Write Around The Corner

In case you've been wondering, I have been continuing to work on my novel. I still have a hundred pages to edit. It's taken FOREVER to get it edited to the point that I'm ready to push it out into the world. Okay, maybe just to my husband and a few beta reading friends.

Honestly, it's MUCH worse than taking Grace to daycare for the first time or dropping her off at the first day of kindergarten. No one was going to judge me for doing those things. They were expected. Natural. Necessary.

This is terrifying. The more I read and work on my story the more I think, "Uh, this is probably not good enough."

But you know what? It's almost finished and by God; it's going somewhere.

This Saturday at the monthly Ozarks Romance Authors  meeting, I'll get a chance to practice my pitch. A pitch is when you get to try to sell your story to a real LIVE editor or publisher. It's your chance to play salesman and cheerleader all in one.

I've spoken to LOTS of civic groups, hospital administrators, principals, church volunteers and kids. When I pitch to an actual live EDITOR and PUBLISHER on Saturday June 23, it will be the most terrifying thing EVER. Seriously, I can't even picture her naked. That would only make it worse. I have butterflies just thinking about it. But you know what? I'm totally going to do it.

I'm gonna sell that sucker like it's the next Sookie Stackhouse book. Then I'll hope she wants to see more. Then I'll hope when I send it to her she won't say, "Thanks but this is not for us."

If she does, I'll self-publish it, sell it for $2.99 to all my adoring friends and family (all twelve of you) and start again because this dream isn't over. Not nearly.

I can do this.

If you would like to do this too. Write a novel that is... you should totally join us on Saturday June 23 at the Howard Johnson in Springfield for ORA CON. I promise it will be $50 well spent.

Viva la dream!

Memorial Memories

Okay, first of all I know...I suck. I just realized I hadn't posted since May 3. Eek! My three fans are revolting. So here you go, the colossal update and a promise to try harder. No, I'm not going to post every day, but I'll try to make it more than monthly.

This weekend we finally got the pool up. We had a dozer guy out to level the ground several weeks ago then hand-worked the ground and leveled it more with a 2x12, a tape measure and a four foot level.. We felt like it was pretty good but my dad borrowed a transit on Friday, and we shot it . Thankfully, it was less than a 1/2 inch off. We had two inches to work with so we were relieved.

Saturday we had a crew of friends and family rounded up and started the pool raising at 7 am with homemade biscuits and gravy. We had the pool up by noon and the Niangua fire dept. brought us out water to fill that puppy up.

Grace was in and out of it from the first droplets till the final fill.

 

The garden hoses only got it so far and when the fire truck arrived things really picked up.

 

It took the rest of the afternoon to get that sucker filled to three quarters full. They came back out this afternoon and finished it up. Bryon and I finally go the skimmer and the filter/pump hooked up no thanks to the absolutely horrible instructions or lack there of.

It was chilly, but we all got in this evening including Nana and christened it.

Grace went through four swimsuits in two days.

We had a talk about that.

Looks like a long fun summer. Bring it!

The M.R.S. MisGuided

I'd like to introduce The M.R.S. MisGuided. 

It's officially finished and successfully completed it's maiden voyage last weekend with Bryon, Matt and Steve taking turns at the oars. Not only did it float successfully but it also survived the misguided oaring of three novices.

They even caught some fish.

Grace and I are waiting for our turn now.

Row, row, row your boat.