In which the world tilts on its axis

Life -

It's been cooler here in sunny Pocatello, lately. Huzzah, I say. Since returning from Wyoming, there hasn't been a lot on the docket for "Life" really, just some dishes and some weed pulling. It takes me an entire afternoon to water my lawn, thanks largely to a strangely shaped yard, but I'm finally seeing some green in areas where there was none last year, and our various squashes, pumpkins and tomatoes are starting to grow up nicely.

We've decided that there is a vague possibility of a move to a different state next summer, regardless of selling any books or buying a motel, so I've started looking at our stuff to that end. We have a lot of knick knacks that will not be coming with us. Otherwise, it'll take a whole caravan of Uhauls to get us away from here...

It was my birthday on the 23rd, I turned 31, an age I'm not entirely comfortable with. That means it's been a year since the motel we were signing on blew up in our faces. Granted, in that time, we discovered that the owner was a horrible, sexist pig and it would have been agony working with him, and I've written one full novel with 3 others in progress, something that I've always wanted to do, but there's still that vague feeling of failure floating aver my head. And old-ness. 31... ugh.

Writing -

I've decided to make some pretty radical changes to my manuscript of the Whispering Ferns, thanks to the advice of you guys that have read it and some blogs I've followed lately. The beginning takes too long, so out is most of the conversations with his mom and lengthy build up, I'm going to jump right into the action, with Smith on the plane, heading to Washington. I think this will help speed things up a lot, and I can pepper the details of the back story throughout the first few chapters instead. I'm also adding a few more actual highjinks from the twins, I realized that I referenced them a lot, but they never really did much besides play video games and be bratty. I also want to expand his Aunt Grace's role a bit. I'm not sure that I ever really even described her that much, she's overpowered by Uncle Cannon, so she's gonna get beefed up too.

Could be a lot of work, but I think they'll be strong changes and by the time I'm done, I should know for sure from the contest whether won. (The obvious answer is no, but I need to wait it out all the same...) Then, when both of those are done, I can start sending my query out to agents.... Nervous!

I'm making good headway on my Zombie novel too, around 17,000 words so far, it's just getting to the gooey parts.

The Last Sentence -

I can't tell if it's from banging them against the glass over and over, or if she's chewed them to shreds.
- "Graves"