Blogging as an avoidance activity
I don't know about you, but I thought I would blog more when I finished off Spence and Sadie and despatched them to The Land Across the Pond. No, really, I did.
But it turns out that when Spence and Sadie aren't around, I get a life. I don't spend my days at the computer (well, not much of them) and consequently I am not looking for a way to avoid working on chapter one, chapter two, chapter three, chapter four . . . well, you get the idea.
So, it's been 3 days since I actually wrote anything here. It isn't that I don't have anything to say -- but I haven't been around. I've been cleaning my house (which desperately needed it) and mailing off books to contest winners (they went out today, gang), and walking dogs and taking dogs to the vet for yearly checkups, and grumbling about the fact that our neighbors a couple of doors away just had FOUR TREES cut down on their property and now we have WAY MORE SUN than is good for us. Not to mention that it's sad to see old trees go.
Spence and Sadie haven't been in touch. They flew out of here at rate of knots, and they have not been heard from since. The ed tells me she might be able to read them this weekend. I hope so, because if she wants much in the way of revisions, it's going to be tricky to get them done before I head off across the pond myself. We shall see. I'm not a big fan of "no revisions" because frankly, I have never yet met a book of mine that couldn't be improved. Not that it wouldn't be nice if she decided this was the time. However . . . I can still think of ways to improve it.
When I'm not cleaning or dealing with dogs or mourning trees, I'm reading books. I've been catching up on several Loretta Chase books that I hadn't read. I love her books! Also just got a new Stephanie Laurens and Susan Elizabeth Phillips's Match Me If You Can, which I read in hardcover when it first came out, but I liked enough to splurge for it for my keepers shelf.
I'm also reading The Cornish Landscape (one of my two copies that I'm still offering the other of to someone who doesn't have one and is desperate for their very own copy) in anticipation of my trip there with Sophie Weston in a couple of weeks.
I'm working on trying to sort out the many William Ralphs who have been set in Cornwall to plague me. That's one of my challenges while I'm gone -- to learn as much as I can about them and see if I can finally sort them out (and their brothers John, John, John, John, John, John and John).
The highlight of my day was getting two hardcover copies of Lessons From A Latin Lover in Afrikaans. I'm not sure I've ever had any books translated into Afrikaans before. Maybe one quite a while ago. Anyway, it was a surprise -- and a very nice one. Also in the same bag was a Japanese translation of the book (not a palm tree in sight).
posted by Anne McAllister at 9:50 PM
5 Comments:
I wonder if your next set of characers will be as vocal as Spence and Sadie!
And how could anyone name all thier sons John?
Michelle,
I don't know if Spence and Sadie will ever have equals when it comes to shooting their mouths off. I guess I hope so. Right now there are grumblings and stirrings in the background, but I'm ignoring them. I don't want to think about them quite yet.
As for the multitude of Johns, it's on account of the even greater (if possible) multitude of Williams. In my genealogy database I have 63 men named William Ralph. Most of them had at least one brother named John (some of them had brothers named William). This is because of high infant mortality and parents naming sons after sons who died. Or didn't, but apparently they just liked the name or felt compelled to use it multiple times.
In any event, there are a surfeit of both -- and most of them lived within about a mile or so of each other on the border between the parishes of Crowan and St Erth in Cornwall. Some of them even lived on the same farm. I have six William Ralphs living on the same farm in the time I'm researchin now. There is a seventh living right down the road who is probably the father of one of them, grandfather of possibly both of them and g-grandfather of the other two. Or not. That's what I'm going to Cornwall to try to sort out.
By the way, I saw Gladiator's Honor at my local drugstore yesterday! I put it up at eye level, as I already have my own copy. Otherwise I'd have snatched it up.
Hi Kathleen,
Yes, the winners were posted on my contest page on my website, and they each got an email.
The next contest will begin Oct 10th -- and will be a scavenger hunt. You did so well on finding The Eight Second Wedding, you inspired me!
The list of things to find will be posted there and on my blog. Check back here or on my website Oct 10th.
haha! i also thought i'd blog more when the book was done. nope. i no longer need the diversion. :D
Doesn't happen that way, does it, Anne? Glad you got yours done, too!
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