Only 3 more sleeps and it will be Scene of the Crime day. Woo hoo!!! I’ve wanted to go to this writers’ festival for a few years now and something always managed to come up and thwart my plans. GAWD, I hate it when that happens. But this year, I got my registration fee in so I’ll be there with bells on! Well not bells, I prefer to think looking somewhat professional (?) but definitely enthusiastic.
Monthly Archives: August 2010
Technical difficulties…
Well I won’t be stepping into the 21st century today after all. Glitch in the shipping information has delayed the delivery of my BlackBerry by one day. Sniff… I was SO looking forward to playing with it tonight. At least the shipping information has been corrected so no harm no foul, even though the exception message was somewhat disconcerting. I was beside myself when I saw that. I called the shipping company and spoke to a very nice lady there who assured me that all is well and the message is the only one they have coded into their system for address errors – in my case it was the postal code.
Timing is Everything…
I bought Stuart MacBride’s first and sixth novels (Cold Granite and Dark Blood) bundled together at Costco about a month ago. I’ve since purchased his second novel (Dying Light) and his other two currently out are on my wish list at amazon.ca. On the reading front, I’m well into Dying Light and enjoying every word of it.
I’ve ordered books from Amazon.co.uk on occasion and get recommendations from them on an ongoing basis. Well, this morning I received their current recommendations and if it wasn’t the full set of Stuart MacBride books and there’s a seventh one (hardcover) available for pre-order!
I wish there would have been someone at home when the e-mail came in to share the irony of it all with. I did forward the e-mail to my girlfriend with the same subject as this post. So far I’ve not heard back from her. Maybe she’s still rolling about on the floor in fits of laughter?
Moving into the 21st Century
I’m still not on Facebook and I don’t tweet but I’ve taken the plunge and bought a BlackBerry – a Bold 9700! I ordered it yesterday from my mobile phone carrier and with any luck, it will be delivered to me at my place of work tomorrow! Woo Hoo! I’m so excited… I’m all a-flutter!
Favourite Stuart #2
I had my bi-weekly appointment to get my nails done yesterday morning so took a book along with me. Usually, whenever I take anything to read, I’m in right away and don’t get the chance.
Yesterday was different. I got to read for the better part of half an hour. Yeah!!! I took Stuart MacBride’s second novel Dying Light with me. I wasn’t entirely sure if each book was a “stand alone” or how much, if any, reference there would be to his previous novel and would I be lost. There were a few references to the case in the first book but that was about it. Not enough to confuse things. So Stuart will likely be coming to work with me every day this week so I can finish reading it.
Who knows, there might even be some inspiration or something that will trigger my ideas for my writing that are stuck up in the gray matter and get them flowing, rather than just percolating.
Not such a productive day…
I didn’t get as many words written yesterday as I was hoping for. Less than 1000. The good thing is, the ideas are percolating away up in the gray matter so now it’s just a matter of time to get them from there out my finger tips and onto “paper”.
Podcasts or lack thereof
As much as I love creating the podcasts for my website, I’m taking a hiatus. It takes a long time to come up with the idea, see it through to a publishable product, record and upload it. All time that I could be spent getting through the current rewrite of my first manuscript.
I need to concentrate my efforts on that. It’s certainly not going to publish itself and if I don’t submit it, there’s no chance of publication so I’ve got to get on track and back to work on it.
I promise there will be more podcasts in the future… maybe just some random readings of short (flash) fiction but I’ll be back. Please bear with me and wish me well during my absence.
In the meantime, I’ll try to post any triumphs I have on the writing front. Even if it’s just how many words I managed to write in a given day.
Cheers!
Dramatic Sky
When I went out this morning to put a bottle in the recycling, a huge cloud behind my neighbour’s across the street and the church at the corner was backlit by the rising sun. At that instant, it was gorgeous. I dashed back into the house and upstairs to grab my camera.
By the time I got back outside, the light had changed so much the cloud didn’t look nearly so dramatic. Here’s the photo I managed to get. Too bad the wires are in it. If I was a bit more adept at PhotoShop, I would get rid of them. Well, not so much the adept part, I can be pretty handy with that software. It’s more finding the time to sit down and do it.
Scene of the Crime
In a very short time, as in a week from this coming Saturday, I’ll be taking in my first Scene of the Crime mystery writers’ festival on Wolfe Island. Now that I can see it on my calendar, I’m even more excited!
Taking in a morning workshop on point of view. I’m not familiar with the presenter but one of the gals I’m going with is. We’re all excited about it.
Inspiration has returned
I had a rather productive day on the writing front, even though my wi-fi wouldn’t/couldn’t connect to the Internet. I settled in after lunch and throughout the course of the afternoon managed to write between 1100 and 1200 words. A complete new scene. And I inserted a previously written scene into where I wanted it to reside in the grand scheme of things with a few revisions.
I need to do some research before I can continue with the scene I wrote today. So… off to check a few things out.