Showing posts with label Oklahoma City. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Oklahoma City. Show all posts

Monday, August 13, 2012

The Oklahoma City Bombing Memorial

Before leaving OKC, we trekked to downtown and visited the Oklahoma City Bombing Memorial. The memorial is located on the site where the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building once stood. It's a lovely setting and a wonderful tribute to those that died. For more info on the bombing, visit the Wiki page.

 School children made tiles to thank the people who came to help.

There's a bucket of chalk and people can come leave messages for their lost loved ones.

This tree survived the blast and is called the Survivors Tree.

There's a chair for every person who died. The bases are made of glass with a name etched on the front. At night they light up. Many of them had pine cones placed on them. And all the trees you see--these are large pine trees. Not planted there--but huge fully grown trees place here. It's quite lovely.

This is part of one the original building's walls--left to show the the extent of the damage.

Keepsakes left in memory of those who died.

Friday, August 10, 2012

Almost back to normal...

The trip to OKC, while fabulous and productive, also threw my regular routine out of whack. But I think I'm just about back on track.

As a side note, Fort Worth Fridays are on hold until I can get the pictures I already took from my old hard drive and/or I can get downtown to take some more.

Back to OKC...

Saturday morning, after a lovely breakfast down in the hotel atrium, we hit it and hit it hard.

If you've never been to an Embassy Suites, most of them have a huge atrium with fountains or water of some sort, usually a restaurant and bar. But they also have a lovely breakfast. Not just some stale cereal and a few donuts, but a delicious spread from custom ordered omelets, to pancakes, French toast, bagels, oatmeal, and on and on. It's a great place to stay, just for the breakfast.

(From a cozy seating area looking toward the other end of the atrium where breakfast was served.)

We'd worked on Angi's stuff the night before, so it was someone elses turn. I think Jan went next, then Sarah, then me.

By the end of the day, we all had what we needed to go home and make some serious progress.

Sarah (writing as Lauren Holly) graciously typed notes for each one of us except herself.

 Angi manned the story board as we hashed out turning points, emotional journeys, and scenes to support both.
Jan took notes when we worked on Sarah's book.

Below are shots of the storyboard after we'd plotted out my story. I took the pictures then transferred all the sticky notes into my spiral notebook for safekeeping. I can hardly wait to get started on revising Children With a Chance of Marriage after all the wonderful help I received. The story is going to be so much better now.




We left the room for dinner and then sat in the lobby chatting and sharing life stories after that. Then back up to the room for a bit more chatting, no work. We were all brain fried after all the intense work we'd done earlier. In bed shortly after midnight.

And that was day 2...more on Monday.

Have a great weekend!

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Raring to go!

The getaway to Oklahoma City with three writer pals was a blast. Not only did we have fun getting to know one another, but we all left OKC prepared and ready to work. We spent several hours on the story of choice for each one of us. I'm so excited and anxious to dive into revisions for Children With a Chance of Marriage, book two of a pair. But . . . I have to finish revisions for book one first.

Speaking of Children With a Chance of Marriage, I sent in the revised entry last Tuesday and received an e-mail later that day that all finalist entries (four of them) had been sent off to the final round judges. Did I mention all three final round judges were editors at various e-publishers--one of whom is my target publisher??? Wish me luck. I'm very excited, but oh how I want book one done.

So some pics from the trip...

(The sky to the east as I left home Sunday morning to pick up my friend Angi Morgan.)

On Sunday evening, we headed to Bricktown--a revitalized section of downtown OKC--for dinner.


And we enjoyed yummy eats and a cool atmosphere at Toby Kieth's I Love This Bar & Grill!


 (from l-r: me, Jan Schliesman, Angi Morgan, and Sarah Cannon.)



After dinner, we walked some of our dinner off along the little canal they built through the middle of Bricktown. I believe they call it that because they redid many of the streets with brick along with the fact that many many of the buildings are the old brick buildings, now restored.

 (This is where we started, behind Toby Kieth's.)

(This is not where we ended, but just another view of the canal along the way.)

After dinner and the walk, we headed back to the hotel, got comfy and jumped right into helping Angi work on titles, characters, and plots for a three book proposal she needs to write for her agent to submit to Harlequin.

Stay tuned--more to come!