Finally, I’ve been able to sleep this week. Or when I didn’t, it wasn’t because of noisy birds. The sparrow trap did its job. I’m not sure if we caught Mr. Noisy or not, but he stopped hanging out in the space between our house and the neighbors once we set it out–mainly because he was hitting on the chicks in the trap. I thought we got him Wednesday, but my husband said the male in the trap didn’t sound like Mr. Noisy. After a few days of that, we stopped putting the trap out, and he seems to have stayed away. I think I heard him a street over while walking the dog–fine with me!
What I’ve been reading: Smith’s Monthly #20 by Dean Wesley Smith. This was a short one for me, as the novel in it was one I’d already read in serial form, so I skipped it. But the stories were good as always. It amazes me how he writes this much every month, usually all the stories to fill the magazine plus a novel. And that’s usually not all he writes. He does this on top of being the CFO of a publishing company and owning that plus three retail stores. All this at the age most people think of retirement! His blog is a great learning resource for any writer.
ROW80 Update: I’ve had a couple other victories–one is that Time’s Dilemma released this week! If you’ve thought about giving the Saturn Society a try, this is a great one to start with. My publisher decided to call it Book 3, because some of the events overlap with Book 2 and Time’s Best Friend, which they are now calling Book 4, so I guess that makes sense. But this one is not only standalone, it’s about 1/3 the length of the other Saturn Society novels, so not as big a time commitment to try it out. It’s on sale at all retailers for $0.99 through July 7th, and you can get it for $1.00 on Smashwords throughout July. More info and buy links are here.
My other victory is that I got more done on my next WIP than I expected–definitely a win! Which brings us to ROW80. Monday begins Round 3. My primary goal for that is to finish the rough draft of this WIP, which will be Saturn Society Book 5 and returns to Tony and Violet, the characters featured in Book 1 and 2. I have Book 5 about half-written, but finishing will be no easy task, as what I have is a mess. So I’m going back through and fixing what’s there. I’ve gone through 11 scenes so far, and would like to go through another ten this week (yes, this is going to be another long one).
What about you–have you had any victories lately, whether big or small? What have you been reading? If you’re doing ROW80, what are your main goals for the Round? Or heck, even if you’re not participating, what kind of goals are you working toward, whether writing-related or not? Please share in the comments–I’d love to hear from you!
Jennette Marie Powell writes stories about ordinary people in ordinary places, who do extraordinary things and learn that those ordinary places are anything but. In her Saturn Society novels, unwilling time travelers do what they must to make things right... and change more than they expect. You can find her books at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Kobo, iTunes, and more.
This weekend he went to the Pontiac Nationals in Bowling Green, KY and raced it for the first time. He knew there would be a lot of tuning to do and possibly more work in tweaking things. He did do a bit of that, and finished in time for the main racing events on Saturday. He didn’t expect to make the finals, even though he knew his car was good. He just didn’t know how good, or how well he knew the car (which is really key). He didn’t just make the finals–he won runner up in his class! So proud of him. Four years of work finally paid off, and he had a great time too.