A Professional Dilettante

841 words today.

I took the weekend off, but today I wrote 872 words. So that's not bad. Still more than on track to have the manuscript finished by the end of February, which is pretty fast for me. Unless, of course, the book turns out much longer than I think it will be.

I almost had a close encounter with a candidate for the Darwin award on Friday. In addition to the wet stuff falling from the sky, you always know when it's the beginning of the rainy season in western Washington because the news is full of car crashes because all the oils on the road from the dry summer haven't washed off yet. Considering that we hadn't had rain in 81 days when it started raining on Friday, the oils were pretty thick this year. Anyway, I was waiting at a stoplight when some idiot who didn't realize this came careening up behind me at way too fast a speed, slammed on his brakes, and swerved, slid, and squealed to a stop less than two feet behind me. My adrenaline was pumping nicely, so his must have been really squirting through his bloodstream. He stayed a very tame distance behind me at a very tame speed for the next several miles until he turned off the highway, though. Hopefully the lesson will stick.

And today I finally began the research for the new exhibit. Spent the afternoon at the Northwest Room at the Tacoma Public Library turning my fingertips black with old newspaper clippings [g]. Found some interesting stuff, though.

I used to complain that the Seattle Seahawks were specialists in pulling defeat out of the jaws of victory.

Well, now they seem to have it reversed. At last.

24-23 over the best offense in the National Football League (the New England Patriots) is pretty darned impressive, esp. considering that Russell Wilson is a rookie quarterback. Pulling off the final seven points in the last two minutes of the game was enough to have me scaring the cats, though...

I think the announcers are finally beginning to quit going on (and on, and on) about Wilson's height, too. Yeah, he's a little short for a quarterback (5'11"), but that just means he can (and does) duck through places a bigger guy can't [g].

788 words today.

Also about to reach the book's first event horizon, which is good.

First. Thank you so much archangelbeth. Now I can be obsessive about my author ranking, too [wry g].

Right now I'm at #4188 for historical fiction ebooks. On September 29th, I was #2007. Too bad I can't debut a new book every week...

However, for adventure ebooks, I'm at #1494, which is surprisingly good (or maybe that's just not a much-used category), and for romance ebooks, with no surprise whatsoever (actually I'm surprised the number's that low), I'm at #5155.

Nope, this is not a good obsession.

And today's Finding Home word count: 742.



Over 10,000 words! Yay!

1) Six pounds. Ivan and Teddy now officially each weigh six pounds (Teddy's about six and a quarter). They don't look like kittens anymore. This doesn't keep them from acting like kittens, though, thank goodness.

2) I'm still blogging away on the Alaska trip at http://mmjustus.wordpress.com. Up to day 29 (we were gone 42 days, or six weeks), having caught salmon on the Kenai Peninsula and explored Anchorage, and now we're slowly and indirectly wending our way to Haines, and the ferry.

3) After not writing for the last three days, I had a very good day at the keyboard today.

Friday I took a friend up to Carbon River and the not-a-rainforest-this-time-of-year:



Saturday I was so lethargic I couldn't keep my eyes open, and Sunday, well, I had to watch the Seahawks win by the skin of their teeth, which is no excuse, I know...

Anyway, I had another 1000+ word day today. 1017, to be precise:

511 words. Well, we can't have over 1000 every day. Or at least I can't [wry g].

For a total of 8062.

I need some.

So I am going to start posting stats on the progress of Finding Home, the third book in my Yellowstone trilogy.

As of today, I have 6513 total words, of which 692 were written today.

Well into Chapter 2. I ended up combining the old Chapters 1 and 2 into a new, longer Chapter 1. Which works much better.

These things aren't set in concrete, after all, until I hit the upload buttons at Amazon and Smashwords [g].

Any cheerleading is more than welcome.

The most gorgeous video I've seen in a long time is a five-minute piece taken of the northern lights at Denali National Park.

I've embedded it at my blog: http://mmjustus.wordpress.com

But, all opinions about the decision aside (all comments complaining about it will be deleted), I just want to say one thing about last night's football game.

Welcome to our world, Packers. And don't anyone dare mention the fact that Aaron Rodgers got sacked eight times in the first half alone.

Signed, a fan of the Seattle Seahawks, aka the Rodney Dangerfields of football, with not-so-fond-but-exceedingly-vivid memories of the 2005-6 season's Super Bowl.