Wednesday, July 31, 2013

It's Been a While

That would be my fault. Between the heat and laying a new patio and critiquing three manuscripts as the parts become available and of course working on two of my own stories, well, I sloughed off writing for the blog.

According to Kristen Lamb, that’s a sign of indecision, or lack of sticktoitivness (spell check doesn't like that one) or something equally obnoxious. I have no problem with that assessment; unfortunately, it seems perfectly reasonable.

However, just because the muse flittered away for her holiday in the midst of Boston's heat wave, and I’m having trouble deciphering her notes, those aren’t good excuses. For neglecting either the blog or the ending of Background Check. So I’m going to work at both those things.

For the patio, shown in progress,
we selected Belgard's Urbana 3 Piece in Sable. To finish will take another week, weather permitting, of digging, spreading the base, laying the stones and then ’grouting’ the joints. A little clean-up around the edges and on to restaining the deck. Never ends, right?

I am trying an experiment with Freedom Does Matter, hopefully to go live in the next couple of weeks. Based on a perceived lack of interest in Mercenaries: A Love Story which i’m attributing to a combination of the description and the cover, I sent a candidate description to an editor, and am awaiting his feedback. While waiting, i’m doing yet another read-thru for typos and excess words. We’ve already shown the cover (top right), so we’ll see what difference these make. With the editor’s permission, when we finish  I’ll post the exchanges and results for your edification.

As I implied above, Background Check is nearly complete. However, the last scenes are giving me a fit. Too slow, and not enough action for the closure. But rather than navel-gazing, I need to look at the run-up to the end, and just go ahead and finish it. Then revise as necessary!

Comments are always welcome. More to come.