Kim Harrison's Blog, page 147

The things you find in the garden.

As some of you might have surmised, Guy and I are not in our normal digs this summer, but have temporally moved up north to escape the heat.  We are renovating a home built in 1910, leaning heavy on contractors but doing the outside gardens and yard ourselves.  It's in a small town, and though it's different from my forest retreat, it is reminiscent of the first home that Guy and I bought, and it's starting to feel comfortable.

Which brings me to the tombstone in our back yard.  Okay, at...

The things you find in the garden.

As some of you might have surmised, Guy and I are not in our normal digs this summer, but have temporally moved up north to escape the heat.  We are renovating a home built in 1910, leaning heavy on contractors but doing the outside gardens and yard ourselves.  It's in a small town, and though it's different from my forest retreat, it is reminiscent of the first home that Guy and I bought, and it's starting to feel comfortable.

Which brings me to the tombstone in our back yard.  Okay, at...

And it rains . . .

It's soggy outside, too wet to play, so I hung curtains last night, yanked cheap mollies out of the wall, and spackled the holes.  (Actually, Thing Two helped me with the mollies and spackle, which was nice.  Every kid needs to know how to spackle the holes in their walls.) I think I'm going to pick up a can of kills for the baseboards (someone painted pine, and the knots are showing) and a can of paint for the walls for next time it rains.  Yep.  I'm redecorating.  Again.  ;-)

The second...

Nails

I work very hard at having somewhat nice nails for the month of March and June, even going to a miniaturist a day or two before tour starts to get a hard, professional red polish that will last about a week.  One of the first things I do to "de-tour" myself is to take the polish off.  Most times it comes off in the car on the way from the airport to home.  The last tour, I was so ready to be home that it came off before the last event, and I did the signing with a very light pink polish...

New Skills

And we're learning, we're learning.  I've never put in a cobbled walk before, but both Guy and I wanted to try it, so we did.  This took four days, including breaking up the original walk.  The tricky thing was that it wasn't regular brick designed for walkways, but the left-over stone from the construction of a fireplace.  I don't like to waste anything, so it felt good using it, and our contractor said it would weather appropriately, but the bricks didn't lay out in a nice 1 by 3 pattern...

New Skills

And we're learning, we're learning.  I've never put in a cobbled walk before, but both Guy and I wanted to try it, so we did.  This took four days, including breaking up the original walk.  The tricky thing was that it wasn't regular brick designed for walkways, but the left-over stone from the construction of a fireplace.  I don't like to waste anything, so it felt good using it, and our contractor said it would weather appropriately, but the bricks didn't lay out in a nice 1 by 3 pattern...

Screw it

My young adult copy edit went to the wrong address and is two days from my desk, best case.  Worst case, it's scattered over my neighborhood or damaged from the rain.

Guy is working in the yard.

Screw it.  I'm going out in the yard to play. (burn off some frustration)

I've never missed a deadline, and missing this one is likely going to shove the last Madison book into a different publishing slot.  Not my problem that a labor intensive piece of work has sat on an empty porch for the last four...

Feels like Friday

Feels like Friday, which is good, because it is.  Didn't get as much done this week as I had wanted, but I had copy edit that took precedence, and now that that's done, I've got the copy edit for Madison headed my way, too.

I've set the world book aside (again, sigh) to concentrate on the second Hollows graphic novel for a few weeks–try to hammer out a script before August–then finish the world book before the Oct deadline.  Dude, I don't like working this close to deadlines, but the GN was...

Feels like Friday

Feels like Friday, which is good, because it is.  Didn't get as much done this week as I had wanted, but I had copy edit that took precedence, and now that that's done, I've got the copy edit for Madison headed my way, too.

I've set the world book aside (again, sigh) to concentrate on the second Hollows graphic novel for a few weeks–try to hammer out a script before August–then finish the world book before the Oct deadline.  Dude, I don't like working this close to deadlines, but the GN was...

She did it!

I've been watching Jocelynn Drake this past couple of years as she set herself a goal of getting two books delivered and out in quick succession.  And she did it!  PRAY FOR DAWN just came out, and it's sequel, WAIT FOR DUSK is coming out next month.  (Yay Jocelynn!  I knew you could do it!)

There are good reasons for half-killing yourself to get that many words on paper so quickly, the most obvious being that it really helps in building your reading audience.  The readers love it, because...