Motte Monday

motte ~ artificial mound upon which a castle is built

My foray into bowling last Monday served to reinforce the wisdom of my decision not to bowl in a league. I've never been what you might call "sporty" and bowling is no exception. You should see my collection of low bowler trophies - the silver crapper, the golden outhouse, a turkey, a skunk, and a beer mug with a donkey's butt on it - just to name a few. ;-)

Last week was mostly about the editing and the writing, which is the way it should be. But I did manage to spend a goodly amount of time knitting and I must say my Fair Isle sweater is coming along nicely. I've only got another couple of inches on the body and then I can start the sleeves - after I get to Wal-Mart to buy another ball of wool and a set of double pointed needles in the right size.

It cooled down some last week, which meant I was able to shut the fans off. What a relief! I love the fans when it's hot and sticky, but I was really starting to hate the noise. Now I can hear the birds during the day and the crickets at night. And we seem to have a frog in our pond as well - music to my ears.

It was cool enough one evening that I pulled the afghan out to work on, but I guess I'm in more of a knitting mode right now. Or maybe I just want to get this first sweater done to make sure I can do it. Even using just one contrast colour is intimidating for someone who's used to knitting in monochrome.

Blog Stuff For the Week:

Tuesday: Part seventeen in my series on the Major Arcana of the Tarot is The Star.
Wednesday: A new hump day hunk for your viewing pleasure. ;-)
Thursday: Chapter 82 of Water. "The water comes." I wonder what Nereida meant by that cryptic remark?
Friday: No ramble this week, instead we have the much awaited launch of Magical Misfire, Book I of the Moonstone Chronicles.

Other Stuff

This week's TraxTime report runs from September 1 through September 7.

Crafts - 6 hours and 30 minutes ~ way down from 13 hrs and 22 min
Emails - 4 hours and 09 minutes ~ down from 6 hrs and 53 min
Games - 4 hours and 00 minutes ~ down from 8 hrs and 11 min
Reading - 2 hour and 03 minutes ~ down from 3 hr and 09 min
Non-fiction - 11 hours and 57 minutes ~ way up from 7 hrs and 58 min
Fiction - 5 hours and 31 minutes ~ down from 6 hrs and 37 min
Editing - 18 hours and 09 minutes ~ up from 12 hrs and 33 min

I appear to be finding my groove in my weekday schedule. I'm spending a lot less time on games and a lot more time on the important stuff. I'm not sure how my non-fiction time ended up so high . . . could be because I was feeling rather unmotivated on Saturday so I started work on my Tarot post for Tuesday. I probably spent more time journaling as well.

I fully expect my editing time to take a nose-dive this week. Last week's awesome number was thanks to editing two books: one of mine and one belonging to someone else. But those books are done now, and I'm trying not to hyperventilate at the thought I might have missed something. When I went through Magical Misfire to make sure the 3,500 words I added to it made sense, I found some more stuff that needed to be fixed and added another 500 words!

This week I will be diving into some fiction writing, which will be a relief after all that editing. Now that Magical Misfire is done, it's time to start going to town on the sequel. MM ends on a bit of a cliff-hanger, and I really hate cliff-hangers. Unfortunately, there was no other way to end it gracefully, so it is what it is. Which is why I'd like to get the sequel, Lucky Dog, finished ASAP.

As well, I'd like to try and jump ahead with Water. We're getting very close to the end, and all I can say is, it's about bloody time! And I thought Magical Misfire ran long. Jeesh! I'm really not looking forward to the edits on this one - a lot of it has to be scrapped and there are many, many changes to be made. *sigh*

If you saw my TraxTime for yesterday it would appear I didn't get much done. However, it only reflects the writing, editing, and procrastination tools. It does not reflect the things I get done around the house. Like baking. Yesterday I was up early and baked some apple crescents and cinnamon rolls, and in the afternoon I did a batch of raspberry bar cookies and then this crescent roll cheesecake thing I saw on Facebook. It was really yummy by the way, but next time I'm going to make a few of my own adjustments to the recipe.

As for fun this week (yes, I do occasionally take the time to do something for fun) I am going to The Poet Tree Eulogy on Thursday. It's a send off for the last elm tree in Victoria Park. This tree survived for over 75 years, but disease has caught up with it at last. I even have a poem to read for the occasion. :-)