I’m listening to a true crime novel about a serial rapist, and it’s such a disappointment. I really wanted to love it when I read the blurb, but it’s stuffed full of pointless backstory right down to the history of the first female cop in one of the departments working the case. And to make it worse, it’s poorly organized. You know what I keep thinking as I slog through this thing? The author needs to read J.D. Robb’s IN DEATH series to learn how to organize a true crime story.

Umm…J.D. Robb writes fiction not true crime! I know that, of course. Yet, I can’t help myself, the J.D. Robb crime solving is tight, focused and chronological with just enough backstory that we understand the character, science (even if it’s made up, it’s still consistent and understandable) and motivations.

I know I shouldn’t judge a non-fiction by fiction, but it’s where my brain goes every time I listen to the book. Anyone else ever do this?

A good weekend. Saturday, we went to see Turbo. He’s an energetic little guy and usually good humored, with an occasional meltdown thrown in to remind us he’s a toddler I treasure the hugs and kisses. Also, he loves brownies. I gave him small one, then he tried really hard to charm me into a second one. I threw that on his dad by telling Turbo his dad said no, LOL! CPA boy accepted the blame with good grace and redirected Turbo’s attention. CPA Boy seems amused that I’ve gone from a rules-and-structure parent to a softy Grandma.

Surprisingly, when we got home, I had energy to do some more reading through my hard copy edit too.

Sunday, Wizard was gone and I got a ton of stuff done, including another 100 pages of the book edited on hard copy. Assuming I don’t find any surprise plot problems toward the end, I should have this book to my copyeditor on Friday. It will likely sit in her queue for a while, but that’s okay I have a lot of other things to take care of to prepare for publishing, and down the road, get to work on the Wing Slayers.

How was your weekend?

TGIF! This week came and went. I swear it was Monday, I blinked and Friday appeared. Okay time to share five random things about our week:

1. I read Wednesdays blog comments to Maggie, but life got in the way of me answering for her. I’m sorry!
2. Life has been irritating us this week. Nothing serious, just one of the annoying joys of home ownership. But it should be all fixed next week.
3. I finished my revisions, printed the book and am doing the hard copy edit. I also contacted my copyedited, and she’ll do her pass on the book in October. Progress!!
4. It just dawned on me I’m going to have to write the dreaded back cover blurb for the book
5. I think we’re going to see Turbo on Saturday. I’m looking forward to that, although I usually come hope wiped out. One day this week, I walked Maggie, went grocery shopping, spent a few hours helping Wizard move heavy concrete chunks around (don’t ask!) and take them to the dump, then I came home and worked straight through until dinner. But after playing with a toddler for three hours, I can’t get up off the couch, LOLOL!

That’s my five, now I’d love to hear yours! I hope everyone has a terrific weekend!

Hi guys, it’s me Maggie. I just wanted to say Hi, since Mom is all busy doing important stuffs like hunting passive words and phrases in her book.

Do you all want to know what I’m thinking about so hard in this picture?

Well, I’m wondering, is hunting words as fun as hunting lizards?

Mom say to tell you all Happy Wednesday!

Yep, there was a weekend!

I had a nice break Saturday afternoon when Wizard, me and Maggie went to middle son and his wife’s house. Wizard was helping middle son work on one of his R.C. Cars, and the two of them together managed to break it worse than when they started, LOL! Okay, the truth it was an old motor that blew up, which happens, but it’s more fun the way I tell it. In the meantime, my daughter-in-law and I sat out back with their two sweet and funny dogs, Jett and Hazel, and Maggie. It was a really nice visit.

We also did two video chats with Turbo since we didn’t see him in person. It’s pretty cool how technology can keep us connected.

The rest of the weekend, I worked, and yesterday afternoon, I finished this major revision pass. I’m pretty danged happy about that. Through this revision process I’ve deleted 57 pages, which should tighten up the book significantly and makes me feel better. I have to edit a few little things, which I’ll probably work on today. Then I’ll do another hardcore proofread/cleanup of the entire book. I’ll probably contact the copyeditor I use and see if/when she has room in her schedule.

That was my weekend, how was yours?

TGIF! Time to jump into sharing five random things about our week:

1. I feel for all those suffering the damage from wind, rains and flooding from Hurricane Sally. Mother Nature needs to go on Xanax and knock this crap off.
2. Next month we will have had Maggie for three years! She’s the Princess of the house and runs our lives. But she’s also such a sweet natured dog…unless she’s chasing lizards, then she’s ruthless.
3. It took me an insane amount of days to come up with a rough five page scene to fix the final plot problem. I wrote several scenes but they all felt flat to me, so I deleted them because, well, that’s how I roll. I’m going to clean up the scene tomorrow, and adjust a couple other scenes to support it. Then onto editing the rest. it’s ridiculous how long it’s taken me, but my speed with come back as I regain my writing confidence.
4. Here’s a picture of me with my tomato plant to show you how big my “baby” has grown. I’m casually dressed cuz it’s hot and this was a spur of the moment pic. I’ve been in a battle with bugs on this guy, but so far, I’m winning and I have several tomatoes growing.
5. And here is my bell pepper plant. He’s thriving with three baby bell peppers and a lot more blooms. We’ll see if I can get any of them to maturity. If you look close, you’ll see someone photobombed this shot with her tail

So that’s my week, now I’d love to hear about yours! I hope everyone has a safe and happy weekend!

Today these guys and gals are my heroes:

I’m proud and inspired by how hard firefighters, and all the first responders, battle beyond exhaustion. They ignore politics and the dark side of humanity to do the work to save lives, and homes, but lives come first.

Who is your hero today?