Late Again.

I’m not going to give myself a pass for yesterday being Veterans’ Day and, you know, me being a Veteran.

See, what had happened was that hostile forces occupied the family’s computer all day trying to list and sell old Nintendo GameCube games on ebay.

A while ago, I got a desk to use, just for me. Above you can see an iPad, a Chromebook and a laptop on my desk – none of which are mine. On top of this annexation, there is another member of the family who thinks she has higher priority access than I do: the cat.

This little fluffy-butt just wants somewhere quiet to curl up and get her twenty hours of daily sleep in undisturbed, and while she is guilty of covering the seat in cat fur – almost impossible to remove, by the way – she has yet to load the desk up with devices and stacks of paper.

What Have I Been Up To?

In the background of that picture is a sign (also to the left) showing that I attended and completed the Master Small Ruminant Producer Program, run by the University of Tennessee Extension office. If you’re interested in – or even already in business – raising goats or sheep, I highly recommend it. If you’re not, but you’re interested in other agricultural, horticultural or gardening adventures, check out your local Extension office, they have tons of stuff going on this time of year. Such as the Grazing Land Workshop that filled my afternoon last Tuesday, and the Field School Intensive business classes that I’ll be attending throughout the fall, winter and early spring.

Old Man News.

I don’t feel  any remorse over last week’s amputation of part of the story, in fact I think it’ll make it easier to revise some upcoming scenes so that they can better showcase the dystopia that this world is set in. Even better, instead of that chapter being cut into three, it actually just boiled down into one chapter. My previous approach had been to set up The Long Day, cut to the scene that I, well, cut out, then tie up the thread I’d left open to show how long the day was.

That seemed like a good idea writing it out the first time, but a terrible one when it came to reading it. Cutting out that scene meant the two parts could be amalgamated and then cut further down to size by telling the reader how long the day was rather than showing them by making the chapter take just as long to read.

It also freed me up somewhat because once I’d got that chapter out of the way, I got on to revise two more in spite of having a pretty busy schedule – for instance the Small Ruminant Program took up two entire days, leaving the house at 06:00 on Saturday morning, since that day involved an hour and a half commute each way.

Up Next…

So, I’m about to get my teeth into Chapter 14 and the total chapter count has been put back to thirty nine. The next chapter is provisionally entitled The Colonel, but since I’m dropping the chapter that set it up, this one can be almost completely rewritten – it no longer serves as a connection between a plot point made earlier and the upcoming Dinner Party, it merely has to set the stage for the party and I can now use it as a window to show how dark the world is outside. The Colonel, then, can be recast in a perhaps more suitable role.

Currently this chapter stands at a little under two thousand words and seven pages, but the world is my oyster and in rewriting it I can make it as big or as small as it needs to be to introduce the reader to the plans for the Dinner Party.

But I’ve also got a lot of things to catch up on about the place. I’m almost grateful it’s cold and raining so I’m going to be forced to focus on working inside the house and not split between indoors and out.

So for now I suppose I can let the cat rest for a while longer. Her name is Boadicea, named after the ancient warrior Queen – whose actual name was Boudicca. She gets to rest, cover my seat in more cat hair, and perhaps vomit over it later.

Hope everyone has a great week. Stay cheerful and warm!

Categories: Revision, The Old Man, Work Update, Writing