Tag Archives: Widdershins

On With The Show!

Editing: Finished!

Only stage 3 of the whole process to go – the FORMATTING! (stage 1 – writing, stage 2 – editing)

If there was one thing I could tell someone to do if they’re completely bonkers enough to fall in love with this writing of tall tales business, it’s to not stop writing until they’ve reached ‘the end’. Then they can edit, judge, expand, and otherwise eviscerate, the end result.

It’s … exhilarating!

I’ve had a couple of days of feeling like I’m a lost sock in the washing machine of life, (normal after six months of concentrated concentration) now it’s …

On With The Show!

 

-oOo-

On a more prosaic note, I’ve had a fine joust with my new diabetes medication. The dosage was waaaay too high, and seeing as how some of the nastier side-effects were vomiting and diarrhea, I will leave it to your imagination as to what I’ve been going through from a digestive point-of-view – suffice it to say, not fun … but all digitalia crossed, my keel should be even from now on.

-oOo-

And now, the real reason I’ve asked you all here this evening. (cue dramatic music …)

 

Phew! That certainly was dramatic.

When I mentioned in my last post that I was still looking for the right cover art, (I had some very specific imagery in mind) Olga Godim offered to see what she might be able to create for me.

And create something for me, she most assuredly did!

Behold, the cover reveal and title reveal of my book …

Cover, revealed!

Cover, revealed!

Speaking of fantasies, if this series, yes it’s going to be a series, ever makes it to the ‘big screen’ or smaller ones, I want that piece of music as the theme music.

6 Things I Learned Writing And Editing A Novel In Six Months

I’m pretty sure I’ve never done a ‘list-cicle’, so here we go my first and last … list!

Heh, the bastards are never really ‘DONE’ though, are they?

Mrs Widds and I will do a basic line edit/read-through, and then … depending on whether we find any clangers, it’s FORMAT TIME.

Here’s my list …

1 – I can write 2000+ words a day, (in a couple of hours sometimes!!!) and still have a life, and a relationship.

2 – I can write when I don’t have a clue what’s going to happen next, but trust that it will all make sense by the end. (and it did!)

3 – I can write when I have a migraine, vertigo, a migraine, sciatica, a migraine, an allergic reaction to the Covid vaccine, a migraine, emergency dental work, arthritic joints, (looking at you, knees) a migraine …

4 – I can write during a 42°C soul-crushing heatwave

5 – I can write when I’m So. Fucking. Exhausted. From #2 that I can barely focus.

6 – I am a Writing Titan!

Bonus – Always, always, keep a print copy. Always.

Always

Always

Extra Bonus – and apropos of nothing in particular, I found Lawrence of Arabia on YouTube.

22

 

(following on from 42)

That’s 22°C – which is the temperature outside our little cottage on Widder Island today.

I don’t think human bodies are designed to adapt to such drastic fluctuations. I know mine isn’t. If I had to save my life I could probably move faster than a snail on valium, but it’d be a close call.

On top of which … I had my second vaccine shot yesterday. I’m really hoping I don’t have the sort of reaction to this one that I did last time, but so far, it’s not looking good. Sore arm, hyper-sensitive skin, aching muscles, etc.

On top of which … vertigo migraines, probably also triggered by heat/temperature change.

On top of which … a little village called Lytton, just a few villages up the Fraser Canyon from us, and battling a wildfire in the mountains nearby, broke its own temperature record three days in a row, finishing with 49.6°C (121°F) the day before yesterday. Yesterday afternoon (30th June) it burned to the ground. The entire village. The residents had 15 minutes to evacuate.

I’m a bit of a cry-er. I feel happy, I cry. I feel sad, I cry. I hear bagpipes, I cry. (I know, that one’s weird) I’ve been crying off and on all day.

It’s not necessarily a bad thing. I’d rather be teary than squish everything down, but it’s really, really, exhausting.

I need a cuppa tea.

42

Heat Dome – the Equator’s revenge for all those arctic outflows.

I have been sweltering under a heat dome for the last three days and take great joy (sarcasm mode engaged) in knowing another three, at least, are immanent.

I do not approve of heat domes.

Thankfully we have our trusty portable air conditioner, who over the last two years has only had to run for a few days. So far its been going flat out for seven. (with breaks between the o’clocks of 2am and 9am)

The ‘42’ in the title doesn’t refer to Sir Douglas Adams’s answer to everything, It’s how hot it got today, 42°C. That’s 107° for the Fahrenheitists among us.

That’s an ugly heat folks, and I am done with it.

To those of you in the neighbourhood, (I’m talking geographical not geo-political) I hope you’re managing to stay cool and hydrated.

Mrs Widds Rides Again!

First she eviscerated and investigated.

Then she prognositcated.

“Hmm, needs a new carburettor. I shall install a new carburettor.”

New carburettor installed

New carburettor installed

Then she reassemble-erated …

“Why do I have always more bolts left over than I started with?”

Under the hood

Under the hood

Then she rehydrated …

An oil change really

An oil change really

And then .. she peregrinated …

My Bi-Annual Bloodletting, 2021-Style

Since my brush with cancer in 2013, I’ve had a blood-test every 6 months specifically to make sure my TSH hasn’t gone all squirrelly on account of not having a thyroid anymore, and the radiation therapy immediately proceeding its removal from my person.

Last year I escaped the bloodletting altogether. Our local hospital where I’d normally get such things taken care of didn’t want anything to do with me, and I certainly didn’t want anything to do with it.

I call 2020 the Year of Covid, and 2021 the Year of Consequences. Consequentially, last week I had my first blood-test since 2019, and because of this delay I was getting tested for everything I’d missed out on. Fasting was required.

(I don’t know about you but I find it a bit of a challenge to go out into the world after I’ve been crook for an extended period of time and I wasn’t completely myself after my vaccine shot)

This how it went down …

Clothes – Shoes and socks are weird.

In the car – OMG!!! Why is everyone driving so FAST?

At the hospital – Where’s my mask? Why won’t it fit properly? (trying to put the mask on over my glasses and my hearing aids) Also, I can’t breeeeeathe!

Waiting room – I’m #82. The display is stuck on #75, and I haven’t had anything to eat or drink (except water) since yester-bloody-day!

Bloodletting – Just exactly how many vials of blood are you taking? (answer – 7)

Back in the car – Mrs Widds had packed a thermos of tea, made just the way I like it. I love her.

Blast From The Past

On the 3rd of June 1967, William Joseph MacAalister died.

It was a senseless death born of the sexual repression and religious intolerance of the era and geographical location. (not that a lot has changed in the intervening fifty-plus years)

His body wasn’t found until some four days later. Given the time of the year he was interred with pragmatic haste. No autopsy was performed.

The local sheriff’s department conducted a cursory inquiry, questioning his peers and staff of businesses he was known to frequent. No further information was forthcoming.

His death was judged a suicide. No further action was taken.

in 1976 his story achieved world recognition and from that moment he became an icon for tortured youth, along with many other young men and women who lived and died in the shadows.

P.S. All of the above was made up, except that the movie ‘Ode to Billy Joe’, came out in 1976, and Bobby gentry released her song of the same name in 1967 … and of course, today is the 3rd of June!

Mrs Widds Eviscerates, Too

Mrs Widds is known far and wide, at least to long-term readers of this blog, as a baker of extraordinarily tasty sweet and savoury dishes.

However, on one memorable day towards the end of 2019 our heater broke and Mrs Widds put her culinary skills to a darker, more nefarious pastime – evisceration!

She eviscerated, she repaired, she reconstructed, until the heater worked again, and continues to do so to this very day.

In 2018 Mrs Widds acquired a dashing scooter to pootle around the highways, byways, and backroads, of our tiny corner of the world.

And pootle she did!

The thing about vehicles, of any sort, is that after a certain age, things start to deteriorate. (as it does with all of us) And so it was with the shiny little scooter.

The battery died, the carburetor had a hissy fit and turned up its toes, other assorted ills came to the fore, until Mrs Widds was forced to do this …

The Eviscerated

The Eviscerated

The Eviscera

The Eviscera

Mrs Widds assures me patient will recover in the fullness of time.

-oOo-

In other news …

The editing continues, slower that I, perhaps unrealistically, hoped, but none-the-less moving along happily.

Editing starts with a print copy

Editing starts with a print copy

I have recovered fully from my interesting week, but it’s taken me another week to get back on my feet. Mrs Widds even had to take over my lawn-mowing/weed-whacking job the other day.

Summer has arrived. The temperature yesterday was a tolerable 25°C but by this afternoon my poor antique thermometer had a fit of the vapours when its mercury topped 33°C  …and presumably got hotter. I don’t know how much hotter because the thermometer refused to countenance any further indignities. I don’t blame it one bit. It always takes me a few days to adjust to these sudden shifts from one season to the next. Which is how they’ve turned for the last five-or-so years now.

Well, the sun is now well under the yardarm and it’s time I put on my editing hat and get to it!

An ‘Interesting’ Week

I had …

… an, ‘oh gawd, I feel like I’m about to keel over’ reaction to my vaccine shot.

… a migraine cluster. (of the galaxy-busting variety – I rate them as planet, then solar system, then galaxy, then universe-busting)

… and at least more three layers of physically debilitating craptitude … that I won’t go into here because …

… I am done with this week!

The only saving grace was that my brain was still fully functioning-ish, and I managed a few hours of editing in every day. (my typo’s however are hilarious due to pain meds interfering with the connection between my brain – super slow, and my fingers – used to typing super fast)

Even with these delays, I still just might be able have the final product all tied up with a polka-dot bow by the end of June.

Which would be truly awesome – to have a novel go from first word to finished product in six months.

Who’d’a thunk it!!?

Phat Gus Rides Again

A while back this science guy had a problem with squirrels raiding his bird feeder so he built a maze to confound their ambitions. Needless-to-say, the squirrels, being squirrels, laughed at him and ran the maze to claim their well-deserved reward.

The science guy is back with a new and improved maze, but is it a-mazing enough? We shall see …