So, anyone read about the tornadoes in northwest Georgia? Probably not, because the whole country seems to have been having exciting weather. Turns out there was a reason the ranger was instructing me on safe locations. Fortunately, although I am just about as far north and west as one can get in Georgia, the actual tornadoes hit to the south and east of me. I was never even really worried.

But the weather has mostly not been nice and also not what it was predicted to be. When I decided to come this far north, it was because my weather app was promising 70 degrees and sunshine. That would have been nice. Instead, it was 28 outside this morning! The app actually said 28 degrees, at the same time as it promised that the coldest temp of the day would be 34. Grr…

The good news is that long days holed up inside the van because it’s too cold or too wet to be outside are very good for writing. I’m at one of those points in Grace where I text my friends little snippets of dialogue because I am so very, very amused at my characters. Unfortunately — or fortunately? — they’re now headed in a totally different direction than anything I’ve ever expected them to go in, or that they’ve ever gone before, so I’m once again looking at those 30K words that are already written, that I really thought I was going to be able to re-use, and sighing. Not re-usable.

On the other hand, the characters are having fun and fun is good. If I ever finish this book, it will be a very weird book. But I am going to let go of it and let it be a weird book. Re-reading my Eureka fanfiction reminded me of how much I enjoy weird and how surprised I have been to discover how many other people have enjoyed my brand of weird. Variety of weird? Type of weird? “Brand” feels like marketing-speak, the kind that makes me cringe.

There was something else I was going to write about, but I don’t remember what it was, ha. So I’m going to go back to writing Grace, because my characters have been hanging out in a kayak for weeks now and today is the day where they might finally paddle to shore. That’s totally not a metaphor, at all.

But every time I get grumpy about the weather, I’m going to remind myself that it’s not tornadoes. Or blizzards. Or mudslides. Perspective is everything!

PS I remembered! I was going to write about that waterfall up there. Alas, our explorations have not been as fun as I hoped, because a) weather and b) a lot of the trails have these steep staircases, made of metal stairs with holes in them. Z’s paws are the perfect size to fit right in those holes, so she doesn’t like them. One time — in Texas maybe? — she actually slipped partway through and I was really worried that she’d break her leg trying to escape before I could help her. So we don’t walk on that kind of stairs. If we did, though, we’d be visiting waterfalls! But the weather was clear enough today to see them from above. Not quite as fun as seeing it up-close, but given how cold it is, I probably wouldn’t want to get all that close anyway.