Winter trudges onward...

The Writing Life in Winter...

As soon as we began to think that the worst of winter was behind us, it crept right back out of its hiding place and made us put the lighter jackets back in the closet and dig out the gloves and stocking caps once again. No, we're not being hit by another storm of the "blizzard" proportions as occurred a few weeks back, but we've been treated to rain, sleet, black ice, and good, old snow showers this afternoon and into the evening. We even had some wonderful booming thunder thrown into the mix just for fun! Nevertheless, it was a good morning to get two more chapters added to my rough draft manuscript. Even though the story is far from being very well developed, I do have a pretty good idea of plot and characters and a wonderful setting. 

My challenge, aside from all of the other ones in putting together a good tale, is to avoid being too repetitious in my characters' thoughts, voices, and actions. I have caught myself many times following too closely the path of my first novel, Black Wolf Lodge. That's where the close re-reading of my daily output comes in handy, providing me some direction in what I want to "fix up" when I sit down at the MacBook each morning, cup of hot Folgers at the ready, and a wonderfully gray and wintry day lurking about outside! 

I can't wait to venture into Chapter Ten tomorrow morning and work it into something that picks up where Chapter Nine left off. Believe it or not, I look forward to those little challenges of taking something that I originally wrote a few years ago, then put it aside and all but forgot about it, and am now bringing it to life with lots of tweaking and cutting and rewriting. I have to scratch my head and laugh at some of the gaudy prose I wrote in those first drafts! Where's that Folgers?

On the carpet front...

The past two days, we've run the two rented air blowers underneath the section of the carpeting that was soaked by the water from the sump pump (courtesy of the broken PVC outlet) last Friday. Things are all dried out now, and we'll find out sometime tomorrow how much can be salvaged and put back on top of new padding. Many of the edges and corners appear to be in sad shape with the backing pulling away, and we know they will need to be replaced. Our credo is simply: WHATEVER IT TAKES! 

We will just be glad to have this taken care of and get the family room in the basement back in order. Plus, I'm ready to return all of these fans and blowers we've borrowed and/or rented. It will be good to have things put back "together," and my wife and I will be glad to have that frustration of things not quite right around here gone. We can only hope that the road we travel tomorrow will be paved with good things...We keep our fingers crossed. Down the road we go...MLA