There's a new post at QueryShark this morning and revisions to #303 and #309.
I've been prepping for the reading hiatus. What kind of prep do you need for reading, other than laying in extra eyeballs? Well, in my case, I wanted to make sure I only read manuscripts that were still available, so I had to sort out ones that had been withdrawn for any reason. Withdrawals are usually because a writer accepted other representation before I could get my fangs into the work. While I try to update as things happens, sometimes I get busy and don't.
I also want to make sure I read the most current version. All y'all have a habit of tinkering with your work while it waits to be read. I'm always glad to read the most recent, hopefully best, version, so sometimes I have three or four copies of a ms. Again I try to tidy up as I go, but there are always a few stragglers.
So, I make sure that every requested full is numbered correctly, there's an email file with all the email from that author, and the author is tagged as a requested full in my address book.
But, two hours later, it's all tidy, and I'm ready to dive in. I had to force myself to remember I have to work on something else today, because looking through those requests yesterday made me realize how much good stuff awaits!
And it's summer so I'm moving furniture in my apartment.
What's something you do at the start of summer?
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Laundry. Dishes. Vacuuming. Cooking. Watching the youngest. Y'know, the regular stuff. My life doesn't change with the seasons.
Tune up the chainsaw to cut through the humidity
I organize, too. For the last time ever, I tidied up all of my end-of-the-semester grading and put it away from my work space. All of my research notes are getting prime places near the writing desk. I need a bit of order to work.
But I don't bother putting away long sleeves and long pants. WI had a chilly start to summer.
Planting! My flower pots are waiting to be filled with petunias, my basil is coming up, my oregano is big, and the mint is already jungly. And the vegetables are growing by the minute. At the end of the season it’s picking, pickling, and drying.
I do a gut check and switch my daily walks to the early mornings, otherwise I'd combust. The books beside my bed—that have become obstacle courses for the vacuum — finally get read. There are also lots of visits to friends and family who live elsewhere.
Summer would almost have been spoilt for me last night, but then Germany decided to score a late late LATE winner in their World Cup match, so I sprinted about one mile through my new, current English hometown.
And summer is saved (for the moment).
Once the garden and flowers are in, summer seems focused on getting kids ready to go places, dropping them off, and picking them up. Everyone was gone overnight for two nights last week. I was alone all night long *for two nights*! Don't ever remember that happening since we had kids...15 years ago! Wine was consumed.
I'm beginning to prep for Camp NanoWriMo, in both my personal writing and also in context of the July writing program that I run at my library. Granted, the writing program isn't appreciably different from other times of the year (last year I made s'mores, but it was weirdly awkward?) so mostly it's getting an overall plan together, brainstorming writing prompts to give them, that kind of thing. This year's Summer Reading Program theme is "Libraries Rock!" so I'm likely going to incorporate playing music as a prompt, or song lyrics as words to include, that kind of thing.
Back home at the beach, the beginning of summer meant things like making sure I had a bathing suit that fit and I felt comfortable with, sometimes getting new sandals/flip flops/ beach towels, new bottles of sunscreen, new sunglasses.
I get the dog a haircut, so she doesn't have to suffer the heat with a long coat. Luckily, my mum's house has air conditioning, so this year I don't have to plan somewhere cool for the dog to be when I'm out of the house.
I did, however, make sure I got registered for Surrey - I guess the full packages are all booked up now, so I'm glad I got in when I did. Now, I need to find a place for my friend and I to stay while we're there.
And I may be applying for a part-time communications job with a local parish. We'll see how that goes.
Much like Kitty, summer doesn't really change the routine. But more sun makes it feel better.
Unrelated, thanks for making me laugh out loud and and get strange looks at work when reading the new contest rule on Friday :)
Steve Forti, oh yes, I too laughed out loud when I read the new contest rule for you!!!
Oh, and summer will bring another move for me. Boyfriend got a job offer two days ago, so we're already looking for new accommodation in that place's area.
Although I am really, really glad he got this job (and we've been here in the UK for only ONE month, so that's a good result!), I'm fed up with moving (maybe more so with the searching for a new place).
I babysit during the summer so, I have to rearrange my sleeping habits. I'm afraid I'm going to oversleep even with the alarm, so I lay awake all night worrying. Then I get there at 7:20 and we watch movies or play games and we read. We'll make peanut butter cookies tomorrow. I need to find some craft projects we can do.
Sometimes he goes to his friend's to play so I take a thumb drive along and work on Rain Crow.
I'm finishing William C. Davis' book on Bull Run, which is very good. It gives some pretty minute details leading up to the battle. I feel sorry for these commanders who were being micro-managed from Washington and Richmond. I'd have had my own men out cutting telegraph lines.
On top of that, you have generals like Johnston CSA and Patterson USA who are so petrified of making the wrong move and tarnishing their reputations, they make no moves without such explicit orders they can easily pass the blame for any failure.
Johnston was invited to a bird hunting party with Wade Hampton and some other commanders. Johnston had a reputation as a crack shot, but Hampton was a life-long hunter who has a reputation for hunting black bear with only a knife. While the others happily shot and missed, but also happily shot and hit, Johnston refused to take less than the perfect shot. The others returned to camp with full bags and Johnston had not taken a shot all day.
There's a lesson in there for fidgety writers. Do the best you can with your work, but there's no such thing as perfect. At some point, you have to take the shot.
Rain Crow is nearing completion and then it will be to the slaughterhouse to cut some more arcs and lots of words. This child is going out in the world before long.
I'm looking at another trailer, so I'm going through some things and throwing away what I don't want to move yet another time. I went through my bookcases and straightened them up. I'll do it again because there are still a few books that need to be refiled. Fiction is in no order whatsoever and that's kind of boggling my mind that I have cast such a wide net lately.
I bought some flowers yesterday, which was kind of a waste of money, but maybe they will bloom.
I also took Gage the Wonder Dog to the groomer and he looks beautiful. I should take a picture of him while he isn't scruffy looking.
BJ, the full packages on Surrey sold out within the first 40 hours I think. I'm going to cancel I think, which makes me terribly sad, but it might be for the best. I haven't yet nor the hotel room, but it's pretty sure.
You're only moving furniture? How about comiserateing with your best buds, Sherwin Williams and Benjamin Moore.
Hey I washed Windows today. That's how exciting my life is.
Steve Forti: I also laughed when I saw the new rule for you alone!!
Speaking of Sherwin Williams, my daughter and I stripped our deck flooring, patched a bad spot, and painted. We dug some of Mom's lilac bushes to root in our backyard, and started a little flower garden in our front yard. Nowadays...I obsess over the creeping charlie!!
I actually got all the pollen and winter crud hosed off the front porch and chairs even BEFORE the official first day of summer. Now I can actually sit out there, or I could if I had any time to do that. Today I cleaned the air filter for my house air cleaner. Boy do I lead an exciting life!.
I did make some cardamom syrup from Adib's recipe he so generously shared with me. I am having an ice coffee sweetened with it, and it is heavenly.
The winter months here at the sanctuary are labor intensive. Our rescue horses go through $30,000 to $50,000 worth of hay. (Drought and/or rain, availability, transport costs and so on all affect prices - thus the wide range). Regardless, 30K or 50K or somewhere in between, it's a lot of work. I'll admit to crying some days over the last 26 years of tending the herd. But not often.
The summer months provide a respite from the work. I jump into spring cleaning. Change furniture around. Purge closets. Rearrange furniture (again). And hit garage sales, junque shops, thrift stores with unfettered glee.
Yes, Steve, the special rule for you was hilarious. What fun. Thanks Janet.
My prep for summer begins in early May.
Splash day was scheduled last October.
It takes 20-30 hours to prep the hull, regardless of the weather.
Then it's sails up, tunes on and solitude for hours.
Within a month, the email will arrive, asking to schedule the haul date.
Darkness ensues.
Maybe I should take up golf?
What do I do at the start of summer? I make sure my down jacket is hanging on a hook by the front door! Mark Twain hit the nail on the head with his famous quote about summer in San Francisco. Brrr!
Love the new Steve Forti rule - had a good laugh over that one :-)
Steve, I tweeted that you're the Secretariat of Flash Fiction. You had to carry an extra 20 lbs. for the race. (I have no idea if that's what Secretariat had to haul, but he was like Steve in that he was furlongs ahead of the pack.)
In gym class, we used to have to do the 12-furlong run. I said Neigh.
Sorry, I'll leave now.
Shout out to Adib first. That's an awesome honor.
Here in the South, the start of summer prompts that time honoured tradition of weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth, and counting down to the start of fall and somewhat cooler temps.
Oh. Just me? *sigh*
Last week, I changed my laptop wallpaper to a pic with snow in it and made plans to stay inside with my overworked air conditioner for the next three months. I truly dislike the summer heat.
I loved the new Forti rule too, and also loved that several of us gave ourselves the additional handicap in a show of solidarity. Or stupidity. One of those. :)
I think moving the furniture around is a great way to begin the summer! My goal for the summer is to spend time every day on my porch swing.
I race to get the kids new swimming costumes before the shops run out of reasonably priced ones and only the super expensive brands are left. But that's 6 months away for us. We're shivering here, on a sunny but cold winter's day. The beaches are now the preserve of the brave and the tourist.
Well way down south here, I'm entering the stage of the year where my hands go numb typing and I have to do runs to the bar heater to warm them up and thaw them out for the next stage! It was our fifth -5 C day in a row this morning, which is very cold for June. At least it looks to be a good ski season!
So probably everyone is now asleep and this will land on the thread unseen, but hey, I'll weigh in.
Summer arrives slowly here, mixing temps in the 90's one day and wind, clouds and sweater weather the next. So what we do at the start of summer depends on the weather. If lovely, we are outside somewhere, either weeding or hiking around Mt. Rainier or some other perfectly beautiful place.
If weather is similar to fall, we go through old (as in 1990 vintage) bills, statements, report cards, and other 'why did we save this?' paperwork.
Furniture moving does not happen much. Rearranging the bookcases does. Tidying up the random stacks of books that multiply on every surface, even the edge of the bathtub, does.
Haven't painted in 13 years, which means I still love the rather cinnamon color of 3 of the walls in the bonus room. The 4th and the ceiling is a bold yellow and, yes, I still love those too!
And I, like many of the others, laughed at Steve's handicap, but tried my best to wiggle it into my entry.
Cheers to all of you still up and reading this!
I haul out a Louisville Slugger to swat bugs. Last week I was mauled by a mosquitoe AND had to protect my tomatoes from hail on the same day. The same day, people.
I need that recipe, Panda.
I wanted to do a quick shout out to Adib Khorram as well, congratulations on your book release. Well done. I also wanted to mention that there were some really fun entries in the latest F.F. Congrats to all who entered.
I have been (literally) making hay while the sun shines, so I unfortunately, missed this F.F. contest.
Cheers Hank.
I just finished my manuscript so I am going to let it sit. While I do, I am going to clean my house top to bottom and then clean the carpets. Also, I would love to read the books I just bought and give the cat a bath. There are two rooms I want to swap. Looks like I will be moving some furniture too.
Cheers!
Ooh, could I get that cardamom syrup recipe?
We're outside so much the poor baby got poison ivy. And the farmer's markets! My summer week is anchored by church and the farmer's market.
At the start of summer I finally stop moaning about the cold. Okay, I probably do many other things, but as I'm well into winter and rather jealous of you well into summer, my focus is a little skewed *grin*.
Put up my Christmas tree.
But why you asking now? Summer's six months down the road.
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