Boy's room Finished! (Finally)

I've been working on the house one room at a time, and we finally got the boy's room done. That means that we don't have two twin beds in the living room, where they've been for over a month. That room needs serious cleaning. I had no idea they had that many dirty socks.

The room before wasn't terrible. Honestly, I probably should have left it alone, but the carpet had to go and after my darling husband built the awesome triple decker, I wanted to have that finished. I didn't. For some reason, using the wrong sandpaper turns a four hour job into a few weeks of dusty contemplation, which I spent plotting Watergirl 2.

I'm having FUN with Watergirl 2. I'm on schedule on page 75 or something, and I haven't hit a roadblock yet. I love dialogue. And boys with gills.

Wow. Looking at the photos all together like this, it's kind of depressing how much similar they look. All that work and nothing dramatic, BAM! big change. I should have painted it purple instead of french vanilla.

Before. 

Also before. Perfectly decent.

After. The floor is well sanded.

Also after. That's where I dumped the bucket of dark brown paint.

We have sawdust inside the storm windows and the aluminum ones. We need to figure out how to do something about that. OR get used to it. :)

This is the closest to in real life color.

the bed! Maybe too orange. It's supposed to be the color of Mr. Fox.

Mr. Fox

Mary Engelbreit lives in St. Louis.

Pretend the middle deck is made up. :)

We went to the Wild Things exhibit at the downtown library. It was amazing. The building was incredible, and the exhibit was wonderful. The children's section and YA section were absolutely fantastic. There are a dozen libraries in the city to explore. I'm so excited! So many things to do in the city, and the boy's room is finally done. It's been too long. We can finally get the boy's beds out of the living room.

 

Watergirl 2 The fun begins.

I have no idea. Seriously, I do have ideas to do with glass tanks and gladiators, secret spies and thieves, teenage pregnancy and jealousy... Hm. Maybe I can do this thing. It's not going to be good. It's going to be absolutely horrible. The first one was supposed to be FUN. Like sitting in the sun, not work. Like sanding the floor. Instead, I got fun with oodles of work. I don't want to work, just fun. Maybe I'll just write dialogue and skip all the other stuff. Call it an outline. A two hundred page outline. No stress. Short chapters. No big deal. Pant, pant, pant. This is going to be fine. And fun. And fine. I said that already. Maybe I'll just take the month off, or write Monsterontous! That would be a fun Halloween thing to write. Maybe so. I'll check my schedule.

I read the book and at first I was all derisive. "This is such a silly story. No wonder it came together so much faster than my other books," and then it sucked me in and I couldn't put it down until I found out what was going on and if they got together, and then it was over and I'm supposed to make a sequel that tops the first one.

Ugh. Also, it has hardly any reviews and it's been out for a long time, but people don't write reviews. Do people not like it? Maybe only a very few people like it. If so, who am I writing for? I'm totally satisfied by the ending. Gen and Sean got together and they're kind of happy, even if she does have a knife wound and he's still Sean and who knows what's going on with Oliver. Will he really leave them alone? He's basically evil. Not really though. I don't know. I didn't plan to have a sequel. With Slide, I knew the ending, and now I've just got to fill in the blanks, not that that's easy, but I have something.

Okay. No more whining. Maybe a little bit. Sigh. I'll definitely check my schedule.

It's Autumn and I'm Done with Hunter! Free Book to celebrate!

Free Book Here

How EXCITING!!! FREE book and finished with HUNTER!!! This has been my most difficult book to date, but I always say, the harder to write, the easier to read. It's got some good stuff. Hunter will come out in November as scheduled. EEEEk! I have to get the cover finished.

Pajama Pants for the Whole family

I made pajamas for the almost 2 year old. The top was fine but the bottoms... not quite the best fitting bottoms in the world. I used a woven pants pattern, but I didn't think it would be quite this ridiculous. I've been making pajamas for the boy to try and fit patterns so I can do a capsule that fits perfectly in the planned fabrics. The t isn't perfect, the front bags although the back is okay. I think the shoulders are off, but not as off as the pants. 

Room for growth or no slippers necessary.

Peekaboo pants.

Size is off and the color all wrong.

Color's great but the waistband is too tight.

Too short!

Finally a good fit. Capri pj bottoms. Perfect.

Clouds and Chlorine.

This is the project I've been working on for the last few weeks. I lost my photos for now until I can get my computer to a computer store, so no before with carpet pictures, but here's a mid madness photo after I ripped up the carpet and before I painted. It's not terrible, the wood I mean, but the soft wood was in very rough shape and I would have had to sand and sand and sand to get it smooth. 

I thought painting would be faster... I do not think I was right. I still had to filler and sand between layers. Oh well. It's like sleeping on clouds in the sky, or like swimming in a pool my daughter said, because it is now the color of chlorine. 

Hm. Being allergic to chlorine, maybe not the best choice. But at least it's not brown like every other room in the house beside the girl's room. I love it so much. It's like the rooms in High Society, aqua cool but crisp and delicious. 

I will have to update as it gets dressed. Still, beautiful bones. 

Hunter 2/3 finished!!!

I am tired. I've been painting and sanding and painting some more, rooms, not lovely portraits. Moving in and trying to make this house mine, I'm falling behind on my writing. Quel fromage! But happily, I think I'll catch up this week, and honestly, it is going well. The end is in sight, so publishing will be on schedule, book 3 due out in November.

I'm excited to laze around the house all day tomorrow. Maybe I'll go to the park. Or not. Then I won't have to get dressed. My room is finished, just waiting for the paint to cure. It's exciting, this watching paint dry business.

Such a dull post. I mean, it's exciting that I'm nearing the end of Hunter's final draft, but talking about paint, ugh! I'll have to post pictures. That's much more pleasant.

Happy Monday!

Crashed

Our computer, that is. Our photos are stuck in the lost digital world of our very ancient mac, and now that I have a shiny new computer box thingy (cannot believe how much tech has changed in my less short life) I can access so many things that weren't possible for the longest time. I'm thinking about getting on instagram. or snapchat? What's the thing to be on these days? I have no idea. I think twitter is a little bit last century practically.

Luckily, my real writing goes on on an old PC laptop that has taken its share of tumbles down the stairs with nothing but a kinked power cord to show for it. It's fine because I use it as a portable typewriter and don't go online. Online is dangerous, slows up everything and uses up drive or whatever that thing is. I'm so excited to go onto all the sites that wouldn't load. Deviant Art! Youtube videos, khan academy... it's all so very interesting.
I'm going to have to figure out how to backup stuff, photos etc. on our new computer so that when it's time has come to go to the worn tech home, I won't have no resources for things like covers. Sigh. It's a hard life. And this spellcheck feature is seriously irritating. Ah well. Win some, lose some.

I am on schedule, almost. I'm a day behind, but if I crack my own whip, I should still be able to finish chapter fifteen by Saturday. This story is going very well. I'm always surprised when I reread things and I don't hate them. Maybe all this practice writing is paying off.

Painting. Ugh. So many painting stories. I'll have to do another post another day. But clouds of jasmine. Clouds of jasmine and life is so good.

Oblivion Review

I stayed up late last night to finish this book. All day I felt like I walked in a dream, waiting for Pinfeathers to pull my hair and drag me into that other world.

This book finished the series. Most of the book she, Isobel, wandered around, "Varen, oh Varen my love," without actually having any Varen. When he finally entered the stage things got much more interesting. I don't know. Well written, good dialogue, great characters, but the pacing, I wanted to hurry up and finish it, or slow down and understand what was going on. Neither of which I did. The ending I liked. Two epilogues for closure. Can't have too much closure. 

I've been all about Watergirl in my free dream time lately. I've created all sorts of drama in my head and jealousy and angst but also purpose and intention which has definitely been lacking in my prewriting daydreaming. I don't do outlines. Well, my outlines are full of dialog and over two hundred pages. They're more inline than outline. Hm. That'll be my MO. "I'm an inliner," I'll say with an arched brow to show that I know what I'm doing. It's so much more elegant than, "I'm a pantser." Pantser. Not an elegant term. Pants are never elegant. Trousers, maybe, but 'Trouserer' twists the tongue something terrible.

Action! Remorse.

I am so very slow when writing action scenes. I do not know why. I write a lot of action but it's hard. What is easy is dialogue. I love dialogue. It's easy, I just write what they tell me to write. Action, I have to think it all through. Thinking is so difficult. That's why we graduate from school, so that we can stop thinking. Ah. But I never really graduated. Now I understand.

Buyers remorse. I've been up two nights now feeling like we got the wrong appliances. There's nothing 'wrong' with them. (Not sure why I used air quotes) But I don't love them. I want to love my new fridge. It's very pretty. But I don't. Maybe I can have a slow romance and eventually adore it like I should. My washing machine and dryer... they're so generic and dull. Why buy new appliances that you don't love? Is this strange to want attachments with my appliances? I don't know. I don't know if there's any help for it. They're bought and installed. Sigh.

Life is (5 minutes from) the zoo.

We have internet. And mountains of boxed and unboxed books stacked around my new house. I will not lie. It's not pretty. We escaped the chaos for a much needed break at the zoo.

"Greetings!" he honked. 

Local Watering Hole

The water tunnel.

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He winked at us.

I want this to be a book cover.

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I've never seen such a speedy creature.

Harry Potter.

Yelps and Clicks. I'm inspired!!!