Stand Firm

Don't bend; don't water it down; don't try to make it logical; don't edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.
― Franz Kafka

I’m up to level 500 and something in Solitaire Garden, I don’t know for sure because they’re experiencing technical difficulties and the game won’t open for me. At least I’m hoping it’s temporary. I’ve been finding solace on a hidden objects website, but ever since Microsoft stopped supporting flash, they’re not as much fun.

After a lot of back and forthing on the laptop issue, I finally decided to go for it. And after spending several days (it seemed) looking at various models, I finally decided on the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5. Only it’s temporarily unavailable. Rumour has it they’re not even making it any more. *sigh*

Maybe this is a sign from above that this whole lap top thing needs some more thinking. I made a short list of what I want in a lap top – finger print security, backlit keyboard, extra long battery life, lightweight – so maybe I should check out the option on the Lenovo site to build my own.

There was a link on Facebook last week from Writer’s Digest for a series by Robert Brewer giving plot twist prompts. It looked really interesting so I started following the back links to see how long the series was and it was pretty lengthy. Then I was delighted to find that the prompts were gathered into book form. I ordered three copies – one for me and two to give away to friends. Imagine my surprise when I received my receipt and it had a link for an electronic copy. There was no shipping charge, and I can only surmise that I paid three times for one download. I’ve emailed them to cancel the order of two of them, but I haven’t heard anything back yet. I have not accessed the download and I can only hope I won’t end up in a buyer beware situation.

I’m still plugging away at my mandala poem, but it’s slow going. I’m not sure if my idea for how to present it is going to fly or not, but I’m going to keep trying.

I have officially started the next round of edits on Blood Ties. I saved a second copy of it just as a backup in case I mess it up because I’ve changed the whole beginning. Originally I had a prologue dealing with Anakaron, the bad guy, and opened chapter one with Jessica’s friend Howard.

Now I’ve removed the Anakaron scene (saving it for possible later use) and made the Howard scene the prologue, opening chapter one with a Jessica scene, which is as it should be. There are a couple more scenes in the beginning that’ll need to be removed or reworked, but seeing as the book is running long I can afford to lose them.

Still managing to stay out of the Nora Roberts black hole reading-wise. I picked up a copy of the Bookseller’s Secret by Michelle Gable and I’m about halfway through it. It’s very different, but in a good way.

The Week Ahead . . .

I made a little headway in the cleaning of my office last week. I reorganized the bookcase and got a bunch of stuff off the floor. I also got a pile of shredding done, which wasn’t as big a job as I thought it would be. It would be nice to finish the job this week.

Now that I’ve started, I don’t want to lose my momentum on the edits for Blood Ties. Maybe there’ll be a chance to have it out by Christmas after all.

The mandala poem has been dragging on for too long. It’s just a poem, for crying out loud. I wrote a completely different poem in one sitting on the back of one of the pages of research I’d printed out. I also need to get off the fence about picking out a book to take with me to the retreat.

So . . . what will you be up to this week?