Monday, April 29, 2019

TA DA ! ! !


My short story is told!!

I have a cohesive tale from the beginning to the end that hits all the beats. I'm pretty sure anyway.

Now, I'm not done, mind you. There are still edits and tweaks to be made, but the with the exception of the second-to-last scene, there will be no more major changes.

I'm excited and definitely relieved. I can even take a short break from the whole thing after I finish transferring all the first-pass, start-to-finish edits I made over the weekend.

I did end up about 300 words over the limit. I'm not sure what the window is, because the coordinator did allow a little leeway. But I may be able to reduce that with the tweak to that scene mentioned above. And I have a few other places noted where statements could be removed if absolutely necessary.

I have a couple of friends who might beta read this for me just to give me a heads up on any major issues I might be blinded to, so that's on the agenda for today. Asking if they would help me out.

The weekend was lovely, if a bit windy, but that's one aspect of spring in North Texas.

DD and I enjoyed a lovely Saturday afternoon in Victory Plaza--a courtyard off one end of the American Airlines Center where the Dallas Stars play--watching the Stars game (they were playing in St. Louis). The Stars pulled out the win to even the series at one win a piece. A great position for the Stars to be in heading home for games 3 and 4 of the series Monday and Wednesday nights, respectively. DD and I will be there, cheering our boys on.

This will be the last series DD and I see in person. I squeezed in tickets to game 4 with blessings from DH, but I just can't keep up with the pace of it, nor the expense, more to the point. So after this, it'll be watch parties either at our house or DD's BFF's house.

Hope your weekend was delightful or productive or both.

Take care!

And as always:


Friday, April 26, 2019

It's been a while since we talked about this...


But I'm collecting way more stuff right now than I'm getting rid of. Easy to do since I haven't gotten rid of anything recently and I keep getting free Stars swag at the watching parties.

I don't know that I'll reach the goal of 100 things like I imagined I would. I mean, individually, yes, I've removed several hundred items from the house, but because I bunched like items together (vases, DVDs, books) , I'm only at 32 things. >>sigh<<

I really thought I could do it, but I'm not as confident now. I might could reach 50 items, but 100 is going to be a stretch unless I decide to get really crazy. But that wasn't the goal. The goal was to get rid of stuff hiding in closets and cabinets that wasn't being used and hadn't been used in a long time, not to strip my house of the things I look at and enjoy having around me.

I definitely need to make another pass through the house, though. I'm sure I can find a few more things that I don't need to keep.

Anyway, it's Friday and I've a short story to whip into shape this weekend. I've done a very bad job this week of making progress. I'm sure you can guess why with one guess.

Hope you have lovely spring weather to enjoy wherever you are.

Regardless of the weather, have a great weekend!!


Wednesday, April 24, 2019

STARS ADVANCE


From this:


to this:

This was nowhere near the biggest upset of this year's playoffs, but it's a huge deal to Stars fans.

Next up:



The biggest travesty of this (and maybe every) playoffs is the lack of correct penalty calls against teams. Officials "say" they don't want to change the trajectory of the game, but aren't they doing that anyway when they don't call penalties or call icings? If one team has momentum but is committing penalties against the other team, shouldn't the other team get the benefit of relief with a penalty call?

Penalties should be called equally and fairly. The rules didn't change, just because the regular season ended. It's crazy ridiculous and I've heard just about every fan base complaining.

We have at least a three day breather while the last three series all go to game sevens. Two series will be decided today, one tomorrow.

I know y'all are probably getting tired of hockey. I'm probably boring you, but this is my life right now. Mostly...

There's the book, of course, and that's coming along. There's spring, which is wonderful. There's the fact that after four months of holding down the business fort while DH was out of town supporting family during medical issues and then two/three weeks of preparing for and filing taxes once he returned--I am finally able to work from home again two days a week. #iamblessed #technology

Hope you're having a great week.

Monday, April 22, 2019

Confession time...


As of the last time I stepped on the scale, a week or so ago, I've gained ten pounds.

Because of hockey, I have made bad food choices. I own that.

I have two more in-person games. Tonight and a day to be determined. There may be more official watching parties in my future, but that'll be it for live games. I looked up pricing for the final round--$1K minimum per seat. Yeah, I don't have that.

So it'll be watching parties one way or another for the rest of the playoffs...

I'll be making better food choices going forward, but I also need to get back to exercising even if it's just the old treadmill at home three times a day.

It shouldn't take me terribly long to lose the weight...the inches are another matter. The question becomes how important to me are those inches because it's going to take me going to the next level to make better progress than the last time. So something to ponder.

Hope you all had a lovely Easter weekend...

Catch you Wednesday. 
 


Friday, April 19, 2019

So many words...



I'm at 16K+ and counting. I still have a little more of my short story to figure out.  And then I have to pare it down to 15K words.

Yikes.

I've already thought many times, "Does the reader need to know this?" or "Does the reader need to see this play out?" I've said no several times and skipped over the scene, referenced it in subsequent narrative.

But I still have way too many words, even with a little leeway.

Nothing to do but keep at it.

Unfortunately, even though it's the weekend, I'll be busy all day Saturday, so I'll be up extra early on Sunday to focus and I'll work for as long as I can on Sunday to make some progress in sorting through scenes and paring them down or beefing them up.

Anyway, I hope you have a love weekend, and...