Let the snarking begin!

No new rewriting the past two days. Saturday’s writing was all about nailing the first chapter and sending it out to the posse. (Which they ripped apart, and came up with… Not Much. And KellyM thrilled me by telling me it was starting to look like a Book. Eeeeeee.)

Jenni gave me a few tweaks to work on, and I’m doing those tonight before I do the rewriting. I’d be doing them now, except, well… I’m writing this, while waiting for the Spousling to return so we can head to Santa Barbara to see my mom, my sister, and one of my brothers and his family.

Half a family reunion! (Sans kids, though. Once you throw in the kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids, we start looking like a convention.)

Writing out tonight, and probably more once I get back home. The laptop’s coming with me this wedding veil trip north (yeah, another. At least it’s not a dress.) and I’ll find time between now and Friday to nail the rest of those words.

(Conversation between Spousling and me ensues:

Him: Is that hard to follow?
Me: I missed the antecedent.

How often do you get to use ‘antecedent’ in casual conversations? Grammarians. *tsk* :P)

And now we’re off! (And the fog is burning off here, which means it might burn off in SB before 2P. Maybe.)

Homeward bound

Wyoming. Or maybe Idaho. Somewhere between Jackson and Utah.

Leaving

Jackson Lake backed by the Grand Tetons.

Keeping myself honest

I didn’t want to write last night–I’d spent four hours school shopping. School shopping for me does not actually involve clothing stores. It’s all about hitting Lakeshore and getting out for under $200 (score!), Office Depot (yellow Sharpies sold individually! OMG!!), Big Lots (nothing exciting here–ziplock bags and plastic storage) and Michael’s (jewels for the treasure game for four I saw at Lakeshore and refused to cough up $25, that I created for $11 for six on my own. Such is the life of a teacher.)

Not. Done. Spending. Yet.

Wait til I head back to Lakeshore with 30+ yards of laminating.

Anyway, I didn’t want to write. But the Clarion West write-a-thon is still in process, and I feel guilty if I don’t make a stab at it.

I checked out Skype. No one. So I did my trusty fallback: sign into chat with the OWW zoo peoples. Yep, they were all there. Particularly Jodi and Celia. Jodi threatens me nicely, and Celia horrified me (with the help of Jamie) to create a marshafails.com site with blinking lights and dancing hamsters, nested tables sized incorrectly, and locked frames that won’t let you escape. There was more, but that was enough to make me fling open my laptop in a frenzy.

So end result an hour and a half later: 1900 words deleted and 1300 rewritten.

Friends. What would we do without them?

Yellowstone

Old Faithful. A small fire in the park that day created the haze, and we drove into the parking lot to a spout of water, so had to stay for the later show.

It’s not the biggest geyser–there was one that went off a good distance away and behind some trees that went much higher and for much longer. The interesting thing was that when it did go off, most of the water where Old Faithful was receded.

Yellowstone

Had to move downwind of this one in order to get a shot. Geysers don’t make it easy.

Yellowstone

And when the wind shifts, you get geyser in your face. (For the record, they’re cool and moist, with the added bonus of an occasional whiff of sulfur.)

That’s Lake Yellowstone in the background, the very lake that tried to swallow us by sneaking a wave across the road as we drove by the night before. It looks so calm, doesn’t it? Do. Not. Trust. It.

Getting down to the wire…

Another good chunk of wordage and I swear this book is going to be soooooooooo much shorter when I’m done. The long conversations are being cut in half. The prose is being streamlined.

I’m not sure I’m going to recognize the book when I’m done. (And certainly not with all the name changes. Watch out, Lady F. You’re next. I’m having issues with all the baddies’ names, go figure.)

I’m under 8K now, and I’m getting to my goal by sheer determination. That kid part of me is saying ‘I don’t wanna’ even as I open the file. One thing I realized last night is that rewriting 1K daily will land me at WFC with another draft. I may be exhausted the first weeks of school, but I’m pretty certain it’s doable.

Also, the county found me again and wanted to give me jury duty the second week of school. I’ve postponed it. Every year they try this. What gives?

Second school nightmare last night. It’s because I hit Target and bought glue and crayons, isn’t it?

Dentist this morning, in my effort to get all the medical stuff out of the way before school starts. I’ve included a pass at the Legos store in San Mateo in my trip up north. It’s that time of year, and the stuff I need to replace or get is strong. I spent $50 at Target the other day, and I can’t wait to hit Lakeshore–that’ll be a couple of hundred right there. Because of the class size increase, I’m buying rug spots to accommodate the extra kids. Not a new rug. I refuse to spend $500 for one that will provide more squares–not after I spent $400 for the smaller size six years ago.

No one ever said teaching was cheap. And that’s one thing that really ought to be in the curriculum for new teachers.

Yellowstone

Fountain Paint Pots–one of the mud pots burbling there.

Yellowstone

Fountain Paint Pots.