Three At Once

I looked out at the feeders and saw three Downy Woodpeckers at once! One is on the suet pellets and the other two are on top of crooks. That's only happened one other time and that was just last week. I surmise that these are three fledglings hanging around together before they go their separate ways when they get a bit older. You know how teenagers like to hang around in gangs, I'm sure it's the same in the bird world.

There was another bud getting ready to open yesterday when I went out to rescue Dad's roses so I went out this morning to see how it was faring. Luckily I brought along scissors because the Japanese Beetles had been at the flower. If you look closely at the petals on the right you can see the holes that they'd chomped in them.

When I was pulling out a book to draw from I noticed the small pictures on the cover of 20 Ways to Draw a Butterfly and I liked them so I turned to the next blank page and started drawing. I drew much smaller pictures than I usually draw but I think they turned out better than usual too. Or maybe I'm just better drawing smaller.

I need to clear something up. Island Dreams, the manuscript that I sent to the online editor is not the sequel to The Seaview. Instead it's what I wrote for NaNoWriMo in 2021. One thing that they asked me to write this week was the blurb for the back cover of the book so I'm going to tack that on here so you can read what it's about:

Ella Thomas and Dan Martinson leave their families and friends behind and move to the island of Bonaire in the Caribbean to pursue their dream of owning a dive shop. Dan finds a job as a diving instructor immediately, but Ella can’t get a work permit and is reduced to cleaning vacation rental homes on the side for cash. His days are filled with the excitement and beauty of the coral reefs and her days are filled with cleaning up other people’s messes. They are dedicated to saving as much money as they can so that when a dive shop becomes available, they can jump on it, but an unexpected opportunity threatens to drive a wedge between them. Follow the ups and downs of life with Ella and Dan as they chase their Island Dreams.

I spent most of the day rereading and working on The Seaview 2. The first draft isn't done yet but it's closer. I need to finish writing it and then go through it a bunch of times until it's the best I can make it. Then I'll leave it alone for at least a month before going back through and editing and refining it some more. Then and only then will it be ready to publish. Depending on how I like this online editing thing I might do it again or do it myself the way I have in the past. Time will tell.

--Barbara