Helen Mathey-Horn's Blog, page 9

Into Summer

As we are past the ‘longest day’ it is officially summer and things are heating up. So far the garden and lawn look green without watering.

Well drat I had more pictures but I’ve managed to move them to a location ‘unknown’. Do you ever do that? Put something somewhere to be safe and it is so safe you don’t remember where you put it? In this case the camera/computer have stored my most recent pictures safely for me. The sunflower above is the only one I have.

This sunflower is about 3 foot tall, volunteer from the birdseed. When it starts to form seeds it will feed the birds that missed it the first time. Until then it is my welcome to summer.

Longest Day (North)

Here it is the longest day of summer for the Northern Hemisphere and we are getting rain. I will not complain. It is a gentle rain and a slow summer rain is a great treat. The air temperature is 71oF on my front south-facing porch. This is Tulsa so any temperatures below 90 are great!

And currently my orchids appear to be loving it also. The ‘pots’ sit towards the east end of the porch and only get the most direct morning light. The ‘hangers’ dangle from the metal ‘arbor’ on the east end of the porch.

There is a rolled up shade I can ‘drop’ to keep the direct sun off the orchids on the porch stand or to shade the porch/cement to prevent heat build up. The ones on the arch do get morning light with shade from the neighbor’s tree, and have the blue ‘shade cloth’ for the more direct overhead light. Both are out of the worst of the mid-day and afternoon sun which in Oklahoma can fry everything.

It is delightful outside. We’ll take it for the first official day of summer. Now if I see fireflies (lightning bugs) tonight?

More ‘Puppy’

Not the ‘Dog Days’ of summer yet although the temperatures are starting to climb. (The “Dog Days” are August)

Just ‘chillin’ out with mom and dad.Ready for the 4th of July.

Birthday Girl

We picked our dog out at the pound a few years back and as near as they and the vet could figure she was probably born sometime in June of that year, so Happy Birthday, Apache.

She still does the ‘crossed legs’ thing. So prim and proper.

And because they look like bursting fireworks, an example of my purple coneflowers. Yes, I too think they look pink, but they are called purple, go figure.

Shelved

The Insecure Writer’s Support Group question of the month is…

HOW LONG DO YOU SHELVE YOUR FIRST DRAFT?

OPTIONAL QUESTION: For how long do you shelve your first draft, before reading it and re-drafting? Is this dependent on your writing experience and the number of stories/books under your belt?

If I’m really into the writing I probably reread my draft very quickly. That being said, I’ve also gone back months, even years, later to reread drafts.

And again a day late. I really should set up a monthly reminder to myself, but naw, too lazy?

Many thanks to our found Alex J. Cavanaugh and our co-hosts today Sarah Foster, Natalie Aguirre, Lee Lowery, and Rachna Chhabria!

Insecure Writers’ Group – May 5th

May 5 question – Has any of your readers ever responded to your writing in a way that you didn’t expect? If so, did it surprise you?

Well, the first Wednesday of the month (any month) seems to sneak up on me, in spite of the fact that I’ve had a whole month to know it is coming.

So down and dirty with my answer.

I’ve written previously about my mother ‘proofreading’ one of my first stories, Dream Warrior. She had three reactions to it that I found encouraging.

1st she didn’t see the end of the first chapter coming.

2nd she didn’t find herself able to put the story down even though science fiction was definitely not in her interest area.

3rd she liked the play on words I used at the ending.

My mother had been a secretary so she was used to proofreading work. The fact she admitted she stopped proofreading and ended up just reading made my day, as it was not a type of fiction that she normally read.

Yes, she was my mother, but…

Ahead of my Time or Someone Stole My Idea!

The summer of 1995 or 1994 (I cannot exactly remember and I’m not going to dig through papers to find out) I got to spend 6 weeks at a NASA workshop in Maryland with other teachers. For a science nerd how great could that be! We were divided into 6 teams and had two of the NASA people in each group and the ‘long term’ goal for the week was to come up with an idea of a project to send up on the space shuttle and space station.

I want to say I suggested this one, but it may have been another teacher on the team and as the “Torii Teller” at MCS Iwakuni would have said, “Alcohol was involved.” Our team was kicking around lots of ideas during the first supper and I suggested sending up yeast and brewing beer in microgravity. Other ideas were suggested but eventually our group decided this one interested us the most. And as I said, alcohol may have been involved, so…

‘Microbrewery in Microgravity’ became our proposed project. We had some of the best slogans. “The oldest technology and the newest technology.” “Does it taste as good going down after it has been up?”

We went with it. Again alcohol may have been involved, but really how would yeast perform in microgravity? Would the alcohol stay around the cells and inhibit their growth instead of separating out by density as on earth?

So we presented our project to the class and … the teachers were, “We can’t do that!” The engineers were all, “I volunteer for the taste testing when it comes back to earth.”

We used it for practice on how to set up a project proposal and that was really the point of the class, except!

Today I read on-line that twelve bottles of wine were sent into space to ‘age’ for fourteen months and have come back to see how wine ages in space.

And the real kicker, they are selling one of the bottles and expect it to fetch $1,000,000 at a Christie’s sale. “The bottle is one of a batch of 12 that European startup Space Cargo Unlimited sent into orbit as part of research into how food and drink matures in space.” Oh, if I only had the property rights for the idea! Click on the link above to read the article.

I was just too far ahead of my time.

And teachers…reminder…there are no bad ideas!

Cold, Wet Spring Day

Normal, right? Right.

I’m listening to a male cardinal as he takes seeds from my feeder in the front yard. Not sure if he is just ‘talking’ or ‘warning’ my cat that he is onto her being around. I love birds and I love my cat and unfortunately there is sometimes conflict between the two.

Yes, I should keep her in, but we passed that point many years ago.

This white iris is an early bloomer and first of the ones I bring in. So although it is raining, and cold, beauty exists and would not be there if there if it did not rain.

All the Greens

Of all the seasons…

Least favorite – Winter- cold, slippery, not a fan of winter sports for myself

Neutral – Summer – just fine if the temperatures don’t soar too high. Upper Wisconsin has about the right temperatures for summer, Oklahoma I usually need air conditioning.

Runner Up – Fall – temperatures are great, tree colors (if you have the right trees) are fantastic

Winner – SPRING! – More sun showing up each day, more green and growing things showing up each day, flowering trees and bulbs to add more color, temperatures generally great. Downside might be tornado time, but that’s random.

How about you?

How many shades of green can you find?

Monthly Writing Prompt

For April – April 7th’s question is:  Are you a risk-taker when writing? Do you try something radically different in style/POV/etc. or add controversial topics to your work?

I don’t know about ‘risk taker’, but I do like a challenge when it comes to POV.

One of the first books I let my mother read, I tried very hard in the first chapter to not let onto the sex of the protagonist until the very last sentence. As it was a fantasy/adventure type story my mother went along with the flow (she said she kept wanting to turn the page, always a compliment) but at the very end she made notes that I had made a typo using the wrong sex for the main character. Then I think she went back to the beginning and realized I never actually said what the character’s sex was. It was an ‘I gotcha’ moment, which she actually appreciated. I still think it is one of my better writing moments. (Dream Warrior)

In another book my main character is blind (Dark Queen) and I wanted the challenge of writing most of the book from her point of view so that all the senses except vision needed to be used in describing what she thought was going on around her. Writers are always told ‘to show, not tell’ what the action is, but here I worked to not ‘tell’ or ‘show’ when writing from her point of view and it was very satisfying to work it out.

In each case perhaps it is a little egotistical to think I wrote both of them well, but I’m still proud of both efforts.

Clicking on the icon will take you to others writing on this prompt.

Thanks to our awesome co-hosts for the April 7 posting of the IWSG! PK Hrezo, Pat Garcia, SE White, Lisa Buie Collard, and Diane Burton!