Meet Me At The Fair

Posted on August 8, 2016 by Pamela

St. Louis, MO, Vacation Wrap Up Part 2

I tried to make this pretty but I am afraid while the mighty Mississippi River has many things going for it, beauty is not one of them. But we enjoyed the boat tour and learned about boat and recreational traffic on the river. I think my earlier post might have given the impression that I was afraid I would have to go whale watching in Missouri.

That was not my concern.

We stopped in the Old Cathedral while we were around the Arch park. They are very particular about their silence.

It is the oldest building in St. Louis. Construction began in 1831 and the church was dedicated in 1834. Right now there is a huge renovation project going on down at the park where the Arch is so there are land movers and fences and big piles of dirt. It’s supposed to be done next year and should be really cool.

We also went to the Dred Scott Court House, the history museum and the art museum in Forest Park which was the site of the World’s Fair in 1904.

Missouri has a lot of interesting history because of its location. When the US was in full burn pioneer mode, the settlers would gear up in Missouri before setting out.

Forest Park is beautiful and we enjoyed the museums. Unfortunately, we were caught in a thunder shower while we were walking around. Bob said: Quick, let’s wait under this tree. And a tree can be decent coverage for a certain kind of rain but not the sky opening up and gushing. There was some sort of venue but I don’t think it was public and we started running for that and then spotted a restroom. So we ducked into a stinky park restroom for 20 minutes until the rain stopped.

My summer sandals are probably going to have to be retired after this summer. They didn’t bounce back from the slosh.

Next stop. Kansas City.

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Meet Me In St. Louis

Posted on August 6, 2016 by Pamela

This is vacation wrap up Part 1.

For the first time in forever, I didn’t take any notes on this trip. I brought no writing materials of any kind except for the ability to note take on my phone which is not an activity I enjoy and I do only when I have to.

We’ll see if I can remember anything interesting.

We started our trip in St. Louis. I’ve lived on the west coast my entire life and found it adorable that St. Louis calls itself the gateway to the west.

They were in between heat domes so the weather was tolerable. I have concluded that I don’t dislike the heat as much as I dislike going back and forth between the A/C and the heat. I get chilled so easily so I’m always dragging around long sleeves and I hate to have my legs bare. I’ve had good luck with those special travel clothes that are lightweight and dry fast and do magic tricks. I don’t know what they are called but worth it to track down.

When Bob was telling me about St. Louis he mentioned a boat tour and a trip to the top of the Arch. I don’t like boats or high places but I was trying to be game. Turns out the boat tour was a paddleboat on the Mississippi. Of course I wanted to do that. The kind of boat trip I don’t want to do is whale watching in high seas. I kept an open mind about the Arch but then I saw this in the visitor center.

You get into one of these things and ride to the top. For 5 minutes.

We did not do that.

Later, on the boat, a lady talked about doing it and said up in the Arch it shakes. So doubly glad we skipped it.

The Cardinals baseball field is downtown. They were on an extended away streak while we were there but we wandered around the field. I know know who Stan Musial is. He is a rock star in Cardinals history.

More to come.

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Beg-A-Thon Final Update Week #5

Posted on July 23, 2016 by Pamela

Current state of the pumpkins in the backyard.

This is my final write-a-thon update. I’m turning in my draft to beta readers on Thursday and then taking a much needed break from screen time so there will be no week #6 update.

I am behind and I have a super busy day today where it will be tough to get revising done. And I’m sitting here cropping a pumpkin photo. Not a good sign.

Thanks again to all my donors. The fundraising is going great. In the most recent report, the funds raised for the write-a-thon are up to $15,514.

Donations are still happily accepted.

Manuscript currently stands at:

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Beg-A-Thon Week #4 Progress Report

Posted on July 16, 2016 by Pamela

I was aiming for something a little more clever with this, but I am fried on screen time and need to get a break from the computer.

I am still write-a-thoning but since I’m revising it’s harder to quantify the work I’ve done this week. I’m over a quarter of the way through this revision which is probably less than I’d like but not as bad as it sounds. At this point I’m smoothing out continuity and fixing the most dreadful prose passages and re-writing various bits that aren’t quite working yet.

I think I am on target to make my goals but I have two early soccer home games between now and my deadline of July 28. (I know, poor me.) We kick-off at Noon tomorrow which means I need to be having my match day pizza and beer at around 10:30am. This is the only time I drink before Noon because I am too old for day drinking.

I’m also having insomnia issues on and off which isn’t unusual for me but the timing could be better.

Thanks again to all my donors. The fundraising is going great. In the most recent report, the funds raised for the whole shebang are up to $14,033.

You can still donate. Even a few bucks is appreciated.

Manuscript currently stands at:

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Beg-A-Thon Week #3 Progress Report

Posted on July 9, 2016 by Pamela

This week I did just over 11,000 words. I remain on target for my goals.

From here on out it makes no sense to measure by word count. I need to tidy up about 24K per week to get the draft to the beta readers by July 28th.

Now that I look at it like that, it seems impossible. Oh well. I’ll do my best.

So I wrote a complete (not pretty) draft since starting on May 20th. That’s pretty incredible. I’ve always considered myself to be a slow writer.

I had a fairly substantial outline to work from but I need to remember not to let myself get too gummed up at the beginning because I figure out a lot of stuff as I go along.

One of the things that makes this possible, like I said before, is letting everything else slide. This is agonizing for me but when you want one thing you have to sacrifice something else. Bob is out of school so he picks up more of the chores. I also (oh so painful) gave up about 90% of my reading time. I had time to power skim the New Yorker and that was it. I used my time on the bus to work out the next bits I wanted to write.

So if my outline says “woman discovers she’s really an alien.” Then while I’m on the bus I’ll write notes about how she figures out her craving for raw meat and the strange appendages she has growing out from behind her knees aren’t normal so she goes to the science library to do research but realizes she’s being followed by a purple Cadillac…

And so on like that so when I sit at the computer I’m ready to roll.

I try to preserve my back and neck and wrists by regular breaks.

I do any number of these things:

Shoulder Stretches with a belt.

Wrist and forearm work (This is a class preview. It might sound technical but watch the demo. These are great.)

Foundation training back exercises. I am generally the type to be put off by branded exercise systems but I’ve been doing the basic exercises regularly as part of my recovery from the back debacle of 2015 and I think it’s helped a lot.

Those are my secrets to writing a whole bunch in a short time. Although to be honest I’m not as confident in this manuscript as I was in the last one.

Thanks again to all my terrific sponsors. My report showed over $10K in donations already. Not for me but for the whole thing.

It’s not to late to donate.

This is what the tomatoes are doing. I’m going to put the cages up this afternoon. I did a half-assed job of throwing them out there and have ignored them ever since so probably not going to be a big tomato year. (Again.)

A couple more links.

I’m not a big pork eater but I’ve been anxious to try out a new recipe and this Cuban Roast Pork caught my eye. Right now the house smells amazing.

For a huge portion of my career I worked with the Metlakatla Indian Community in SE Alaska. This is a terrific article and photo essay about basketball in the Community.

That’s this week’s update.

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Brain Jelly

Posted on July 5, 2016 by Pamela

First draft is done. Or maybe better to call it draft .75

There are huge sections where it isn’t pretty. If I drop dead suddenly don’t try to read it!

I thought I did the same thing last time. Finished in the 60’s somewhere and built up to 75 when I prepared it for the beta readers.

I looked at my website for last August and it doesn’t look like that.

I should keep better notes about my process since it changes so much.

Now I’m going to go back and fix it up and fill in the skinny parts and hopefully have it readable by the end of the month.

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Beg-A-Thon Week #2 Progress Report

Posted on July 3, 2016 by Pamela

It’s hard to believe that I’m disappointed with 15,209 words this week but I had a little blip yesterday and pooped out my productivity streak. A blip meaning I had trouble writing. I was here with the butt in the chair most of the day.

I had hoped to finish out the 1st draft yesterday. I’m hoping I can do that tomorrow. I’m behind my schedule but I built in some padding so I’m not in a full panic yet. Today went much better but still no first draft.

What? Oh, yeah. That was 15,209 words this week. They weren’t pretty but I’m getting the work done.

In other news, the cough is down to an occasional gurgle and I can finally exercise again. I also learned from the full body coughing that my back is at about 98% at this point, too. It took a year but that’s better than never.

The flip side of 15K words a week is I have let everything else slide including my personal relationships. Sorry!

Thanks again to all my fantastic donors. I continue to promise to send you a love note soon.

And it’s never too late to donate. Even a few bucks is appreciated:

Click here to donate!

Current progress:

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Beg-A-Thon Week #1 Progress Report

Posted on June 25, 2016 by Pamela

Week #6 2008 — This is my Clarion West class with Chuck Palahniuk

I wrote 9,723 words this week. I should sit here and work until I hit 10,000 but I also tidied up my entire manuscript and I have shocked even myself with my capacity to sit here and work all day long on a weekend.

Time for a break. Tomorrow is another day and I want to beat that work count next week.

Here are my rock star classmates participating in the Write-A-Thon:

Maggie Croft

Christopher Reynaga

Carol Ryles

Kira Walsh

Rajan Khanna

Caren Gussoff

Me again

And our workshop administrators

Neile Graham

Les Howle

Here’s the status of the project of August:

I need to pay attention to my poor neglected husband.

Super huge thanks to everyone who has donated so far. I will send you a personal love note soon.

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It’s Beg-A-Thon Time!

Posted on June 18, 2016 by Pamela

I found this photo from the Squirrel circus of 2016. Action shot of squirrel number one fleeing the premises. (I typo’d that as “feeling the premises” and almost left it.)

I started writing at 7am this morning and I did take a number of breaks but I’ve been working almost all day.

The Chicago trip was fantastic but I got home Monday night and then Tuesday I had a soccer game (Yes, I know, poor me) so I didn’t get home until 10pm. I woke up Wednesday morning with the crud.

I’m not feeling terrible today but I still have major coughing fits and I had just put a cough drop in my mouth when my husband came in here and set a frosty glass filled with strawberry colored frozen beverage in front of me.

He just finished school yesterday and he is in “OMG, I have the whole summer to play” mode. I am still working and I have a first draft to finish by the end of the month. I’m not quite in the same head space.

So, back to the drink, I looked at and said: I just put a cough drop in my mouth.

But it was pretty and smelled good.

How much booze is in this? I asked.

He said: Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, about a shot and a half.

I gave it back to him. If I spend the entire day writing that means I did not do anything else and I have chores to do before I can get fuzzy on a fruity drink.

I last did the Clarion West Write-A-Thon in 2011. I wrote an excellent introductory post about it then.

My stated goal is to write 1000 words a day although it’s not going to work exactly like that. I need to try to have a draft ready for beta readers at the beginning of August so I need to write about 17,500 a week for the next two weeks (That’s about 10 pages a day). Then I’ll have a first draft and for the last 4 weeks of the Write-A-Thon I will need to spin my first draft of poop into a readable draft of gold.

This would be much easier if I didn’t have a husband, a job, a soccer team, a vacation, cooking, cleaning and a never-ending pile of administrivia to contend with. But I’m going to try to make it happen anyway.

If you are rooting me on during this insanity – please consider throwing a few bucks to Clarion West. Small donations are very happily welcome. My donation page is here and there are tons of other writers to support if you don’t like me. There are other ways to donate here.

I hate making blanket dramatic statements like this, but the workshop really and truly changed my life and I am so grateful that I was able to attend.

Here is the progress on the project of August:

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Destroy

Posted on June 11, 2016 by Pamela

Tifo from our rivalry game against Vancouver Whitecaps.

We won and I think this is the first match this season that I watched again on TV when I got home. We’re having a rough start.

I’m in Chicago this weekend for a wedding.

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