More Woohoo!

This woohoo doesn't have my name on it but an editor who critiqued the first 3 pages of my last The Seaview Series manuscript asked a few weeks ago if she could re-edit my pages on her new podcast. I said yes. She's not sharing the name of the author but those are my words and my pages being dissected on a podcast. I didn't remember her being quite so... thorough when she edited the pages the first time but it was an education to watch it happen again. I learned a few things, mostly that I tend to overwrite dialogue. I can fix that--or not. (I entered a 24-hour contest on Writers Helping Writers blog to have the first 3 pages of a manuscript edited for free and I won. That's how she came to have my words to dissect in the first place.)

 

Today's drawing prompt was Bird. Something I'm much more drawn to draw than cats. I like the one in the lower left the best. Because of its tail feathers, I think.

 

I went out this afternoon and lowered the horse head squirrel feeder a few inches. Now it might be too low but at least it's at a height that the squirrels can reach it. I could tell that no squirrels had found it yet because some corn kernels fell out when I was moving it around. I also definitely need to go out with the clippers and clean up the greenery (weeds) around it so I can see what's going on and maybe take a picture.

 

Would you like to see a slice of a delicious chocolate mousse cake? This is what LC baked for me for my birthday. All by herself. There were little silver stars sprinkled around the edge of the cake. It was so good and so good looking it seemed like a shame to eat it. But I managed.

 

When I was rehanging the squirrel feeder, I took the camera out to take pictures of the sedum flowers and noticed a single flower stalk of a perennial purple salvia I thought the weeders had pulled out. Evidently there was a tiny bit of the plant left to struggle toward the sun. Hooray!

 

On to the sedum. The bronze sedum is more subtle and I'm so disappointed that there weren't any bees on there. Lack of sunshine? A rainy morning? Too many pesticides in the neighborhood?

 

The pink sedum is brighter. Still no bees.

 

I went to a Catholic funeral this morning. I hadn't been in church in years but I mostly remembered the rituals. Stand up, sit down, stand up, kneel, stand up, kneel, sit down. It all pretty much came back to me. Although I confess, I still miss the Latin Mass. And lightning didn't strike me. Plus we sang Amazing Grace, my favorite hymn. It always makes me cry. 

In the afternoon, I worked on Three Cheers for Murder. Working my way through the ProWritingAid Manuscript Analysis recommendations. It's helping me get the right parts of the mystery in the right places and preserve the mystery part better. Maybe I'll do a better job on the next one. And there will be a next one because I already have an idea about it.

The most exciting news of the day was the response to an email I sent to GetCovers this morning about why it was taking so long to get my finalized cover design. When I got back from church, there was an email from them with a cover design with the offending shadow removed so I approved it and am waiting for the final files. Then I can publish Sailing the Seas and maybe maybe maybe have copies to take to The Clearing the first week in October. Fingers crossed.

 --Barbara