Books and wine and dragons, oh my!

I  know summer isn't over until mid-September, but it feels like autumn to me. The trees are dropping their leaves, the flowers looked more bedraggled than riotous, the cicadas are in chorus, and the hummingbirds are in a feeding frenzy, stoking up for their annual migration.

For many of us, fall is the start of the new year, not January 1. I think it's because of school starting then. For 12 years (or 16, or more) we consider each September a fresh start. New clothes, new books, new beginnings.

I'm looking forward to September after a long, lazy stay-at-home summer. I'm going to the AJC Decatur Book Festival. This is the biggest independent book sellers' festival in the country. I will have a really difficult time going over the schedule and selecting the presentations and workshops I want to attend.

That same weekend is the annual Dragon Con. My grandson has gone the last two years (that's him above as Dr. Who) and since his Dad has to sign him in, I will tag along and we will stay for the parade. It will be noisy, crowded and fun -- an experience for sure.

Later in September my sister and I plan to do another tour through North Carolina wine country. We did this last year and had such a great time we decided to repeat it, visiting old favorites and some new sites. A side tour to Seagrove to check out the pottery is also on the schedule.

So, my goal is to finish the Riverbend revision before September so I can gallivant with a free conscience.

Have any of you been to Dragon Con or the book festival? I'd love to hear what you think. Comments are always welcome.
  

Summer Bounty

Summer is not the best time to write. There are too many distractions, most of them out of doors. If you are a gardener, you know what I mean.

We didn't put in a garden this year. We planted flowers instead. But that doesn't mean we don't have a harvest. I've been picking and freezing blueberries for two weeks now. The freezer is full; I'm sick of picking. I surrendered yesterday and called some friends to come get the rest.

You can eat only so many blueberries. However, I have discovered they make wonderful smoothies. I mix the juice with some plain yogurt, a little sweetener and a dash of orange juice. I have a lot of blueberry juice as we canned it last year.

Now I'm working on the figs. For some reason, our tree has decided this is the year to produce. There are so many I am able to keep ahead of the rascals who grab them as soon as they're ripe. The rascals are wasps, birds, maybe opossums, maybe raccoons, maybe deer, I don't know. Never caught 'em in the act. I have been eating figs like candy and this morning I made some fake strawberry jam using mashed figs and strawberry gelatin.

I also have a recipe for fig preserves. I tried making them one year, turned my back on the pot for one second (I swear!) and they burned. Had to throw the whole mess out, including the pot. The trick is to stir while boiling. Have you ever noticed how long ten minutes is when you are standing over a hot stove stirring a spoon through hot, sticky fruit?

And the crab apple tree is loaded, also. I have made crab apple jelly before and plan to again. It's the best jelly for toast or biscuits, and also makes a darn good glaze for ham or pork chops.

So right now, I am gathering my harvest and preserving it for winter.

At which time, I will stay indoors and write.

A big thank you and you know who you are!

I am facing a pile of work, now that my allergy-induced hiatus is over. My editor friend, after painstakingly going over Riverbend sentence by sentence, has sent me his edits.

I appreciate his efforts more than he knows.

Now to take his comments, questions, and notes and apply them to the manuscript. This will be my fourth re-write or maybe the sixth or seventh. I've lost count.

Why is editing important, and why is it important to ask a professional to do it? I mean, I have published two books (five if you count the self-published ones), so I ought to know what I'm doing, right?

Wrong. For one thing, a writer doesn't always see her own errors. I look at the edited copy and wonder , "How in the world did I miss that? It's so obvious." But it wasn't to me. My eye skimmed right over the typo or misspelling or whatever.

And the story has been lingering in my mind for so long that I am positive I explained how the heroine got from A to B, or what happened here while this was going on there, or the little detail in her background that explains her reaction.

A good editor points out that no, the scene may be in your mind, but you failed to put it in the book.

My beta readers are also sending feedback. So far it has been positive, with few questions or comments. When they do mention a doubt, I take them seriously. One thing they like is for a character to act -- well, in character. The most frequent comment I get is, "I don't think he would do that." Or, "say that."

I don't know about you, but when I contemplate downloading a book (even if it's free) I check the reviews. If more than one person writes that the story was good, but she was turned off by the poor grammar, the typos or the formatting, I take a pass.

I don't want that to happen to me. If I send it to a publisher, I don't want to be rejected because of errors. And if I decide to self-publish, I need to be doubly certain that the book contains as few problem areas as possible.

So thanks to my editor friend and to my readers.

And now, to work.  

Not on vacation

I know it's a rule (although I don't know who proposed it or who voted it into existence) that you need to blog a minimum of once a week.

I am two weeks and two days behind, and it isn't because I was on vacation.

Nope. I suffer from pride. I boasted a few weeks ago on Facebook that I had taken over mowing the front yard. For one thing, it helps Jim out -- we have BIG yard! -- and secondly, I discovered that mowing burns many calories.

What I forgot was a long-ago diagnosis that I am allergic to grass and mold.

The first time didn't bother me. the second time, I felt a little stuffy. The third time (and isn't that always the charm?) I was in full-blown allergic reaction.

After two weeks of sniffling, coughing sneezing and feeling generally miserable, I finally called the doctor and made an appointment. Her opinion was that with all the rain, mold was growing like -- a weed? -- and she had seen a number of patients with my symptoms.

Double whammy. Grass and mold. Who knew?

So that's why I haven't been doing any writing. Whatsoever.

It's my excuse and I'm sticking with it.

Detour!

I've been going through "Riverbend" looking for typos and such and guess what? I found a huge, glaring error that if let slide would have had hundreds of readers contacting me to let me know how wrong I was.

Ahem. That's if I get the book published and it actually garners hundreds of readers. However, I am optimistic. You have to be in this business or no one would ever write anything.

In the novel, I write about an attempted murder and a trial. The murder weapon is a saddle girth that the villain has cut so that it tears apart and throws the rider. I tell that there might have been a mistake when the villain mistook the son's saddle for the father's.

As I re-read it, I said to myself, "A nine-year-old boy would not be using an adult saddle on his pony."

For one thing, I doubt the pony would put up with it.

So I'm going through the story again to remove all references to the doubt about the intended victim.

Because I really don't want to get angry fan mail. (In which case, can it be called "fan" mail?)

Have you ever come across a glaring error in a book and been tempted to write the author and correct her? Or did you decide never to read another of her books?

Either way, I'm glad I caught this error. And if I have any more, I hope my beta readers will catch them before I begin sending the manuscript out. If an editor catches it, the chances are "Riverbend" will never see print.

Even optimism can't overcome carelessness.

Almost there

I wrote awhile back that I was considering shortening my novel, "Riverbend," to make it more commercial.

Didn't work.

As I got into it, I  realized what I needed to do was dig deeper into the characters, their hopes and dreams, their failures and hard-won victories.

As a result, I added several thousand words. And I'm not finished.

But oh, so close. It's taking awhile because it is emotionally exhausting getting into a character's head. Seriously. I write a scene and when it is done I have to leave the story and think about something else for awhile.

I get mad at the characters for their foolish decisions and want to do a happy dance when they finally get it right.

Then there are the literary "rules" I have to follow. What is the plot? The character arc?

Most writers have this sorted out before they write the first word. I'm a "pantser." (The term evolved from early airplane pilots didn't have instruments and had to fly "by the seat of their pants.")

There is a plot, of course, or there wouldn't be a story. Lonely wife, a seducer on the prowl, a deranged and jealous rival, and the rigid rules of society that rule them all.

Or are those the characters? It gets complicated.

Love is the key. Love that ennobles and love that destroys.

A woman discovers her deepest desire is not what she thought.

A man finds redemption in sacrifice. (And he is not the hero.)

I made a pledge to finish the book by the end of this month. It looks like I might make it, but it will be like coming back from a long journey, leaving new friends behind.

Bittersweet.

Best camping trip ever

Rain, rain, go away!

The yard is a bog, the creek has risen, the flowers are limp, and spirits are low.

Summer is the time for outdoor fun, not pressing your face to the win
dow and wishing for a rainbow.

All this rain reminds me of the time I took the three boys camping in Delaware. It was a really nice camp, with lots of activities for the children, walking trails, and all the things a good campsite should have.

Unfortunately, it rained all week. My one week of vacation, which I  had paid good money for, and all it did was rain.

Was the trip a washout? Heck, no.

The counselors carried on with their games. The kids made ponchos from garbage bags, shucked their shoes off, and played along.

I rigged up an awning from a sheet of plastic and some clothes line so we could sit outside. We had a very small, Swedish camper that barely had room for me and the boys to stretch out at night, so we had to cook, eat and sit outside. Which we did, to the pleasant accompaniment of rain hitting our makeshift "roof."

My sister and her family had the site next to mine. We got together and made endless cups of hot tea and read our books around the campfire. Her husband napped. I was a single mom at the time, so entertaining another adult was nor something I had to worry about.

It was a great trip and we had a great time. Toward the end of the week the clouds dispersed and the sun came out.

By that time, it really didn't matter. We had learned to work with the weather instead of fighting it or complaining. When I mention it now, the boys (now with children older than they were at the time) tell me they don't remember the rain, just the fun they had.