I finished the new first chapters in Nightcraft Mother today–62 pages total, 17,500 words. Now I’m going through them; after that I’ll cut all the stuff in the following chapters that these chapters render unnecessary. Progress! I’m quite pleased.

Also, did a ton of work in the yard today. I cleared the side bed of some volunteer things that had bloomed and wilted; must figure out what to put there next. It’s mostly a shady bed, and not very wide, but I’d like something more interesting than just ground cover. Oh no, another trip to the nursery. Poor, poor me.

My folks sent a ton of great photos from their visit, but I haven’t sorted and named them, and it’s late and I’m bushed, so, tomorrow hopefully! Here’s one though, Mom and markferrari and me in Powell’s, holding all the copies of The Book of Joby we could find:

More to come…

Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.

Today was more of the finding my way back into my routine–getting caught up on correspondence (or at least trying), putting the house back together, going for a swim, actually showing up at the real estate office (after hours, but still) and finding important things there (like my new business cards, and fliers for the open house I’ll be doing this weekend).

Also, I wrote! Only a few pages, but it felt wonderful. I’m still so very close to finishing the new chapters in Nightcraft Mother–though not as close as I thought I was, as the pacing will suffer if I bull through as planned. Instead, I’m doing a “you think this is going to happen–but it doesn’t!–and then just as you’re getting used to that idea–it does after all!” kind of thing. I hope it works. After I finish this part, I’ll reread the whole new section (currently 58 pages, 16K words) and then stitch them together better with what follows. Then I might have a decent novel!

Of course, I got a short story idea yesterday that is so brilliant, I can’t believe it hasn’t been done (it probably has). But even if it has, mine would be different. Right? Anyway, I made notes and set them aside. Really, brain. Do we need MORE items on our plate?

_________________

But enough about today. What about the whole last week, when I didn’t blog at all hardly? Well, it was a very fun visit. My folks were here for two days, then we all went up to Seattle for three days, then back here for two more, then they headed out. We did a ton of fun and interesting things that we would never have done without out-of-towners to prompt us–like underground tours in both Portland and Seattle (Seattle’s is way better, sorry Portland!); the Space Needle (I did post about that); wandering around Bainbridge Island (awesome shopping!); even spending way more time at the nursery than I ever allow myself. My stepdad is a (retired) professional gardener; I knew he’d like to see my nursery, but of course, being new to gardening myself, I didn’t fully get quite how fabulous it is till I saw his reaction to it. He was VERY impressed. We spent two hours there–I went to quadrants I hadn’t ever ventured into before–we could have stayed lots longer except my incredibly patient mom was finally fatiguing. (Clever markferrari had stayed home.) Stepdad bought a bunch of stuff to take home, and I bought a bunch of things for here (including the last few Sungold cherry tomatoes that they had in stock); Stepdad planted all the big things for me, and replanted/pruned several things I already had here. Fabulous.

Other than the nursery visit, oh and an aquarium store visit, our time in Portland was a bit more relaxed than our time in Seattle. We had markferrari’s cousins over for dinner Sunday night, which was delightful.

All in all, it was a very nice visit, even though everyone was quite exhausted by the end of it. markferrari went home today, earlier than we’d initially planned–because he’ll be back on the weekend, for a number of fun social things. This will be his first time home alone for several months. We were there a few days last week, of course, but with all that was going on, it was, for him, more like visiting a nice hotel that felt strangely home-like, rather than actually being at home.

Oh and the other thing that happened last week was that we finally changed our Facebook statuses, relationship-wise. This had been long overdue; we’d put it off because we were being sensitive to, you know, issues out there in the world; but as things in that arena are getting so much more comfortable, we felt it was time. Of course you can’t change status without a notice going out, and the resultant flurry of responses. He got a lot more of those than I did; apparently the concept of him being in a relationship is far more astonishing than the concept of me being in one. Anyway it’s changed now and that feels good and right, even though I hardly ever use Facebook.

___________________

I leave you with a photo from my grocery shopping this afternoon, of blatantly incompetent parking times two. It’s kind of hard to tell from the photo, but the red car is about nine feet shy of the end of its space, leaving a huge amount of car jutting out into the driving lane; the grey car, on the other hand, is four or five feet BEYOND the end of its space, blocking most of the access to where you put your shopping carts back.

As I was taking the photo, both drivers came back to their cars. I pretended I was texting and not, oh no not at all, taking pictures of their crappy parking jobs for anonymous mockery on the internet.

Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.

Sorry for the radio silence! We had a great, and busy, time with my parents. Returned to Portland Saturday; they’ve just left this morning. More details (and eventually pictures) to come; I’m just trying to catch up on All The Things now.

Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.

Wow, being tourists is exhausting! Fun, but whew.

Tuesday, as noted, we did the Portland underground tour, then had a lovely late lunch and then spent some time at Powells, then went back home and crashed a while, eating leftovers instead of going out for yet another huge meal.

Wednesday, we drove to Seattle, where my folks finally got to see markferrari’s apartment. We hung out a bit, went to Agua Verde for a drink, then Tilth for dinner. That was…an adventure. Tilth is still scrumptious, but the portion size seems to be creeping ever downward. Even so, we left with full bellies (and empty pockets).

This morning we had coffee and a bite at their hotel, before heading down to Seattle Center and lunch at the Space Needle.

From there, back on the monorail to Pike’s Market and surrounds (Fluevog!), for a bit of shopping, and ice cream…then, utterly exhausted, we’ve collapsed in our separate chambers till dinnertime…oh, very soon here.

Gee, I wonder why I can’t lose any of this weight.

Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.

markferrari has arrived (and napped); my parents are on their way, looking at a tomorrow-afternoon arrival. All is well!

I had a good open house today.

The weather is hot and gorgeous.

Nothing more to report!

Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.

I wrote another 1,500 words in the new first chapters of Nightcraft Mother this evening, and have gotten Callie well down the road of the thing she needs to do to drive the rest of the story…ooh it’s hard writing, though. I really want to get this right, and have it make emotional sense even though it’s a very ill-advised move on her part.

Earlier today, I made a stab at Cleaning All The Things (as one does before a parental visit), and also did some real estate stuff, exploring neighborhoods I hadn’t been through before.

And lo, now I am tired, and my eyes itch. Several days ago I was weeding and got some grassy seedy weedy stuff right in my eyes, and I’m still suffering an allergic reaction from it. I’m generally not prone to allergies–spring pollens and the like don’t do much to me–but apparently getting the stuff directly in the eye will do it. :/

And markferrari arrives tomorrow! Yay! I know I just saw him in LA, but he hasn’t been here in several months, and I am very much looking forward to that.

Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.

I finally figured out the correct metaphor for Washington drivers (the freeway ones particularly): they’re cats.

The ones who get right up behind you in the lane going all I HAVE TO GET BY YOU I HAVE TO GO FASTER GO GO GO NOW MOVE OVER NOW NOW and then you do move over and they’re all, Oh what pretty trees there are out there, I don’t like the song playing on the radio I must change it, is that my phone ringing?

Just like the cat going OPEN THE DOOR I MUST GO OUTSIDE NOW NOW NOW OR I WILL SURELY DIE, and then you do open the door and they sit in the doorway.

They didn’t want to actually go out, or to pass you. They wanted the door open, or the lane free. It’s all about options. I get it now.

Anyway, despite all that, I’m home safe, and perfectly exhausted. I have smart and interesting larger thoughts about things discussed with shelly_rae at breakfast, about Twitter vs. blogging, and the discipline of small creativity, but those thoughts will have to wait for another day. (It was her smartness, leading to my interesting thoughts–or at least I think they’re interesting!)

Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.

Seattle is lovely, the weather is perfect, the drive was marvelous, the reading was spectacular… the only thing missing is markferrari. It’s especially poignant to be in his apartment without him here.

But! He will be home soon, he is in northern California as we speak, and will be in Portland on Sunday or Monday.

I had a very nice dinner with scarlettina before the reading; and the reading itself was nicely attended. And people seemed to like my story excerpt. So, all good!

Breakfast with shelly_rae tomorrow, then back home, jiggity-jig. Sleep now!

Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.

I forgot to note where I started today, but I’m up to 13,000 words added in the first chapters of Nightcraft Mother–maybe I wrote 2,000 today? I’m into the last major thing that has to happen before I can move into the already-written chapters–well, I’m into the setup of it, the thing itself is still a little ways off. But the wheels are in motion, I should get it done in another 5,000 words, maybe.

Then there will be cutting ahead, so this should still be a reasonably sized book.

Also spent another chunk of time in the yard today. I decided that some volunteers were really weeds, so out they went, and their little bulbs too. Hard work; I’d thought to go for a swim in the afternoon, but the yard work wore me out.

Tomorrow, Seattle. Come to our reading!

Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.

I’ll be reading in Seattle tomorrow night, at “A Celebration of Anthologies” at the University Bookstore, at 7:00, along with the magnificent authors John Pitts, Brenda Cooper, Dylan Birtolo, Erik Scott de Bie, and, if we’re lucky, Jennifer Brozek!

I’ll be reading from “A People Who Always Know,” from DAW’s The Modern Fae’s Guide to Surviving Humanity.

See you there!

Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.

I don’t know how many hours I spent in the yard today–I kept finishing what I was doing and coming inside, only to go back out again for more…I planted the rose from yesterday, and planted a few more things from the nursery (oh yes and went to the nursery), and pulled a bunch of weeds everywhere, and dug up some things in the back bed that I’ve decided are weeds rather than volunteers, but oh there are so many more of those, and I pruned a bunch of things too, and barely even got into the front yard–but the front yard is taking pretty good care of itself–oh and I watered some, because finally it is nice and warm! which means everything is drying out….

Anyway, on and on like that.

Also I cleaned the aquarium filter, which isn’t hard, particularly, but it is a bit stressful, because if you don’t pay attention and do it right, you may suddenly find yourself with 20 gallons of water where they don’t belong, as you unplug hoses and whatnot…also there’s electricity involved. But, the fish are much happier now, or at least they would be happier if they understood, which of course they don’t–all they know is that I spent all kinds of time fiddling with their environment without actually feeding them, which is confusing indeed to their little fish brains.

And then I wrote about 2,500 words on Nightcraft Mother–again I wasn’t aiming for word count particularly, but rather there are only two more dreadful things that need to happen before I’m through adding stuff to the front part here, and I got to one of them, and the next one is on its way; so that was hard work too, though satisfying.

And before all that I woke up early and went into the office for the Tuesday sales meeting, and no wonder I’m tired!

Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.

So, yes, whirlwind weekend, but it was worth it.

Even the getting up early. Mostly.

I flew down Friday morning crazy-early, caught a cab to Gretchen’s, where Krissy S. was visiting. The three of us decided we needed coffee–them because they were just getting going for the day, me because I’d been up for EIGHT HOURS already by then.

We walked to the beach, then down to Venice.

I’m still in Pacific Northwest regalia, not quite grokking pleasant weather yet

It ended up being about an hour walk, gorgeous and well worth it.

Sun! Sand! Palm trees!

Eventually, we got our coffee, and eventually-eventually, Doselle joined us and we got a fabulous lunch.

Krissy had a beer

I might have had some wine too.

From there, it was back to the apartment, for some nice lazing about, until markferrari got off work and could join us. Then, more hanging out; eventually markferrari and I went off to sushi, leaving the others to all kinds of mischief I don’t even know what.

Saturday, we slept in (yay!) (my four hours of crappy sleep did catch up with me, yes), then had an outrageous breakfast at The Original Pancake House; then I got to see where markferrari has been working all this time–fascinating! No pictures of this, because if I showed you, I’d have to kill you. Sorry.

After that, we went to see The Avengers, along with the rest of the western hemisphere. (And after quite a bit of mucking about trying to find a theater that wasn’t entirely sold out.) It was FABULOUS! Glancing around on the internet today, I see that we aren’t alone in this assessment. I would TOTALLY see it again. And I am TOTALLY not the audience for this–and it was still fabulous. Delightful–even in a theater full of squirming screaming talking whining kids, crammed in the second to last row–all that fell away when the movie started. Awesome.

From there, we rushed off to dinner with Mark’s brother and sister-in-law and niece, at a Mexican restaurant (on Cinco de Mayo!), and then we walked on the beach after that, looking at the enormous full moon and marveling at the crazy-high tide.

Sunday morning it was up early to meet Do and Gretchen for coffee (Krissy having flown back to her large lawn, alas).

Coffee and croissant

And then breakfast after that. Then we bid them a fond farewell and headed directly to lunch with Mark’s friend V. After that, it was almost time for me to head to the airport…we did have a couple of hours, so we went to the beach again, and saw porpoises jumping out of the water.

My flight out of LAX was on time, but my flight out of Reno was delayed, and you know that part.

Got home Very Late, but all is well here. Found a freelancer’s delight in the mailbox: checks! I took three checks to the bank today, such joy.

Also, on my walk home from yoga this morning, I found this:

People throw away the darnedest things here.

I just recently bought a red climbing rose; I think I will plant this one next to it, and they can be buddies.

So! A highly successful weekend, never a dull moment–exhausting but fun. And filling. I didn’t even step on the scale this morning, I don’t want to know. Today has been productive–wrote 1,000 words on Nightcraft Mother, and did more thinking on the plot; unpacked, groceried, inspected the garden; even managed a swim this afternoon.

And the weather, oh my goodness. I think I brought LA back with me.

Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.

I am off tomorrow morning, well actually the middle of the night tonight, to fly to LA, because if my beloved insists on doing this job every year for two months in LA, there’s not much choice but for me to go and see him there.

So today was pretty much about getting ready, though I did manage to write 2,500 words in Nightcraft Mother, which rather surprised me–I did it in two sittings, and I was perfectly satisfied after the first sitting, but then there was more to write, and some time, so I did. I’m moving very well through the stuff-to-be-added, figuring it out and fleshing it out and getting it onto the page.

Of course this means I’ll have to tweak lots of stuff downstream, most dramatically what *was* chapter one and will now be chapter 4 or 5, but that’s fine, it’ll be apparent, what’s needed, and shouldn’t be a lot of trouble. Maybe there will even be time to work on it this weekend, with all the traveling, who knows?

Anyway since I have to get up in a few hours, I suppose I should go to bed.

Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.

I had a lot of fun with Scott being here–we went around town yesterday doing research for a potential new project of his, including riding the tram up to the OHSU hospital and meandering about in the rain, and signing stock at downtown Powells. And then had a nice dinner at McMenamins before his reading at Beaverton Powells–it was a pretty intimate gathering there, but the reading went very well. This morning, breakfast at Cup and Saucer before he headed out for Seattle and another reading later this week.

Whereupon I went out for a swim (my, how the exercise habits fall off when company is here!) and then puttered about in the garden before writing a few more pages on NCM–beginning to incorporate some clever thoughts I had in the pool. It’s all coming together, yes it is!

And now I am weary. And since Friday morning I depart for LA at the crack of Not Even Morning Yet Early, I suppose it’s a good idea to start shifting my sleep habits a bit earlier, so that I might stand a chance of having some energy when I get there.

Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.

Next week I’m participating in the DAW anthology reading in Seattle, at the University Book Store: Thursday, May 10, 7:00. Announcement here. If you’re in the area and coming, want to get dinner beforehand? Let me know!

And tonight I’ve got a houseguest: my old friend Scott, who’s in town to read tomorrow night at Powell’s in Beaverton, at 7:00. Come one, come all!

Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.

The plants, that is: who is munching on my big healthy strawberry leaves?

It’s not the snails (or slugs); they work lower down, and I know their telltales. (Also, I’ve liberally sprinkled the area with Snail Death.)

I poked around at the plants and scared off some teeny-tiny white moths, maybe, or whiteflies. So I sprayed the plants with Regular Death (Also Kills Whiteflies!).

Hopefully that will do it. But if anyone has any clues, let me know. I want strawberries this year!

________________

I did an open house today, a very spiffy house in a very spiffy neighborhood, and I got more traffic than ever before–twice as much as my previous best day ever. It was awesome, but also exhausting! I feel like I’ve been at a con all day–all wrung out. I guess that makes sense.

Even so, I managed a few pages in Nightcraft Mother: getting into chapter 2. It’s going swimmingly, and still faster than I’d anticipated. I mean, it would be totally all right with me if all the new material only ends up taking 25 pages instead of 75!

But I’m done for tonight. Time to lie on the couch with a book.

Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.

So I think I’ve written the new first chapter of Nightcraft Mother. It’s shorter than I expected; I think that will mean the two other new chapters will be longer. But, I do like the tone of it, and I think it’s covering what I need to cover. We’ll see!

Also, I finished my draft of the collab short story yesterday; today, my co-conspirator weighed in with thoughts…lots of them…LOTS of them…. Ah well. It was just a first draft.

Three steps forward, two steps back.

Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.

I was thinking about things I’ve managed to do on my own here recently. You know, as people who live alone have to do.

-I used the pickaxe in the garden.
-I put together a table.
-I killed a spider.
-I am doing all the aquarium maintenance, including dealing with a leaky pipe (well, only half-credit there, as it sort of mysteriously fixed itself).
-Half credit on the central heating too: I investigated why it wouldn’t turn on, and was ready to take it to the next level, when it decided to turn on after all.

I’m sure there’s lots more things–I mean, I set up this whole house to begin with, made all the choices (including about repairs and remodels), furnished it, am making all kinds of yard decisions–but that list is just in the last week or so. So I just wanted to pat myself on the back a little.

I was married for so long to someone who was so in-charge, these “little” things are actually pretty huge. And even though I’m a few years out of that marriage–so much so that I don’t think about it much any more–this reality of doing everything for myself is still pretty new. Relatively speaking.

Anyway, happy Friday everyone! Go forth and appreciate yourself for something.

Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.