Ta-Da Tuesday!

Yep, I’m at it again! JuNoWriMo. I didn’t finish, or even do much with last months editing. So I am combining the editing and rewriting that needs to happen to finish Pandamapocalypse. But a new book was calling to me so I have started on Marina’s Mission. So my count for Panda is 510 words added as the story still hasn’t finished. Yet MM is the second part of Panda. So this is going to get complicated. Even so I managed 1870 words. Yeah! 

I have complained that we get no spring or fall here. But this year the weather has been more of a springy feeling. I love my mesquite bushes just outside. They blossomed up and became nearly yellow with all the flowers. I finally got out to take a couple pictures.

Can you see the pods? Those are what makes the mesquite the most fun. In the summer when the pods turn brown they start popping open. If you are lucky, as you stand an look at these huge bushes, the sound of popping corn happens. It is so much fun to stand and hear a bush make noise!

It wasn’t really quiet as I took the pictures. There were so many bees that the buzz made me very nervous. I got away as soon as I could.

My newest socks are coming along.

The practice on the recorder was slight but I did manage to finger out Mary Had A Little Lamb, and Twinkle Twinkle. But I would love a book to read the music as I go. Tomorrow I promised myself to play one song on the piano just to reconnect.

For those that are curious as to how the Intermittent Fasting/Keto are doing. I’m managing OMAD (One Meal A Day) and that is a very healthy meal. I am rarely hungry later and if so water or tea will do the trick. My pants are getting loose enough to pull down without unsnapping or unzipping. I don’t weigh myself but at the end of the month I have a doctor’s appointment where I know they will weigh me. I think I will be happy with the result.

Today has been the warmest day all year. I think we hit 92. It is suppose to cool off the rest of the week. I think this was to help us get used to what is coming. Fans were running in every room all day.

Midnight is creeping up so I best get this published and head off to bed.

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!

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!

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, 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!

A to Z Challenge, O/Stream of Consciousness, Mash

Per Linda G. Hill:

Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “mash.” Use it any way you’d like. Have fun!

Okay, so how will I mash together the two prompts? Hehe. Done. Out the door! No, just kidding. This blog is for me to keep track of me and our lives here in the Oregon Outback. Hey, that was a double do I get extra points? That’s not an option? Well, bear with me as I find my way in this ocean of creative fun. Meanwhile, enjoy this YouTube of the outstanding observations, an overview, of course, of home. I don’t know this person.

Once there was an ogre named Oscar who grabbed an otter named Oliver and an opossum named Owen. He thought they were so cute that he tried to feed them the offal of a dead owl. His new friends wouldn’t have any. There was an odor emitting from the mash. They all decided it was a bad omen to even try it. So to oblige one and all, he buried the owl and gave it the best oration ever. Two baby owlets hopped down from the nearby oak. Their huge oval eyes were full of tears. Oscar, Oliver, and Owen brought them into an openly loving hug. And off they all went to enjoy the forest.

Pixabay.com

On the CampNaNo part 2 front, I managed to ogle 7,704 words in editing offenses in Office, Word.

Okay, money isn’t falling around me, but I feel open to the offer!

A to Z Challenge, N

Now for my favorite ‘N‘ word: NaNoWriMo. It started with the book No Plot, No Problem by Chris Baty. I heard about it and read a library copy in 2001, I think. Later I bought my own copy. I even bought the kit that I have added my own prompts to since. By the way, click on the links above and go to the NaNo site or the site of my review on Goodreads accordingly. So for 21 years I have been enjoying the challenge of creating my own books to dive into. Each Novel brought me more friends to care for and listen to. Not just the characters that appeared but writers clubs that have real people I remain friends with so many years later.

Not only did I make a novel nearly every year in that 21 years, I got the T-shirts. Most years I bought either the participant or winner’s shirt. Now I have a drawer full of them. I rarely wear any other shirt. I wear them for inspiration to write, for a sense of pride that I did it before and can do it again. And lately there are CampNaNo shirts in the mix as the April, May, June helps my chops stay in writing form.

Since it is nearly midnight I thought I should catch up with my latest edited word count: 3,721. I finished 25K by the 15th so I can do another 25K before the thirtieth.

A to Z Challenge, M/CampNaNo Merit

Making a goal of editing is tough. It seems especially difficult with our current situation. When I started CampNaNo and decided to edit through 25K words I thought that was a lot. But last night I surpassed my goal and yet have another 25K to go through. So I am making another goal on the CampNaNo website. Still it was miraculous for ME to finish my goal at the half month stage. I had hoped to get some writing done this month but that rewrite and finish to the story will have to be put off until May. The thing is, meandering through the Pandamapocalypse document looking for grammar and spelling issues I am seeing bits that mean to be rewritten, eliminated, or simply moved to different parts of the story. Best of all, maneuvering around within the plot and overall manuscript makes me happy. I still like the idea of the book and how it is going. I sure hope someday to let others enjoy the fun I have had with all of my Haven series including this latest issue.

The magic of Hulu has kept me sane lately. If you want a background show that is funny or ignorable, watch Staged with David Tenet and Michael Sheen. Warning this may have strong language. As I said, this plays excellent in the background and doesn’t demand my attention like music.

I just finished watching all of Staged and left Hulu on and it put on Miranda. I have watched that series before and I loved it so much! This second watch is mirth incarnate!

For my fellow Grey’s Anatomy friends: Does Ellen Pompeo have the best job ever? Meredith Grey gets to sleep or be on the beach with old friends. And being paid for it! I want to be her when I grow up!

I am so happy with the way Shonda Rhimes is handling the COVID19 crises and how the emergency medical teams are dealing with all that is happening these days.

Okay that is all I can find swirling around in my mind to meander.

Merry

A to Z Challenge, J

Just another beautiful sunset. Yawn. Just kidding. I feel so lucky to have this view from my living-room.

I wish my cell took a true picture. This isn’t as gorgeous as what my eyes saw.

In thinking of ‘J‘ words January came to mind. Doesn’t that seem years away? Hey, remember Just Jot It January? Ah, that was fun. I know we still had up our Christmas tree. That dim, cold memory needs to go away. Let’s stay focused on the future, June and July! That’s more my speed. Let’s just pray it isn’t another fire season. The news for our area is all about the draught.

In this journal, I like to keep track of my writing and editing. I am nearly finished with the goal of 25,000 words to edit. I feel it is doing its job to jumpstart my jam. 21,957 words thus far!

Suddenly I am finding the need to report my reward games. I finished Love Story–Beach Cottage and am trying a new one, for me. Mystery Case Files The Black Veil. Since I’ve had it a while and never played it takes a bit longer to journey through its lands and find all the jewels. I’ll play as soon as journaling is complete.

This has been another Monday that I slept through writing group not realizing it was Monday. How it is that keeps happening? Napping is so juvenile! But nightly the ‘outside’ trips jack up my sleep. Having this sweet dog is sometimes harder than when I had 3 jobs: going to college full time, working full time ,and being a single mom of four. But I love her and ad-just<–that ought to count!

Well, it is time to get out the joystick, well ‘mouse’ is for ‘M’ day isn’t it?

Have a Joyous week all!