I had a brainwave this morning that I would change the name of the estate in the Victorian era from Gordonsfield to Gleanstane (basically glen of stones) and since I envision the Christie mansion being in a bit of a valley, a standing stone or two by themselves and a stone circle atop a hill, the name sounded absolutely perfect.
However in my heroine’s time, she knows it as Gordonsfield. A bit of a dilemma but not for long. I mention the burnt out shell of a house on the property which still exists in the twenty-first century. So, the burnt out shell of a house was rented by one Gordon Eadie a tenant farmer (crofter) on the Christie estate and the land that his house was on was his “field”… hence Gordon’s Field… and over the years shortened to Gordonsfield.
So a few find and replaces later and an explanation or two and all will be well. However, I’m going to continue on from where I left off at the weekend and worry about the earlier changes later. I’m finding myself on a roll as far as the current revisions are going so want to keep on that track. I’m not in any rush to go back to the first three chapters and start again – spent way TOO much time back there.
After sweltering on Sunday working on my laptop computer in a non-air conditioned environment, I decided it was time to buy a cooling mat for my laptop and hopefully one that would keep me cool, too.
My local computer shop had one of the thermal varieties on display so had me sit on it. Within moments, my bum was cooling off rather nicely. The beauty of this type is it doesn’t require power to run the fans which cuts down on your battery life big time. It’s light and will fit easily into my laptop case. It didn’t take much convincing after I’d done the “sit on it” test. I purchased it and now can’t wait to use it!
I started back in my chapters 7-9 file of Sarah’s Gift after lunch and by the time I shut the computer down to come home from my mum’s, I was into the chapters 13-15 file. I even found the perfect place to put the file I started working on when I was distracted last weekend! When said file called to me to be written.
I’ve come to the conclusion after doing this one myself, that it’s just a wee bit too big. 66 words is just a bit much when the border on the puzzle remains the same size. The first one I did, had 55 or 56 words which seems to be a bit better. I tested the new one today and have decided on a few things…
1. fewer words
2. sort the list into alphabetical order before creating and uploading the puzzle, although I just loaded wordsearch1 and I don’t think the word list is in the same order as earlier… hmmm…
And as I was testing the puzzle, printed and done on paper rather than the screen, I realized I’d left a good portion of the early parts of the book this one is based on out of it.
Oh well, I’m flying by the seat of my pants so what can I say? I’m certain the more of them I create, the better they’ll get. At least I hope it turns out that way.
Well, my scanner isn’t dying after all. Somehow it got set in the locked position. Now that the mystery has been solved, it’s unlocked and ready to go.
I think my scanner is dying. It’s flashing a red light… not a good thing… You can unplug it and plug it back in and briefly get the green light and the scanner initializes but almost as quickly, it goes back to the flashing red light.
Wonder if it’s jealous because I got a new front loading wash machine AND a new car?
I created and uploaded a word search puzzle to my website last night. 56 words in total. I’d created one before as a test but made a mistake by putting a space in between words which doesn’t work and I couldn’t delete it afterwards. It’s really difficult to type a two-word clue and not hit the space bar between the words.
Click on the first letter, drag the mouse across to the last letter and click again. If you’re right, the letters will highlight in green and the word will be crossed out on the list below. If you’re wrong, the word will highlight in red. Like the jigsaws, it’s not linked to the website right now but it can be accessed at…
After a rather productive evening on the website front, I have 33 jigsaw puzzles online. Still don’t have them linked to my homepage but they can be accessed via this link…
I’m going to add a “Fun Stuff” area to my website. One of the things I’ll be adding is jigsaw puzzles of some of the photos from my photo gallery pages. Not sure what else will be going up there yet, maybe some “Free” short stories, crossword puzzles or word search puzzles.
Like I said… Fun Stuff!
When I get it finished, I’ll post the news here so keep checking back.
My Scottish roots and writing by Melanie Robertson-King
