A to Z Challenge, Z!

Zero! Same as ‘The End!’ That is what I reached in my editing last night. The End. What that meant is that on November 30, just before midnight, I claimed the word count. Looking at that count, I have 78,390 in the story. I think that is quite respectable. And ALL of it is story and not journals of me complaining of having another case of writer’s block or other such excuses when zip and zilch play in my head. That usually happens mid-month. I see the end of the tale and know I have a lot to plot out yet. But I just finished a month editing the whole book and still love it. I just have much more to do to wrap up all the ends. So more writing and editing this next month.

One of the cool things in this book is three different zoos! Who expects that in an adult fantasy/sci-fi? Two are on Earth. One of those many will know. L. A. Zoo. But on a different timeline. One on Haven. And one hidden that most people don’t know about. Sh!

My favorite character is finding herself in a Twilight Zone of sorts. I’m still trying to find her way out for her. Maybe I can bring back Zihna or Zella from previous books. Or just Lizzy or Azz from the current book will find the answer. Actually, that would be good! Lizzy is the main character of this book, and Azzy is her mother. Hmmm.

Is anyone playing with the Anchor program? I am liking the idea of making my website easier for folks like me or worse off than me. Most websites are hard to read. My eyes burn. I love my friends that I’ve made here on WordPress, but I can only surf my friend-blogs for a few minutes a day. Maybe if I could rest my eyes and listen to the site, I could catch more of them? Anyway, my idea is to take book one and start reading it aloud. It sounds scary. But I think if I pretended to read to my kids (in their 40s and wouldn’t put up with it now) or my pets (who don’t seem to care one way or another, just make sure to stroke the fur with the grain!) I’m going to start tomorrow night after midnight. Let’s hope I can keep my brain from going fuzzy.

Zombies are coming up on almost everyone’s blogs today. So I guess I need to address The Walking Dead. I have to admit that I love the original show. I like some of the characters on Fear of the Walking Dead. Yet World Beyond is so dull to me! My favorite show is The Talking Dead. I love the memorial they present for all lost in the previous episode.

Chat it up, Dar! You know you are only putting off writing your book! Zapping me with a zany zapper won’t get the job done. And, no, you already had fun on Zoom today. And there are hours until the zzzz.

This has been a fun romp through the a to z challenge! Thank you for the prompts!

A to Z Challenge, Y

Yippee! I’m reaching the end of the alphabet! And I’m nearing the end of round one of editing Pandamapocalypse. Only less than 200 errors to fix before the next step. You might think 200 is a lot, but when I started this round there were thousands. Yikes!

Summer is here, even though the trees haven’t leafed out yet. It was 82 degrees today. And for once in what seems forever, we won’t have to drip the faucets.

What says “Yurky, yurky”? The frogs or toads outside. They are croaking their little hearts out! Wish I could see them!

Midnight is near. Back to editing. Yippee!

One-Liner Wednesday, A to Z Challenge, X

Too dingy [dinghy] to deal!

I was talking to a friend and found my thoughts going dull. Not a good night’s sleep is the excuse I’ll claim.

---

X is really the hardest letter to come up with anything. Especially the starts of words. Isn’t that obnoxious? Sex. Nah, that ends with x not beginning like Xylophone. Wish I had one to play on. The pianist in me loves making music like the drummers!

The name of one of the planets in my Havenverse is Xeno. You can guess the kinds of people that live there. Sex is one of the things they don’t believe in. They also hate anyone or anything different than themselves. I don’t like visiting that planet in my writing. But I did have fun with some spies that landed there.

X marks the spot. I never see it on the land, only on maps. How do we really know we’re there? 

Nowadays when we take surveys, we put check marks ☑ on the agreed-upon answer. And on the wrong answer, we put an X. Either symbol feels like I got something wrong as I have had teachers that used both to point out the mistakes.

‘My ex‘ is something that is entirely a misnomer isn’t it?

I’m thinking of a medicine with an owl, Xylitol? I don’t even know what it is for.

Well, I guess the head is still dingy so I will exit.

 

A to Z Challenge, W

What day is it anyway? Two days have had me mixed up. Sometimes I knew the day; other times, I was so caught up in what I was doing I lost all sense of time or place.

Where was I? Editing! Word and I were working together. Sometimes well, sometimes worse. And guess what? I surpassed my goal of another 25K. I wound up with 30,214 words edited! Woo-hoo! I still have a bit to go but not enough to start a new project at CampNaNo.

Pandamapocalypse is shaping up! Want to see the cover again? I do!

Yeah, it’s kind of creepy but I now know how this scene becomes a reality in this sci-fi book. I can’t wait! I have over 75K in the book right now. But how many will disappear in editing? Wonder if any more will populate the page? The story is still fun for me.

Well, I have been on the computer all day for two days. See you in a while!

A to Z Challenge, V

Visual

The little bit we got Sunday Morning

This morning (7 AM) backyard

Obviously the snow blew in from the east.

Toward the driveway. Mesquite buses full of snow.

Toward west side of front yard.

Looking north

I just loved how the mesquite looked.

Ground brown mud but look at the sky!

Blue skies fading but leftover clouds proudly pink and purple!

The reason I had to see this beauty all day.
Thank you, Kali!

Review: Rise of Heroes by S.M. Reine

Rise of Heroes by S.M. Reine
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was a fun, fast read! If you have lived in Ms. Reine’s universe since the beginning, Seasons of the Moon, so much is familiar while Shatter Cage is only two books back. So revisiting while going deeper into the squirrel/man was so much fun!

I love when my favorite characters, dead or alive, or deity, make me happy. Dana McIntyre was one of my favorites. And she is mentioned a few times.

The adventure is fantastic. I think I read this in two nights. Thank you for another engrossing read.

View all my reviews

Review: Intermittent Fasting 16/8: The Ultimate Step-By-Step Guide To 8-Hour Diet, Which Makes You Live Healthy, Lose Weight, Burn Fat and Age Slowly with Autophagy and Metabolism, Including Recipes by Asuka Young

Intermittent Fasting 16/8: The Ultimate Step-By-Step Guide To 8-Hour Diet, Which Makes You Live Healthy, Lose Weight, Burn Fat and Age Slowly with Autophagy and Metabolism, Including Recipes by Asuka Young
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I finished this book a few days ago. Probably more like a week ago. So my thoughts on this book are vaguer than fresh. Still, I remember many recipes at the end of the book that made me wish I owned the book. The information was useful if this were the only book you’ve read on Intermittent Fasting. But I was happier with Dr. Jason Fung’s research.

The author did include some personal stories and addressed those who are older and need more help getting healthy. Both of these kept my interest until the end. It’s free with Kindle Unlimited, so who can complain?

View all my reviews

Stream of Consciousness Saturday, A to Z Challenge, U

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “oop.” Find a word with the “oop” sound in it and use it in your post. Enjoy!

Oops! (As I’m sure most who are playing with this prompt start, how can we not?) It is nearly midnight and I still haven’t gotten my blog out. AGAIN! I refuse to read anyone else’s until I write mine as I don’t want to even accidently copy someone else. I did peek at a friend’s blog but felt I had cheated. Still it was nice to visit another’s blog world.

Since this is a ‘stream of consciousness’ I was playing with the thought and it because creak of unconsciousness. Because as I start one of these, my brain seems blank. Oompa Loompas do the orange dance in there. I could use caffeine but it is too late at night.

Well, I’m proud of me anyway. I did spend a good portion of my day editing. But, and dare I use this twice? Oopsies! (there I changed it!) I felt completely useless. Have you ever had a large amount of print to copy and paste but the computer won’t do large pieces like that? Well, that copy/paste situation got crazy as the copied wasn’t the whole of it. So a lot of got messed up. So uncooperative! (Hey! A word that has both U and oop!) Some parts looped back and recopied themselves. So most of the day I set up new scenes and paste bits to them. This way I can move the bits around to get a better flow. So no word-count but progress anyway.

Looming new socks while the weather got gray and gloomy proved unsatisfying. For some reason the yarn kept knotting up where it shouldn’t, so frogging will happen tomorrow.

I finished the reward game of the week: Mystery Case Files: The Black Veil. I didn’t like it like I do Ravenhearst. Maybe it is because after midnight I don’t feel like solving puzzles. I just want to unhide the hidden pictures. I’ll try it as a daytime diversion one day and see if I like it better then.

The newest Audible I’m listening to at night is science with a sense of humor. I have a hard time putting the Kindle away. It’s called How to Die in Space. My daughter recommended it. It is quite clever. I would have loved this author as one of my teachers.

Twenty minutes until midnight. It is suppose to snow tonight. And here I thought we were nearing spring! The weather is uncooperative with the calendar! My shoulders droop at this, but–Oops! Midnight is Looming!

A to Z Challenge, T, Ta-Da Friday

Tired had been the theme of the week since the vaccine. It does seem like the rest of the family felt the same way. Maybe we were just tired for no reason. It happens. I still tried to get my normal tasks done. And guess what? I finished something!

These are going to Hugger Hats, the charity group. Done two-at-a-time on Flexee fine-gauge looms with 40 pegs (20 links) each loom. Kitchener cast-on, German short-rows for toe and heel. Flat knit stitch until cuff. Cuff two-by-two knit/purl. These are great slipper socks. I know because I have enjoyed my own pair for a couple months.

Ta-Da! And

A to Z Challenge, S

So, I have been so excited to get to play with ‘S’ as the best letter all day. Most frequently used letter. The letter used in the Wheel of Fortune as the first choice. But such a busy day has kept me scrambling. And the internet died on us. Suddenly the scheme I had come up with sank to the sea without me!

Still, I got a lot of editing done for CampNaNo. 13,873 words were seen, and many were replaced. Some were great, even super, others schlecht! Sorry I couldn’t think of an English word there. It looks smarter than its meaning, bad. It’s German, by the way. My Duolingo has taught me something!

Our symptoms and reactions to the shot have faded to barely tired now. Even my son, who displayed it the most, is up and back to his normal self. Say what you will about the vaccine; I feel so much safer now. We needed the extra sleep the last few days brought us.

Speaking of sleeping, it is close to midnight and I better get this posted. See ya Friday!