I am in the midst of both trying to catch up from trip and discovering the errors I made in thinking I had closed the loop on certain thing prior to our departure. So far, of the two, both have been recoverable with a dollop of embarrassment.

In reality, in setting the dates I did, I overlooked one other critical task I would need to deal with in September/early October, but back when I set the dates, I thought both the major events of Sept 28th and Oct 17th would have taken place in July and August respectively. Changing those dates due to unexpected issues are actually what jammed things up so badly. While we do intend to plan the annual Art and Artisan Show for the first weekend of October for 2025 onward, the museum fundraiser (if we have one next year) will be held in July. That separates the two enough to give me breathing room.

Hubby continues to post wonderful photographs from the trip and people are really enjoying them. As always, he has to work through the 1,500 he took to decide which ones to actually process. That’s the whole deal of digital cameras where a photographer can take hundreds of shots quickly, then use different software in post-processing. That is the extent of my knowledge of the subject. He plans to do another book of our trip like he did of the trip to Disney. I don’t remember which company he uses for it, but they do a nice job and it’s not terribly expensive.

We have the rain bands from Hurricane Helene. It’s going up the Gulf side and way up into Georgia and Tennessee. That means lots of rain, not much wind for us and at least this time, Houston may be spared. Not sure about my brother and sister-in-law in Mandeville though. Will check on them later this morning.

In the week since my return, it’s been fairly jammed as I dealt with the most critical things first. Everything was productive and it was worth the time spent. In the 2.5 things I was able to accomplish for myself while gone, I completed the post-beta read changes to Shades of Remorse and my primary editor for scuba-involved books is available. I sent her the manuscript yesterday and she’ll be able to start next week. Hooray! My intent is for the book to be out the end of October/first part of November.

Sequencing in this one was tricky as was the use of a triple point of view (POV). As I mentioned in some previous posts, the long gap since my last book was I have never tackled a triple POV. There are different ways to do so and I don’t care for a couple of those techniques. It took a while for me to decide and quite frankly, it is complicated. Sequencing was difficult as well and in fact, even after the beta-read, something still felt “off”. I figured out it was the sequencing of four chapters toward the end. I had to move those around just a bit for the right flow. I’ll see if the editor responds in the same way.

Unlike most of my books, there is no view point from the “bad guy/woman” and so the reader doesn’t have the same insight as I’ve provided in the past. There are numerous linkages to “pick up on” as Detective Bev Henderson is faced with her first cold case as the story opens with finding a skeleton in the water. After the dead man is identified, there is more than one viable motive, but with forty years elapsed, there is no supporting forensics to help. Much is set against the backdrop of an old motel converted into apartments where four older women reside; one of whom is the widow. Added to the mix is the sudden appearance of the owner’s niece whom she had never met due to the estrangement of the two sisters.

You can see why this novel is especially complex.

A stretch of days with ups and downs to impact my usual busy schedule. I have a situation with my sister that includes me spending at least a week, more likely twelve days in Houston to help with her post-rehab after surgery for a broken leg. That means scrambling to get a number of things either taken care of before I leave or figure a way to handle while gone.

On the “really, why now?”, front my high-speed printer went crazy and it wasn’t very old. Decided to swap from HP to Cannon and that’s all fine and good except after install, it isn’t working properly. No doubt some weird little thing that the Geeks can clear up once Hubby has a chance to get with them. I do have the other printer that can do for now.

The pool is finally finished and they cleared up the mess of the last two weeks. It definitely looks better and hopefully we won’t have to go through this again. My desire to have some sort of easier automated way to turn the hot tub on came at such a ridiculous price, I can’t justify it. Part of that is the lights we had replaced were far more expensive to replace than expected, but going with LED should also mean they last for a long time.

On the “up” side, Hubby’s presentation, “Photographing the Everglades”, on Friday went well despite the stupid mistake I made with getting a small projector. I completely misunderstood what this thing was and he was gracious about it. Now to figure out if there is anyone out there who can actually use this thing and maybe get another one. The issue is it can only be used in an almost completely darkened room and the images can’t be seen well from much of a distance. In other words, it’s great for a small conference room; not so much for anything else. It certainly is small and easy to carry.

Ah well, June won’t be a two times out on the water after all. It’s a combination of things with extra commitments and tricky weather. It is the rainy season and so we are getting frequent afternoon downpours; some of which are severe thunderstorms. Several days ago one was so bad the museum had significant water intrusion and disrupted operations. While most of what had to happen was taken care of by others, there was a lot of back-and-forth about what was going on and those things take time. There have also been some issues with scheduling different events and coordination that isn’t going as well as I had hoped. Nothing drastic, merely time-consuming.

On the writing front I am pushing to get the first draft of Shades of Remorse completed before my trip so I can maybe do some editing while traveling. Even though I will be relocating every day, I am likely to have some stretches of time in motel rooms, too. My process for writing is I leave gaps in the first go-round in order to get the main plot and subplots where they need to be. That puts me at what I refer to as the seventy percent mark. Filling in those gaps, working out any disconnects in sequencing, plot, or character behavior takes me to the eighty percent level and ready for what is called Beta Read. That’s bringing in a fresh pair of eyes. Some authors use multiple Betas, but I’m fortunate in having my wonderful Hubby. This is the only time I print the manuscript. I then read it aloud to him; a few chapters at a time. We do this during morning coffee and while prepping dinner instead of watching TV. After that go-round, I edit those changes in preparation of sending it to the professional editor. Speaking of which, I have to email the editor I use for these books to see if she is available. They travel a fair amount. I have two editors; one foe scuba-related books and one for everything else.

A conversation about working under extremely uncomfortable conditions reminded me of not only those times in the Army when weather conditions were terrible, but also my boot issues. To start with, while I was a bit of a tomboy, that did not extend into being athletic. Going into the Army and being as small as I was did cause a number of issues. Actually, my first boot-related injury was while in ROTC. The single field exercise I went on included tromping through some swampy water. They had no boots to come close to fitting my size 4.5, so extra socks in the smallest size they had might have worked if I hadn’t a) had to wear them as long as I did and b) maybe if we hadn’t gone through the water with God knows what kind of bacteria. Anyway, multiple blisters that burst, then became infected was not fun.

Moving forward when I was at Fort McClellan for initial WAC training, they did at least have size 5. What none of us knew was women’s boots were not designed with the same support as men’s. In all fairness, we were among the first group of women who were expected to do more running. So, not liking to run anyway, when I began to experience pain in my ankle, I ignored it. Then it was both ankles and when I literally couldn’t walk down the hall without leaning against a wall dragging my feet, I agreed I needed to go to the clinic. Achilles tendons strained in both ankles; common for women. Had I known, I would have gone in immediately. They did later do away with women’s boots in favor of better support. And a number of years later, medical people finally convinced the Army running in boots was a really bad idea and proper shoes were allowed for physical exercise. Oh, it was running three mornings a week and alternate exercise two days a week.

There was another time I won’t describe, but you get the idea.