I’m recovering from Murdercon AKA the Writers Police Academy this week, so it’s a shorter post, but at least I’m keeping up my streak.
Saturday’s banquet address by Bob Dugoni was terrific. I remember walking back to my room ready to write all the stories all at once. He and Alan Hardwick both inspired me and, I suspect, most of the other writers there.
It started raining Sunday night after I got back and didn’t effectively let up until Wednesday. Then we got deluged Thursday night. We ended up with over 8 1/2 inches of rain this week, and that’s about two inches above average for the month.
That’s a lot of water.
In the meantime, the western part of the state is experiencing drought conditions, as are many Western states. Lake Mead in California is at historical lows.
And it’s been hot this weekend.
Weather is weird.
I had to get out and mow, even with the soggy ground, because it had been almost two weeks since anyone had cut the grass here. The south 40 has a bunch of thick, stubborn blades of grass that survived a slow pass with the mower, and it looks like I was lazy in my cutting. I hate that. My oldest son called it “Dad life problems.”
We had three cars go down in 18 hours Thursday, too, so that’s made life interesting. My oldest daughter’s car died on her way home from work. Then my middle son’s car died after he was waiting on the side of the road with her for a tow truck. To top it all off, my car died at Daughter’s house after I drove out there with Middle Son to pick his car up. Fortunately for him, it was a minor repair. Waiting half an hour for the tow truck with his hazard lights on pretty much killed his old battery. Daughter’s car is going to the shop Monday as is mine. I knew I needed transmission work but was hoping to put it off for a few more weeks, and I’m not sure that’s the only problem. We’ll see.
Reading
I finally got to The First Family this week. Great story. What’s wrong with the First Son? Why is the White House Physician so touchy about his medical files? And how are the teenager’s sudden outbursts related to a teen violinist’s seizures during a performance at the Kennedy Center? Really enjoyed the book. There was plenty of tension to go around. Palmer focused on the First Family, skipping the rest of the operational White House “stuff.” He kept the point of view focused where it needed to be. I don’t know that I’ve read much of Michael or Daniel Palmer’s stuff, but they’ll stay on my list.
I dug out my copy of Stephen King’s On Writing. Bob Dugoni mentioned the book during his keynote at Writers Police Academy, and I realized how long it’s been since I’ve read it. That and Lawrence Block’s Telling Lies for Fun and Profit are nicely inspirational books for writers, and it can’t hurt to reread them occasionally.
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