *sigh*
Mr. Clean is looking into creating his own Select team. *sigh* Select teams play from August - May. Yes, almost an Entire Year, as opposed to a mere three months. Three months that make me Crazy with The Busy. Three months where if feels like pulling teeth to write even on the weekends. And he's talking almost a year. With more travel. *rolling eyes* The older boys are so stinking excited, it's hard to be pissy about it even if it does mean my higgledy-piggledy notebook will become a fashion statement (unless Mr. Clean feels sorry for me and buys that new Mac book Air. Yum!).
Last weekend, Shaggy pitched for the first time!! OMG, I thought my heart was going to exit my chest, it started beating so hard. He did a great job, though. Really top notch and we were very proud. This weekend.... ugh, I'm sort of glad I missed the game.
I'm Highly Competitive so it's extremely hard for me to watch a game where my equally highly competitive son and his equally highly competitive friends are teamed up with a group of kids, of whom half give up somewhere around the 3rd inning... Every. Stinkin'. Time. It makes me CRAZY with unvoiced smack talk bubbling in the back of my throat. Crazy with it! Every game we've lost has been due to small errors happening over and over and over again. Little things, like... I don't know... actually putting your foot ON 2nd base when you're catching the ball to get someone out.
Okay, getting off that tangent before I explode.
Today, we took the day off. We were going to just hang out at the house and REST and SLEEP and VEG in front of the Tv. Then, Mr. Clean got tickets for an Aggies game. Yes... hahahaha... Baseball. It was a great game, though. Seventy-degree blue sky weather, with a -30 windchill. I am totally wind-burned on my face and arms. But hey, we WON! And we relaxed. And I managed to write... Nothing. But it's okay. Tomorrow I'll pick it back up and get down to work.
So that's where I've been lately and probably where I'll be until the end of May, first of June. It's just going to be touch and go. When it all comes down to it, blogging is not very high on the list of priorities at the moment (though, look! I chose to write here instead of my WIP). It'll get back up there soon, though. :o)
Two things: 1) I decided that Shaggy's bonfire party was just not that funny to blog about. Bottom line... sixteen-year-old boys staying in a tent will tell ghost stories to each other all night long... and then get just as scared as ten-year-old boys. We had it in mind to scare the ever-lovin' bejeezus out of them but they were snoring before we could put our plan into motion. We're saving it for later. 2) As soon as I can get my camera batteries charged, I'll show you my green things! Because, yeah, I actually have things that are Green. Not brown, not black, but truly true green and growing!
Have I ever mentioned how messy I am? My writing notebook currently looks like I've squashed a hen's nest between the bindings; little bits and pieces hanging out willy-nilly. And the only hope of finding any golden eggs in there relies upon well-crossed fingers and some head-tilted-to-the-sky prayers.
Yesterday, during Doodlebug's baseball game, the wind picked up to something resembling pre-tornado. And then some smarty pants too lazy to get water from the fountains turned on the hose... the one with holes in it. The entire bleacher section got sprayed, which would have been nice had a cold front not blown through earlier and had the wind not been blowing like mad. After the cold shower, my pen ran out and I decided that the writing gods were telling me - not so very nicely - to just quit already. So I listened.
But may I just say... their timing stinks! I had a breakthrough last weekend and have been really itching to get it all down. For a bit now, this whole WIP has been stifled by the simple question of how to introduce a hidden speculative world within the current world as we know it... quickly, and without acres and acres of back story, exposition, info-dumping, or flashbacks. Exactly. A right pain in the hind-parts to answer!
I caught BabySis last weekend, planted her on the ball park bleachers with me and made her talk book.
Note: It is dangerous to sit on the uncovered bleachers near 3rd base while writing and not paying attention to foul balls. Just sayin'.
It worked, though! Breakthrough! I now have a rough outline of a new beginning (only my 4th beginning scene re-write).
That weekend, after BabySis left, I made a mad-dash scramble to scrub my house before my cousin Bubbles and her boyfriend, Mr.Bubbles, came to visit. Two things: 1) Never, EVER, leave a full vacuum unattended with a well-meaning 10 year old. You will find that in his attempt to help you empty it, he has dumped half the contents back onto the carpet. 2) I can't say enough about warming oils. They cover sweaty baseball boy stink better than anything I've encountered. Well, those and the Brethe machine. It was a close one but I think we managed to make Shaggy's room smell a little less like a high school boys' gym locker room. Bubbles??
Once Bubbles and her guy got settled in, we all - Mr. Clean & I, Doodlebug, Shaggy & his girlfriend, Shaggy's friend, "Boss", and Bubbles & Mr. Bubbles - went out for a nice Tuscan Italian dinner. And books! I bought Joshilyn Jackson's newest ---- SUCH a good read. Then, we all came home and groaned about being too full.
Seriously, I did not even stop off for coffee. I was that full. (I did whine about the lack of coffee later, when all of that food had digested, though... heh.)
Cousin & Mr. Bubbles left the next day for more of their whistle-stop tour of Southern Texas family before driving back to the Peach state. Hopefully they had a good trip. We certainly Loved having them here.
Then, it was back to baseball and has been ever since. It's been a hard season for Shaggy this year. The team he's on is made up of boys from two towns - who also happen to be rivals. That certainly makes for some interesting teamwork, or lack thereof. *sigh*
Mr. Clean is looking into creating his own Select team. *sigh* Select teams play from August - May. Yes, almost an Entire Year, as opposed to a mere three months. Three months that make me Crazy with The Busy. Three months where if feels like pulling teeth to write even on the weekends. And he's talking almost a year. With more travel. *rolling eyes* The older boys are so stinking excited, it's hard to be pissy about it even if it does mean my higgledy-piggledy notebook will become a fashion statement (unless Mr. Clean feels sorry for me and buys that new Mac book Air. Yum!).
Last weekend, Shaggy pitched for the first time!! OMG, I thought my heart was going to exit my chest, it started beating so hard. He did a great job, though. Really top notch and we were very proud. This weekend.... ugh, I'm sort of glad I missed the game.
I'm Highly Competitive so it's extremely hard for me to watch a game where my equally highly competitive son and his equally highly competitive friends are teamed up with a group of kids, of whom half give up somewhere around the 3rd inning... Every. Stinkin'. Time. It makes me CRAZY with unvoiced smack talk bubbling in the back of my throat. Crazy with it! Every game we've lost has been due to small errors happening over and over and over again. Little things, like... I don't know... actually putting your foot ON 2nd base when you're catching the ball to get someone out.
Okay, getting off that tangent before I explode.
Today, we took the day off. We were going to just hang out at the house and REST and SLEEP and VEG in front of the Tv. Then, Mr. Clean got tickets for an Aggies game. Yes... hahahaha... Baseball. It was a great game, though. Seventy-degree blue sky weather, with a -30 windchill. I am totally wind-burned on my face and arms. But hey, we WON! And we relaxed. And I managed to write... Nothing. But it's okay. Tomorrow I'll pick it back up and get down to work.
So that's where I've been lately and probably where I'll be until the end of May, first of June. It's just going to be touch and go. When it all comes down to it, blogging is not very high on the list of priorities at the moment (though, look! I chose to write here instead of my WIP). It'll get back up there soon, though. :o)
Two things: 1) I decided that Shaggy's bonfire party was just not that funny to blog about. Bottom line... sixteen-year-old boys staying in a tent will tell ghost stories to each other all night long... and then get just as scared as ten-year-old boys. We had it in mind to scare the ever-lovin' bejeezus out of them but they were snoring before we could put our plan into motion. We're saving it for later. 2) As soon as I can get my camera batteries charged, I'll show you my green things! Because, yeah, I actually have things that are Green. Not brown, not black, but truly true green and growing!
We did have a great time. And, yes, the room smelled great. Dinner was delicious, and the rest of our trip was fun. Can't wait until June!!!
Oh exciting, a new Joshilyn Jackson book. And I have book tokens to spend! Look out Bookshop ;o)