As Summer Heats Up

It is another beautiful July morning. I have one week of work ahead and then holidays. Ahh, summer.

I've done quite a bit of writing this week. I open up my manuscript in the morning and work off and on all day and into the evening whenever I get the chance. This involved drafting and fussing with two long scenes. When I finished them, I realized that the time frame wouldn't work with the previous bit, so next, I'm going to have to add something in between. Actually, I have a subplot that I also need to move along so everything should come together nicely. I'm at 73,000 words, aiming for 80,000 or thereabouts. I now have two dead bodies on my hands; the second one was unexpected in that I was preparing to kill off a certain character, but when I wrote the scene, somebody else got bumped off instead. You could say that they were on the unlucky side.

Concerning the business of writing, I worked with publicity at Dundurn to create a poster for my upcoming signing at Collected Works bookstore on July 30th. They did a great job and a few local businesses have said they will post it. I also did much to-ing and fro-ing with Chris at Collected Works about book ordering and publicity. As well, I spent a lot of e-mailing with the Ottawa Public Library this week as they coordinate a workshop in November. I'll be teaching short story-writing to kids at the Sunnyside branch as one of my tasks as judge in the Awesome Authors contest.

Last week, too, I met with Tom Curran and Wynn Quon to plan the upcoming Capital Crime Writers' program and guest speakers. We have a fabulous line up planned and if you are a mystery fan in the Ottawa area, you really should think about joining. Not all of our members write - some are just readers interested in listening to authors, detectives, psychologists, private eyes . . . our list of topics and speakers goes on and on. We meet the second Wednesday of every month (excluding summer) in the Library and Archives next to the Supreme Court building. If you are out of town, $15 gets you the newsletter stuffed with information. Let me know if you would like more info.

So, a busy first week in July but still lots of time to sit on the front verandah and read or talk to neighbours. Life should never get so busy that you don't have time for friends and kicking back. After all, what would be the point?