Week 22

We're 22 weeks into 2011 and closing in on Memorial Day.  My favorite number. Here's what's been going on:

Polar Bear on the Loose (Revision, using How To Revise Your Novel):   I blew through Lessons 10 and 11 and am working on Lesson 12.  Lessons 10 and 11 was all about taking the things I've learned over the last nine weeks (year and a half, in my case) and mapping out the way ahead for the book.  In The Monastery, I came up with 78 scenes.  I put them in order and evaluated how much rewrite is required for each one (adding a few cards for the details I forgot that were still important).  There's a four card color scheme with red requiring almost a complete rewrite, orange half to three-quarters rewrite, yellow less than half rewrite required, and green for just minor rewriting.  I have 2 yellow and 2 green cards.  The rest are orange or red -- mostly red.

Then I got into Lesson 11, which involves calculating the right scene size and number of scenes for the length of book you want.  Since I had four scenes that basically worked, I took their average scene length and divided that by the length of book I wanted.  I had too many scenes, but that was actually a good thing.  I was concerned that too many of the cards were repetitious, so I was able to combine many scenes into one.  I was still short a few scenes on subplot, so I decided to add five scenes for Zero (Inuit's love interest and the father of her cubs).  I think it will develop him more as a viable character and should flesh out the story.  Pretty exciting stuff after all the trudging I've been doing.

 

Lesson 12 is where we evaluate our characters, and I anticipate this lesson will take me some time to complete, but I'm looking forward to it.
 

750words.com: I've written at least my 750 words each day and have a  current streak of 355 days.

Internet Responsibilities:
- I blogged this week

- Took care of a few FM beginning of month responsibilities.

Pets:
- They're all doing fine.
- I blogged about the cats and their complete and total domination.  Hubby, when I told him about Lady and Tarzan trying to get into the hamburger this morning said they were going to try to make his beef stroganoff.  (They love Daddy's cooking.)  Just a few minutes ago, I heard something in the kitchen, then I heard the plop of feet hitting the floor and decided I better check on things.  Sure enough, there's Lady on the counter amidst a sea of lentils.  I plan to make beef and lentil stew for supper tonight and had the half package of lentils on the counter.  I have to commend Lady and her housekeeping instincts, but sheesh.  (And yes, it's Tarzan's telltale foot plop that tends to alert me they're up to something, so he's just as guilty.)  I'll wash the lentils, and they should be fine to use.  I just chased her off my kitchen towel.  Nothing like being run over roughshod by a couple of 8 month old kittens.

- Dazzle is almost out walking me when she's trying to get by me to escape to the street.  I take this as a good thing.  Why is she so single minded about getting to the street?  I'm not sure, but she's had a long history of escaping the yard in the spring.  I guess her spring fever still burns strong. 

- My life has been ruled by dogs and cats for the last couple of weeks, but that is about to change next week.  Hubby comes back to town, and he'll take over -- or they'll all gang up on me.

Property:
- I got the yard mowed at the house

- I got the yard mowed at the store

- I shredded the sticks in the back yard

- I shredded nearly a full tub of linoleum over at the shop for road base material

- I got laundry done and general clean up around the house

- I got all the gas cans refilled (gas in town was down to $3.59)

Health:
- I've gotten plenty of workouts in this week -- mostly walking the dog, digging sticker burs in the yard, and mowing at two places.
- I am at 32.2 pounds lost on the WW program.  I officially have less than 100 pounds to lose.  That's pretty exciting.

- I'm mostly wearing XL T-shirts now.  I had to get a new belt, and I've felt comfortable enough a couple of days this week to tuck in my shirts.
- I added 23.51 miles to Walk Across Texas.