Musings of Colorado, Writing and a Gown

From a foot of snow on Tuesday to sunshine and 45 degrees, I'm loving everything about Colorado today.  Here's the view from my front window.

This week has gone by so quickly, but I've been able to write every day. I'm not entirely satisfied with the excerpts I have been posting from my Out of Focus book. But the deadline is helping me to finish a chapter at a time. And it is coming along better than when I give myself a deadline and then fail to meet it. Any comments on it would be greatly appreciated.

Below is another gown that my daughter made for me. It goes along with my Regency book. And yes, I'm still editing it. My sister/editor has given me a March 1st deadline, and so I'm reading every line and making sure each one reveals something or I'm cutting it. With 114,773 words, it is in desperate need of losing a few words here and there.    

Downtown and Writing

My niece finished "A Series of Scandals". It was incredibly nice for her to agree to read it. She first wrote that she enjoyed it and that any questions that she had were answered by the end. I sent her back an e-mail asking if there were certain parts where she was confused. There were a couple of places. So now, I need to go back into the book and clean it up. I hate cleaning.

This weekend my husband and I decided to go downtown. The weather was perfect for a walk and so after we parked and put money in the meter, we headed toward the 16th Street Mall. But before we were even a few feet away from the car two women, one black, one white started yelling at each other. From there it went to fists. Pulling each other's hair and name calling. I kept thinking why?

What was so heinous that these two felt compelled to put the other in her place using punches. Neither won and to make it worse, the boyfriend of one joined in a few minutes later. Eventually, they finished and then went on their way. Very unsettling. But downtown is downtown and with its coolness comes its underside.

The rest of the day was beautiful. We walked into the Holy Ghost Catholic Church built in 1943. Utterly, beautiful. Went to Coors Field and then to Union Station.

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Coyote at Cherry Creek

Out at Cherry Creek yesterday. It is so beautiful in its starkness. We stopped when my husband saw a coyote. With its thick winter coat, he blends in with his environment.                                                              

Tomorrow, I'll post the next installment of "Out of Focus". There have probably been numerous books with this title. However, this is the only one that will be posted each Monday on this blog. I would have put Lol there, but have been told by numerous people Lol is no longer used. 

  

Visiting Central City in Colorado

What do you do? When the doorbell rings and a woman, maybe in her late 20's is on your doorstep asking if she can use your phone. It is 20 degrees outside and she asks if she can come inside? Everything I've ever heard says do not let her in. But I wasn't able to close the door. She said her boyfriend, Mike had pushed her out of his car and that she didn't feel safe going to his house. I asked if he lived around here and she was evasive. I gave her our home phone so that she could call her uncle to come and get her. But from the side of the conversation that I could hear, he was not going to come. She said that she had changed and it wasn't going to be like that anymore. He hung up. I could smell alcohol on her breath, and when I was making a call on my cell phone, she asked if I was calling the cops. I told her no that I wasn't. She said that if I thought I needed to  -- to please tell her. She has had some run ins with the law and was not supposed to be drinking. She had two shots earlier. Just then my husband and son came home. She asked to use my computer to get her contacts so that she could call someone to come and get her. But then my husband asked what she was doing. She got nervous and then wrote a few of her contacts from her Google account in a book from one of her bags. He dropped her off at Subway. He thought she could stay at a public place to figure out what she should do. When she left I gave her a hug and told her not to stay with that boyfriend. A very strange story and a very strange end to a very strange day.

     On a better note, my husband and I went up to the mountains on Monday. We had lunch at a place called Dostal Alley, in Central City, a small little store front with gambling and a bar upstairs and small kitchen and dining area downstairs.  The pizza was good. The $5 we spent in gambling yielded .50. So altogether we gambled $5.50 away. A fun 30 seconds. Went to the cemetery in the freezing cold.  And on our way home we saw a herd of elk.

Winter

It's a snowy Colorado afternoon. I hope to stay inside all day long. Family members have been coming and going. Christmas shopping, going to work and running errands. But not me, no. I sit in front of the compter, writing away.  

Starting in January, I hope to post a chapter a week of a book I wrote some time ago. It is set in Colorado and I am hoping to get feedback from you, my reader to help me get it ready for publishing. 

A picture from the mountains of Colorado to remind me that summer will come again. Winter will not last forever. That even as the snow falls, flowers are hibernating beneath its chilly blanket. That bright colors will once again burst open and just the sight of such spendor will make me think . . . Winter wasn't all that long. 

Cave of the Wind

Just finishing up the last chapters of my book. (I know, I've written that before.) Getting ready to enter it into another contest. It's funny how things go. . . last year I was doing the same thing. I had such great hope that after working on this book for over ten years that it would do well in the contest. But it never made it to round two.  Now after spending yet another year on refining the plot and characters I am sending it out or actually will send it out in January. I'm not as hopeful, not because I don't think it is a good book. More because judging is very subjective. One day I read a book, and I love it. The next time I read it  -- I wonder why I thought it was so good. But I feel this book is at its absolute best. . .meaning that it is the best that I can do.

 Went to Cave of the Winds for my daughter's birthday. It was snowy and cold, but once inside the cave, it was much warmer. It was a neat experience. With stalactites and stalacmites in various caverns. A great tour even if it was a little cheesy. Naming formations and the tour guide speaking for a few minutes and then running to the next area. What could we do but follow.

  

Writing and Colorado

It snowed last week about two inches, but the weekend was nice enough to go for the last boat ride at the inner city lake. A light jacket with the heat of the sun felt just the right. My husband didn't catch any fish, but it was still just wonderful. There is something so peaceful about being on the water. From the boat I took these pictures of the mountains.

My writing is improving little by little. But because it is taking so much time, I have not been able to put to paper the beginning of my second novel.

I take that back. I've written pages and pages of first chapters and not one have I liked for more than a day. So I'm back to brainstorming until I can find the right way to continue the sequel to "A Series of Scandals" in the Agents to the Crown trilogy.

Remembering Uncle Dee

This weekend, I went with my sister and her husband to visit relatives in Brighton. They are my mom's cousins. A brother and sister who live together. The brother is blind and has been for many years. They were delightful. After lunch we went to the house that my Great Grandma lived in. I remember as a child coming to this house. It was so much larger then. I remember playing on the railings while my parents visited. My Great Uncle also lived there. Hardwood floors, and the only way to get to the bathroom was through a bedroom. On one side of the door was a bedroom and on the other the front room. Then the dining room that led into the kitchen. The second bedroom is behind the first. And that is the whole of the house.

Then we went to the hospital that my great uncle was instrumental in bringing to Brighton. I heard this weekend that my great grandma used to get upset when Uncle Dee would come home, eat dinner and then go out canvassing the neighborhoods to solicit donations to start a hospital.  The first one was no bigger than a house and my uncle thought his city needed something more for the people of the town. 

At Platte Valley Medical Center they remember him with a bench and a plaque. He would have been honored. 

Finally, we went to the church that he had been a part of for decades. We looked for the paver with his name on it. But we could not find it. They must not have put it in yet. 

At the end of summer we went to the spot in the park where they also honored him, with a plaque on a stone telling of all the wonderful things he did for Brighton. There was a great ceremony with speeches and memories and refreshments. No cake, slightly disappointed. But not everyone loves cake the way I do.

Anyway, onto writing. I did write one chapter this week. So yay. Unfortunately, it was not the lead in to my 2nd book. I can't seem to find the right way to start the story. So I will work on other writing and see if the right setting will come to me.   

Writing and Colorado

Falling leaves, colder nights, chilly mornings fall is here to stay. How long will it be before winter shows its bleak and dreary head?

Surprisingly, I am still working on the first chapter of my second book and still editing my first book.

What have I been doing?  That is a very good question.

I guess  . . . bringing in my summer plants
to keep them alive until next spring, doing laundry (which I love), going to see my nieces and nephews that are seniors play volleyball and soccer. Getting care packages out to my nieces and nephews in college. Getting away for the weekend with my husband, going to see my dad (80 years old) perform in a musical show. Taking long walks with my husband on the weekends and shorter walks in the evenings. And then, of course, working during the days.  

Are those good excuses, no. .  . but again I resolve to find the time to work on that chapter. So by next post I will have great news. I will write I am working on Book 2 Chapter 2. . . . maybe

100th Post

This is my 100th post - YEAH. It's amazing that I've had something to say 100 different times. But as a reader who may have stumbled across this blog, you may not have a quarrel with the 100 posts figure but more with the dull content. I'm the one writing and often I find fault with the post too. So you see we are in agreement. 

What a great Labor Day Weekend. The much needed rest before heading into the fall and winter. Up to our favorite campsite near Cheesman Reservoir. It was so beautiful. It brings such a refreshment to my soul to see such beauty.  A little cold at times, but nothing a light jacket couldn't combat. 

Still working on A Series of Scandals. I think one part is great and then let a couple of weeks go by and when I re-read it there is still something off in the wording of a phrase or in the character's actions. But slowly I believe my editor and I are making headway. We are almost three quarters of the way through reading it once again. Each time we revise it it seems to get better.  

Morrow Dam

It's been hot. At least in the mid 90's all week long. On Monday and Tuesday, I was still in the relaxing feel of vacation even though I was back at work. Wednesday wiped the vacation mindset out of my thoughts, and I began looking forward to the weekend. Now sitting here on Saturday morning, I'm refreshed once again.

On our vacation, we visited the Morrow Point Dam built between two cliffs. It was an awesome sight to see. 
So vast that it is hard to take in. 

As always I am behind on my schedule of writing. I should be on the middle chapters of my 2nd book, but I am still on Chapter Two. It is not right and I keep going through it changing the words and the responses that each character speaks trying to get it to where I want it to be. 

I guess it is like re-arranging furnture in a small room. You have the pieces, you know what you want, but until you physically move each of the pieces to different spots you don't know if it has the right feel. However, when it is right you know it and can walk away.

   

Snow and Sunshine

From Winter to Spring in less than three weeks. Snow in the backyard that had our tree break in half and land on our neighbors car to spending the day in the mountains at our favorite spot. 

Columbines, Indian Paintbrushes and Mountain Lupine cascaded on the hillsides. Colorado Mountains are spectacular.  But the area surrounding the campsite is still recovering from the Hayman fire that happened in 2002. According to the Denver Post article written by Johns Ingold "By the time firefighters gained control of the Hayman fire — more than one month after it began — it had charred 137,760 acres in Park, Teller, Jefferson and Douglas counties, a footprint nearly twice as large as Colorado's second-biggest fire. On one day alone, it ran 19 miles. It put up a smoke plume so massive that it created its own weather."

I can remember that summer where ash rained down on us, our clothes, homes and cars  in the suberbs of Denver. The orange looking sun was hidden behind the hazy skyline of smoke all summer long.

 Another hard week with my back still giving me trouble. But even moreso as my sister, the one I traveled through London with lost her mother-in-law. As her husband and two sons along with others escorted their mother/grandmother's casket out of the chapel, my heart broke as her teenage sons broke down in anguish of heart.

It was a sweet service. So beautiful that it hurt especially as white doves were released and then circled around the cemetery until the last bird was released. And then they altogether flew out of our sight. Just as Marlene had.

While we were at the cemetery, we went to visit my grandmas. The three ladies that were cousins to my grandpa that took over raising my dad when his mother passed away when he was a teenager.

And now onto writing, I'm starting to plot scenes in my mind. New ideas are coming again. So I have great hopes of starting the process again. It's hard to start anew when I'm still re-writing the first book. Still mining for the right words to set the scenes the way I want them to look instead of how they actually are.

I have left my greatest news for the last. I have wanted someone from the UK to look at my blog for the longest time. To follow my journey of writing and life. Just this morning my first UK viewer came online. I can only assume they arrived by mistake and quickly left but the numbers are the numbers and someone from the UK opened my blog. Yay!!!  

Writing

We went up to Rocky Mountain National Park to see the Aspens changing colors. It is at the very beginning of the change so it was spectacular. We saw hidden lakes and mountain glaciers (snowy ice in crevices of mountains). My son and son-in-law hiked to one glacier and threw snowballs. I watched marvelling at the energy of youth.

  
But back to writing. I should get Chapter Three back later today from my editor. More work, I'm sure. But getting closer every day.  I had a friend read the entire book a couple of weeks ago. She told me she was compelled to stay up later than she wanted to keep reading it.

 Her comments inspired me to really work hard the following week to continue fixing sections to make it the best that it can be. She finished the book and said she enjoyed it. 

But I find it is not enough. It seems I want a continuous flow of people coming into the world my editor and I have created and become enthralled in this world.

I guess it is similar to re-decorating your home. You invite your closest friends and they marvel over it. But when they leave that is it. You need more. So you invite other people over, work friends, neighbors etc. 

All that hard work. But when it is all done, you really need to find that you have enjoyed it. The process and the project and now the knowledge that you actually achieved it.