For me, summer officially begins today. It’s the girl’s last day of school. I’m both excited and melancholy. Melancholy because another school year has come to pass, but excited because I’m looking forward to a break from the school routine and I think we’re going to have a fun summer. (Check me on this, however–when it’s BTS time, I’ll be ready to get back into the routine.) So, this afternoon it’s party time. Pizza, ice cream, water balloons, and music on the boom box. :cool:

I’ve tried to adjust my writing schedule accordingly. The girl has a couple of day camps so that gives me work time and I’ll also be rolling out of bed around 5 a.m. to get most of my writing done before she’s up. I will, however, be working through this week-end and Memorial Day. If you’re traveling for the holiday, I wish you safe travel.

Have a great holiday and hope you get some reading time in! (That’s my idea of a great afternoon–parked in the sky chair with a good book. :hehe:)

Jen

…aspects of writing. I’m hyperventilating over this book. It’s due. Soon. As usual, I’m not as close to finished as I’d like to be, so while the family’s out playing, I’ll be working through the week-end. Long days. Pretty much nights too. Same story for next week-end and Memorial Day. Even though I try hard to not let this happen, I always seem to fall behind and there’s this crazed, frantic rush the last two weeks of the book. I think my husband has begun to accept it as a way of life (although he doesn’t particularly like it) and he just steers clear and takes the girl with him. :crazy:

The fairly great aspect of writing is that for a bit of time–before the mosquitoes take over the world and it’s too stinking hot and muggy outside to think about anything other than how hot and sweaty you are–I can haul my handy dandy laptop outside and work on the top deck which is a bit like a giant treehouse.

Oh, I’m feeling the crack of the deadline whip…off to do pages….

:doze:Jen

Returning from my daughter’s school along a winding two-lane road with my windows down, the scents of springtime in the south were sublime this morning. Rampant honeysuckle and a native shrub I call sweet shrub because it’s covered with small white fragrant blooms banked both sides of the road. The air, soft and sweet with a hint of the day’s coming heat, perfumed the morning’s cool crispness. It’s so funny to me–what smells cloyingly sweet when it’s replicated in a candle or a room spray or even a perfume, smells divine with the morning sun warming it. I hope wherever you are today, you’ll stop to smell the roses, or the sweet shrubs or whatever’s in bloom in your part of the world. :)

Jen

FYI, the first chapter of my September Blaze, DARING IN THE DARK, is on the web site under Books.

Now, I have to get back to working on this book.

Jen

I think I was meant to live near the ocean, or at the least near a river or stream. There’s just something about the sound of the movement of water that soothes my mind and nurtures my soul.
For years, I carried a fantasy in my head of living on a house boat in the Carribean. I know. Take another look at my photo. Can you say SPF50+? And everything works out the way it should I suppose because the last time I checked, my bank account wasn’t accomodating ocean-front property–either in the Caribbean or the US of A. :O Instead, I compensate. From almost any spot in my house, I can hear running water. We have a fountain in the foyer audible, albeit faintly, from my bedroom. Outside my office is a garden pond with a small waterfall and there’s a fountain on the back deck. And my screen saver was taken in Baja last year. Some days it’s harder to compensate than others. :rolleyes:

Jen

An excerpt from an article I read last night in The Week, a recap of the best of U.S. and international news under Health & Science:

The flood of e-mails, cell-phone calls, and text messages that bombard modern workers can lower their IQs twice as many points as smoking marijuana, a new study says. Researchers at the University of London found that trying to work while checking messages temporarily knocks about 10 points off a person’s IQ. (Smoking marijuana, by contrast, results in a loss of four IQ points.)

There you have it. Enough said. I knew there was a reason I no longer stay dialed into the internet all day.

On other fronts of information overload, I realized yesterday that we get over 15 magazines a month at this house. All very interesting–well, that’s a lie, I find Kiplingers a dead bore but in a moment of misguided ambition decided I should be more money savvy and ordered it, but really, it doesn’t get much page turning–but it’s a lot of information to take in (not a single decorating or fashion mag in the bunch). Oops. Rolling Stone just came in the post and I’d forgotten about it, so now we’re 16+.

I could go on to talk about the month of May–Field Day, Talent show, Chorus performance, choir performances, soccer games, teacher’s gifts, Honors Day, costumes for talent show and chorus performance, summer camp registrations, and a book due on the last day of school–I could talk about those things but I fear I’d be speaking in whine-ese, so it’s best if I just don’t really mention all of that. :confused:

After working with a computer guy for about an hour yesterday, we determined that my chapter can’t be recovered….so, I’m going to turn off my phones, log off the internet, and get to work. God knows I don’t need to further lower my already compromised IQ.

Jen

Sometimes I really don’t like myself very much. Today’s one of those days. Give me the Computer Idiot Award.

Last week I blogged that I thought I had the wrong POV in a chapter, which was why I was stalled out. Instead of deleting what I had–in case my new stuff didn’t work–I created another file. Switching the POV was exactly what I needed to do. The pages flew and it was really working. I was so pleased with what turned out to be an entire chapter over the course of two to three days. I saved the new material in my new file name and all was right with my world. The next day I decided to go in and muck around with the previous chapters. I added some pages and fleshed out a couple of scenes. When I started to save my work, I realized I was in the old file. Hey, no problem. When I was saving, I simply saved it to my new file and blithely went on my way.

Hel-lo. Anyone home in my brain? I FREAKING WROTE OVER MY ENTIRE NEW CHAPTER. An entire chapter that rocked–gone, vamoose, bye-bye, nada, no more. And of course, Ms. Clever didn’t figure it out until today, after she’d saved over the file many more times. Right after I realized what I had done, for about 30 seconds, I thought all was not lost because I had a hard copy on my desk. Hey, I’d just key it back in. Nope. I’d printed the hard copy after I’d saved the old file on top of the new. Brilliant.

I suppose there’s no point in relaying this story if I’m not going to be absolutely truthful. I cried. Blubbered like a big baby. For quite a while, in fact. Then I turned up DMB really, really loud and worked out with some arm weights (good for inner hostility). Then I sat back down and went back to work on what I had.

This evening three friends told me they think a data retrieval specialist may be able to retrieve the old file. Bright and early tomorrow morning, I’ll be tracking down a data retrieval specialist. In the meantime, I’ve started a new practice which I will abide by from now on. I’ve created a secondary screen name and emailed myself my work. And I’ll do that tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after….Not replacing files or deleting them, just leaving them out there. Insurance against another really stupid move on my part.

And for now, I’m going to have a glass of wine, go to bed, and hope for the best tomorrow.

Jen

Happy Mother’s Day to all you moms! Enjoy the day. The dh and the girl have gone over to my m-i-l’s for a bit. I’m going to sit out on the top deck with my galley’s and a glass of wine.

OMG, I do believe I’m in love! Went to see Kingdom of Heaven last night by myself (the dh and the girl were at the races and I love to go to movies alone). Liam Neeson, Orlando Bloom, and Jeremy Irons. Please. It was almost more than I could stand. :hehe: Throw in chain mail and all that knightly garb….I’ve never been a big Orlando Bloom fan, but I think I read that he put on about 30 pounds for this role. It suits him. Wow. Unless you’ve got a monstrous big screen at home, don’t wait for this to come out on DVD. It really is a movie made for a theatre’s big screen. Neeson, Bloom, and Irons are well worth the price of admission.

Jen