Category Archives: Writing

Miscellany

14 Monday May 2018

Posted by in Cover design, Grace, Personal, Zelda

≈ 12 Comments

R told me a very funny story about love bugs yesterday (while we were having a nice Mother’s Day brunch) and it almost made me feel kindly toward them. For a minute or two. It didn’t last.

For those not from Florida, the bugs colloquially called “love bugs” — I have no idea what their real name is — have a brief mating season in spring and in fall. Every few years, their mating season is insanely crazy and there are bugs everywhere. You can’t go outside without breathing them in, because there are so many of them. They will crawl on you, they will get in your hair, they will fly in your face, and they will cover your vehicle. Yesterday, during my drive to Sarasota, I probably killed hundreds of them, maybe thousands. It does not make for a cheerful drive. So, so, so gross.

Fortunately (?), it’s also really rainy. Enough so that I checked the weather this morning with a wary eye. I’m not leaving Florida until R graduates from college and there’s no way I’m missing his graduation, but we actually might be looking at the first named storm of the 2018 hurricane season. About three weeks too early, but Al Gore warned us a long time ago about changing weather systems. It’s not a surprise. And it is handy for rinsing off dead love bugs.

I’m waiting on test results for Z, but she is unchanged. Yesterday afternoon, she peed on both beds, so I spent the afternoon and early evening doing laundry. The campground (Oscar Scherer Stat Park) has a nice washer and dryer, so I managed to get clean sheets on the beds, but it cost me $7 total. That’s going to be an expensive daily habit.

Meanwhile, she rejected fresh Atlantic salmon and rice for breakfast. I ate some and it was quite delicious. But she seemed hungry before I gave her the pills she’s supposed to take and it finally occurred to me to wonder whether the medication — which is not doing anything for the peeing problem — is making her nauseous. Turns out the side effects are restlessness, irritability and loss of appetite. I’m thinking we are going to stop those pills. I’ll continue with the antibiotics, at least until we get the test results. Eventually I will become nonchalant about the peeing, I suppose, if the other options are starving dog and/or dying dog. Peeing dog is fine in comparison.

I actually really wanted to make some cute flow chart graphics for this post. The first would ask, “Has Zelda peed inside?” and the answers would be, “No,” leading to “Of course not, what a bizarre idea, why would she do that?” and “Yes,” leading to “Seriously? WTF?”. The second chart would ask, “Has Zelda peed inside?” and the “Yes” response would lead to a bunch of variants, like “Did she pee on me?” and “Did it wake me up?” and “Did she pee on so many things that I must immediately do multiple loads of laundry?” and so on, with answers that would include “Great!” and “No problem,” for the lesser pee issues. Honestly, pee on the floor only bothers me now if I step in it.

However, creating a flow chart turned out to be a lot more work than one would expect. I wound up having lots of fun playing with book cover designs instead. I’m a long way away from needing any new book covers, but it was fun to try out some variations. (I was using free templates from Canva and my own photographs.)

possible new covers for A Lonely Magic

Of course, the book I’m really working on is Grace, so I should get back to it. No progress this weekend, unsurprisingly, and this week — given the graduation and the distractions inherent in being in the same town as R — is probably not going to be my most productive, but I’m really pretty close to finishing a draft for the first time ever. And I have no current impulse to start over from the beginning, which is a good sign.

I’ve got one other distraction happening this week, though, which is pretty fun. When I was walking Z this morning, I was wondering why it felt sort of like Christmas Eve. You know the feeling, that slightly magical sense of anticipation? And then I remembered that it’s because The Penderwicks at Last releases tomorrow. Yes, it feels like Christmas Eve because of a book. But I love the Penderwicks and I’m so looking forward to getting lost in their world again for a few hours.

First, though, some Grace!

Onward…

10 Thursday May 2018

Posted by in Grace, Zelda

≈ 5 Comments

sunrise

The good news: I have written words on Grace. Progress! And after spending a couple of days mostly saying things like, “I hate this book, this book is so stupid, I hate this book,” last night I re-read some of the earlier chapters, trying to find a detail I needed, and it made me laugh. I actually made my friend L (whose driveway has been my home for the past couple of days) listen to me read bits aloud. She didn’t laugh, but that was okay, because I was mostly interrupting her in her own writing. And my own laughing is sufficient motivation to continue writing today. Someday I really am going to finish this book. I will probably hate it and think it’s stupid, but at least it has parts that are fun. That’s going to have to be good enough, I think.

The bad news: Z and I will be going back to the vet tomorrow afternoon. She’s now drinking lots of water while turning up her nose at most food, including plain chicken breast and ground beef with sweet potatoes, and she threw up her pills this morning, so… well, I guess the good news is that it looks less like dementia. And more like kidney failure, so it’s not exactly what you would call good news. I feel a little sorry for my vet, who spent hours valiantly trying to save B three months ago, including taking her turns holding an oxygen mask over his face while he snuggled in her lap. I know she doesn’t want to give me bad news anymore than I want to hear it. But we’re probably going to try some antibiotics, so maybe Z will be feeling much better soon. Fingers crossed, prayers said. And thank you for all the sympathy and good wishes — I so appreciate them.

Back to Grace. Not sure the LZSP strategy of trying to focus on work is really working out — I seem to spend a lot of time staring into space — but word-by-word, I will finish this book.

Natural Falls State Park, Oklahoma

19 Thursday Apr 2018

Posted by in Campground, Grace

≈ 6 Comments

waterfall in Oklahoma

When I first started wandering, I met a number of people who’d given themselves goals in their journeys: to visit all fifty states, or all the national parks, or all the major baseball stadiums. (That last was a nice guy in Maine — I don’t think his wife was quite as enthusiastic about the plan as he was.) I thought about it for a while, but I couldn’t come up with a goal of my own. But I like the idea of visiting each state’s best waterfall. This one is Oklahoma’s. As waterfalls go, it’s not huge, but it was certainly very pretty.

As to why I’m in Oklahoma — that would be a boring story, so I’ll skip the details. Short version, Arkansas has no CostCos. And Eureka Springs had a lot going on this upcoming weekend, which meant the campground — the lovely, lovely, beautiful, wonderful campground — was filling up with pink slip reservations. I decided that was reason enough to wander on. Before I leave it entirely behind, though…

sunset

I’ve noticed before that Army Corps of Engineer parks seem to pay attention to views more than most campgrounds. One of the most beautiful sunsets of the past two years was at an ACE campground on a hill, where the campsites were terraced so that everyone had a view. At Dam Site Lake, my view was lovely, but if I ever go back, I want one of the sites that face east-west instead of north-south so that I can watch both sunrise and sunset from inside the van. For my own future reference, site 24 is the one that I want.

That said, if I ever go back, I’ll make sure I’m prepared to be really dirty while I’m there — the showers were my least favorite style, the ones where you push a button, with no control over the water temp, pressure, time, or angle. Plus, I’m pretty sure the shower house was unheated. And since the sites didn’t have water or sewer hook-ups… well, being a permanent camper means embracing the dirt. It’s just easier to do that in summer, I guess.

The other day I was on the phone when a stranger came walking around the side of the van, well into my site. I promptly got up and went to the door to see what he wanted. He, somewhat apologetically, said, “Your dog was stuck.” She’d wrapped her tie-out cord around a post on the other side of the van and couldn’t move, and he was helping her untangle herself. Nice guy. She’d never been tied up before we started camping, and almost two years into it, she still doesn’t get the concept.

Dog tied to tree

Zelda, two minutes after I let her out, completely unable to understand why she can’t move.

I’m at a point in Grace where I have two conflicting desires. I can’t see how to make two scenes fit together: it feels like one or the other can happen, but not both. It’s left me feeling very stuck, because I want both of them. But I had two goals in the last, start-all-over-from-the-very-beginning revision, one of which was to remember that it’s Grace’s story. It’s never going to feel entirely like Grace’s story — the drama is Dillon’s, mostly — but when I look at these two scenes, one belongs to Grace and one belongs to Sophia, and the Grace scene should win. Such a pity that the Sophia scene is better. But now that I’ve thought that out, I should probably get back to it. On my drive today, I kept trying to talk myself into figuring out where I was going with Grace, but instead, my thoughts kept drifting to Fen. I know the first word of Book 2, and I know some of what happens in it, but I’m still trying to figure out what exactly a magic competition would look like for the Sia Mara. It’s fun to think about, but it sure doesn’t help me solve my Grace issues. Still, I’m getting closer every day, I think.

No tornadoes

22 Thursday Mar 2018

Posted by in Campground, Grace, Travel

≈ 3 Comments

a distant waterfall

Looking down, down, down…

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.

Magical Eureka

12 Monday Mar 2018

Posted by in Randomness, Travel, Writing

≈ 4 Comments

I saw manatees this week.

At least, I think they were manatees. They were big gray lumps, breaking through the surface of the water and then disappearing again. Too big to be otters, which was my first thought. Too inland to be dolphins or whales, which would have been my second, if I’d been at the ocean.

I wasn’t at the ocean. I was actually at a lake whose name I don’t know, but which is right down the street (more or less, a few minutes drive away) from a driveway that has been a very regular campsite over the past four months.

It made me think about magic. And adventure. And the difference between them. But also, more importantly, about needing to remember that there is magic right around the corner, all the time, if we just remember to look for it.

On Wednesday, I’m finally starting my travels again — heading north, with plans to explore Georgia and Arkansas and the states between the two. (That vagueness is because I could hop up to Tennessee and drive across Tennessee to get to Arkansas, or I could stay farther south and drive through the northern ends of Alabama and Mississippi. I think which I do might depend on the weather, might depend on what sounds interesting along the way.)

My Arkansas destination is Eureka Springs. Why Eureka Springs? Well, why not? But that’s not the entire answer. This weekend I got an email from fanfiction.net, a review on one of my last Eureka stories. It was really good timing, because it reminded me of what happened in 2010. I had given up on writing fiction, almost a decade earlier, because… drum roll? … nothing I wrote ever satisfied me. Much like I’ve done for the past three years, I wrote in circles, I over-wrote, I edited to death, it was never good enough. Writing was an exercise in frustration, not a satisfaction or a joy. And so I quit writing.

Then I fell in love with a television show, Eureka, and more specifically a relationship on the show and wanted desperately to know what happened next. I discovered fanfiction. But none of the stories were quite the one that I wanted to read, so I wrote my own. And then I wrote more, and then I wrote more, until I had written hundreds of thousands of words of fanfiction, with stories that ranged from a few thousand words to full-length novellas of 35,000+. But I had a strict rule, which was that I didn’t edit. I wrote and I let go.

Literally, I would write during my free time and then before I went to sleep, I would post what I’d written. I never went back and questioned myself, I never edited, I never agonized over plots — it was all spur-of-the-moment, top-of-my-head, as fast as I could write, writing. I wrote in 1000-word blocks and then I shared them. Are the stories perfect? Nowhere close. Are they fun, fast, readable, entertaining, creative, amusing… yes, all of the above.

I need to get back to that kind of writing. I don’t know whether I can entirely, because one of the joys of writing fanfiction was the community, the instant-feedback from supportive readers. I don’t know how many times my author notes on those stories say things like, “I wouldn’t have written this if it weren’t for reviews from x, y, z,” but it’s often. Really often. Those reviews motivated me.

But I also look at the stories and I didn’t worry about grammar, about perfection. I’ve got sentence fragments and run-ons, dialogue-style construction in narrative, adjectives used with blithe abandon, and jumps in point-of-view whenever I felt like I needed to be in a different point-of-view, sometimes with breaks but sometimes just done. And all those things work just fine. I just wrote and let go. So that’s my new resolution for working on Grace, to write and let go.

And I’m going to Eureka Springs, because I saw the name on a map yesterday and thought, Yes! I want to go back to Eureka. It won’t be the same, but as long as I’m on my way there, I’ll be reminding myself every day of what it meant to me to be living in Eureka.

Reading binge

08 Thursday Mar 2018

Posted by in Grace, Writing

≈ 4 Comments

At 8:42 AM, it was 53 degrees inside Serenity. I’m very pleased about this, but I sort of wish I had fingerless gloves, because my hands were so cold that I was finding typing un-fun. Still are, in fact, even though it’s almost two hours later and probably ten degrees warmer.

In the first week of March, I read twenty books. I’m not sure I’ve had a more extreme reading binge since childhood, when I basically did nothing but read all summer long. But the library had the first sixteen books by Ngaio Marsh, and then I moved onto their supply of Lisa Gardner, with minor diversions along the way for the new Patricia Briggs, an old Nora Roberts, a rather boring Elizabeth Moon, and a single Tamora Pierce. It is probably a good thing that the library doesn’t have the second 16 books by Ngaio Marsh or I would still be reading. Also probably a good thing that I have to wait my turn for the rest of the Lisa Gardner books: I think she’s got 30 books available, some of which I had previously read, some of which I have on hold now, and the rest of which I read this past week.

Yesterday I finally remembered that I’m supposed to be writing, not reading, and opened up my file for Grace. Well, it had actually been open all week, but every time I looked at it, I winced and turned back to the Libby app instead.

But I think my reading binge was good for me. When I was re-reading Grace in order to get back into writing Grace, I was unexpectedly willing to forgive myself for a lot of my perceived writerly sins, because all of the books that I was reading contained plenty of writerly sins themselves. There’s no such thing as perfect. It isn’t even about being “good enough,” whatever that is. All that really matters is how the reader answers one question: “do you want to keep reading?” And I’m pretty sure that even if Grace never quite makes sense, never has a typical plot, never makes anyone’s heart race, at least a few readers are still going to answer “yes”, because the world is a good place to be and the characters are fun to hang out with.

And now I am going to go hang out with them.

PS All those links are Amazon affiliate links, so if you start your Amazon shopping there, I’ll receive a small percentage of the purchase price of the first item you buy. It won’t make me rich, but come tax time, it will help me justify the contents of my blog as a business expense.

Word by word

19 Tuesday Dec 2017

Posted by in Grace, Personal, Randomness

≈ 3 Comments

pastel, foggy sunrise

When I woke up this morning, it was foggy. The light from the sunrise reflecting off the fog turned the whole sky peach. Not orange, not yellow, but a lovely pastel peach. Or maybe cantaloupe. By the time Zelda and I were out on our walk, the fog was already lifting, but it felt very Jurassic Park somehow. A big bird — probably a bald eagle, because the size would fit and I know there are some in this park — swooped overhead, looking impressively predatory.

I’ve been working on a complicated scene in Grace and yesterday I concluded that it was too complicated, that I needed a better way to structure my approach. I decided to make a Scrivener file for just that scene, so I could break down the scene into pieces, re-use some the pieces that I’ve already written, re-arrange the pieces at will. In the search for the parts that I’ve already written, I discovered that I had the exact same idea for the exact same scene once before. On December 16, 2016.

sigh

That felt a little demoralizing, but I’m telling myself now that it just means that I’ve had a lot of practice with this scene, so this time I’ll get it right.

I told a friend yesterday that my strategy for re-using bits that I’ve already written now is to keep all the fun bits, let go of everything else. I suspect that means this is going to be a very long book. I passed 50,000 words yesterday on this version, so I should be at least 2/3 of the way through. I’m not sure I am. But I suppose if my eventual beta readers tell me it drags, it’ll be easy to make cuts.

For lunch today, I made a mushroom & asparagus risotto. Somewhat impulsively, mostly because I had beef broth that I wanted to use up, I used two cups of arborio rice instead of one. I would say that means I’m going to be eating risotto for days, except that it was really good and because I had so much of it, I shared some with the dogs. Z was not sure she was enthusiastic, but B adored it and whimpered for more. He didn’t get any more — I don’t like to support the whimpering — but if I wind up tired of eating it before I’m through, it will find a happy consumer in him. Meanwhile, I mention it mostly to remind myself for future reference that adding the asparagus at the very end works. The rice is hot enough to just lightly cook the asparagus. (Quick recipe: sauté onion, garlic, and mushrooms in the InstantPot until nicely browned; add two cups of arborio rice, two cups of beef broth, two cups of water, a sprinkle of salt; cook on high pressure for eight minutes; quick release; add chopped asparagus and parmesan cheese, mix, let sit for a couple minutes to let the asparagus cook a little.)

Tomorrow I leave Oscar Scherer and head to R’s driveway. I’m looking forward to spending time with him, of course, but I’m already nostalgic for my cozy campsite here and my morning walks through Jusassic Park. Lovely peaceful day after lovely peaceful day is addictive.

Cozy in Sarasota

13 Wednesday Dec 2017

Posted by in Campground, Grace, Randomness

≈ 2 Comments

An Oscar Scherer sunrise

I’m back at Oscar Scherer State Park, the closest state park to R in Sarasota for the holidays. I love this place. I think serious campers might take issues with some aspects of it — it’s almost always possible to hear traffic noise from the nearby highway, my site is small and sloped — but it is so beautiful at sunrise. Equally so after dark, when it is truly dark and the stars are bright in the night sky. Dark nights, plus CostCo ten minutes drive away — my version of paradise.

I set up after dark on Sunday and didn’t do the best job of it, but I told myself that it didn’t matter because I’d go to the grocery store on Monday and do better when I came back. Better, in this case, equates to not sitting on the worst part of the slope, making the driver’s side higher than the passenger’s side. It’s not a big slope, it’s not the kind anyone would care about if they were just parking, but it’s noticeable when you’re living on it. Round items placed on the kitchen counter roll right off. (In other words, don’t spill the blueberries!)

But on Monday, I decided I didn’t really need groceries yet. Tuesday, I decided the same thing. Pretty sure that I’m going to make the same decision again today. I’m feeling so utterly cozy and content. Knitting and walking and listening to music and writing and reading and thinking and admiring the beautiful place I get to be in. It’s cold by Florida standards, in the 40s when I walk Z in the morning, but then warming up to the high 60s in the afternoon, so I get to eat my lunch and dinner sitting outside in the sunshine, the dogs on their tie-outs, and then snuggle up under my blankets when I go to sleep at night.

Writing yesterday did not go well. I got bogged down on something stupid, but meaningful to me — the description of Grace’s office — and didn’t make any progress at all. But the story is becoming the thing I think about falling asleep, the thing I think about when I wake up in the middle of the night, the thing I think about when I wake up. That was how Ghosts was. I was in the middle of so much back then — grad school and grief — but half the time my head was in Tassamara. It was a lovely place to escape to. Right now, I’m not feeling like I need to escape — I’m loving where I am — but the worlds are blending together. After the holidays, if I’m not finished yet, maybe I’ll go up to Ocala and let the worlds truly blend.

It’s beginning to look a lot like…

10 Sunday Dec 2017

Posted by in Grace, Randomness

≈ 1 Comment

a Spanish moss draped tree

… Florida. Land of Spanish moss. Not quite as beautiful as sparkling little lights glowing in the snow, but definitely appealing in its own way.

I’ve been in Florida long enough that warm weather for Christmas doesn’t faze me, and it’s felt very holiday-ish here. I spent today wrapping presents and listening to Christmas carols — IHeartRadio has definitely got the holiday thing figured out a lot better than Amazon Music, whose stations sorta seem to miss the point — and doing a little shopping.

Yesterday I actually wandered around a shopping mall. I even bought a couple presents there. But I was mostly there for the mood, for the experience. Shopping at Christmas time. It was fun, very glittery and with excellent people watching. Also good window shopping.

I like to look at the dresses and try to imagine at what event they should be worn. My own life would have to change quite a lot to wear anything seen in a shop window, but there was a terrific bright pink dress with cut-outs around the neck that would be an excellent thing to wear to a divorce hearing. Hmm, maybe Grace could wear it somewhere. Not that she’s getting divorced, but it is the style I imagine her pulling off with aplomb — bold and attention-getting, but also fun. I should have taken a picture. Another dress looked like an oil slick on a cut-up garbage bag — no one should ever wear it, anywhere. Or maybe the only place it could be worn is on the fashion runway.

Day before yesterday was what will probably be my most holiday event of the year — the lighting of the neighborhood trees, accompanied by a brass band; a horse-drawn carriage down the main street; a live Nativity scene including a baby, two lambs, and a donkey; caroling and hot chocolate in one room; a musical duo with the big Christmas tree in another. It reminded me of years gone by, of Christmases when R was young. We used to come to Florida for Christmas — we didn’t live here then — and wander around the fancy hotels, admiring the trees. Florida goes pretty crazy with the lights, at least compared to the places we lived in California, but it always felt a little weird to me because the weather, of course, felt almost tropical. Where was the snow? Now it feels normal, like Christmas is meant to be warm.

I sent R an early Christmas present, warning him that it was on the way with a text that said, “it feels a little silly, you might roll your eyes at me.” It was a tower of snacks, heavy on the fruit, with pears and apples, chocolate-covered blueberries, mixed nuts, and so on. When he was little, my mom always used to get him pears from Harry and David when we came here for Christmas. I don’t know how it started, and I think it basically stopped when we moved here and weren’t staying in my parents’ house at Christmas-time anymore. But when I saw the tower on sale, with free delivery, I was reminded. I didn’t know if he would get the nostalgia factor but I figured food for a college student during finals is always likely to be appreciated one way or another. I was right, but he got the nostalgia factor, too, even more clearly than I did. I’m glad. Glad that he appreciated the food, but also glad that it reminded him of his grandma.

Anyway, I’m mostly writing this because my dad told me I was being very quiet on my blog. It’s not because I’m not doing fun things — I’ve seen lots of friends, had some lovely meals, did a tour of Sanford homes — I’ve had plenty to write about. But most of my writing energy is going to Grace right now. I’ve gone off in a totally new direction, which is sort of dismaying — I was 90% done at the end of June and I thought I would be reusing most of that, not throwing most of it away — but mostly it’s not dismaying at all. I like what I’m writing, I like how it’s going. And when I could be thinking about blogging, I’m thinking about Grace instead. It’s not a bad thing.

Edited to add: I do love the internet. Here’s the dress. I didn’t assume from the one I saw that it would be above-the-knee; I think that’s probably how it looks on a 5’10” model instead of a more average person. But I think Grace would wear it either way.

Williamsburg Thousand Trails RV park

06 Monday Nov 2017

Posted by in Campground, Grace, Personal

≈ 8 Comments

Out of one window, I am watching my neighbor do something mysterious with their sewer hose — ah, they were just packing up, actually. And out of the other window, I can see the dumpsters. So not much choice for a view in this campground. But that said, I think this is the nicest Thousand Trails campground I’ve stayed in.

It’s typical of the Thousand Trails places — which, in general, does mean not really for me. There’s an indoor swimming pool, a jacuzzi, a basketball court, a great mini-golf course (I think the nicest campground mini-golf course I’ve seen), a game room with arcade games and pool tables, a camp store, an “adult lounge”, even a pond. And it’s big enough that it was very easy to take Zelda on a one-mile walk this morning.

And full hook-ups! I don’t usually look for full hook-ups or take advantage of them, but my black tank has been reading as 2/3 full for a couple of months now. That probably means something has gotten stuck, dried to the sides of the tank. I don’t consider it a big deal, but I’m glad for the opportunity to run lots of water and soap through the tank to try to clean it out. What I really need is a second hose so that I can use the black tank flush outlet without risking contaminating my drinking water hose, preferably one like the zero-G hose that squashes down flat so that it takes up less room. It’s been on my list of “things to get someday real soon” for about a year, but I seem to always wind up buying the cooking things off that list instead of the outside things. But there are so many things on that list — a grill that folds flat, a compact table, the Sumo Springs that everyone raves about… but realistically, the next time I buy something for the van, it’ll probably be a smaller induction frying pan. Ha.

Back to the campground: it’s so nice that this morning when walking the dog, I thought, “Hmm, maybe when I take M camping next year, I’ll bring her here.” And then I remembered my horrendous drive yesterday and thought, “Nope, not gonna happen.”

I have now driven Serenity in 44 states. Yep, 44 of them. (The missing: Delaware, Rhode Island, Michigan, North Dakota, Alaska, Hawaii.) And if there is a single place that I would really like to never drive through again, it’s Washington, DC.

It’s not that other places don’t have bad traffic: I used to commute through the Caldecott Tunnel before they opened the 4th bore, where multiple lanes of traffic merge and the lanes changed directions on a regular basis. Driving that route was always interesting. And Boston — well, yeah, Boston is just crazy. But Washington has some reasonably significant proportion of really bad drivers, people who don’t care that their recklessness messes everyone else up, and it makes driving there so unpleasant.

Here’s the difference between San Francisco Bay and DC drivers: once upon a time, I was on 24 approaching the Caldecott and cars were stopping, for no obvious reason. So I stopped, too, of course. I’m not sure how many lanes there are, maybe eight at the spot where I was? And all eight lanes of traffic stopped because there was a dog on the road. A couple people got out of their cars and corralled the dog and traffic resumed again and probably several hundred people who didn’t know what had happened sighed in relief that the delay had only lasted a few minutes. If that had happened in DC, some people would have slowed, others wouldn’t, there would have been an accident and the traffic congestion would have lasted an hour, minimum. And the dog would have died.

Anyway, I will stop whining about traffic now, but I’m taking a day off to do useful things like try to get the black tank cleaned out, write a blog post, work on Grace, answer my email, back up some files… hmm, I guess that’s all I really wanted to do. But tomorrow I start driving again. I’ll spend the night on the road and make it to Florida on Wednesday. I had such a nice week in PA that it was really hard to leave, but I’m looking forward to some time in Florida, too.

I’m already anticipating seeing all my writing friends who are doing NaNoWriMo, and spending lots and lots and lots of time writing with them. It is so past time to finish Grace, but this version has gone off in some interesting directions and honestly, I now have no idea where it’s going. sigh But it will get somewhere, I’m sure.

There’s a scene that I wrote last week that I suspect means more to me than it will to anyone else, but I reread it this morning and it literally made me tear up and then laugh. I obviously would consider that profoundly successful if it did the same for any other reader, but even if I’m the only person who gets it that way, I’m pretty sure I can count it as successful. And since I could be working on it now, time to get to it!

But to everyone working on NaNo — write, write, write! You can do it!

yellow raspberries

Raspberries bear fruit until the first frost so this morning’s breakfast included fresh raspberries, honey from P’s bees, and granola made by my SIL. I felt very, very lucky while I ate it.