Distractions

As expected, the writing has taken a few days off with the Basketball tourny, the World Baseball Classic, the weather turning warm, and the nagging beginning to get me outside, digging in the dirt. I have managed to spend a few late nights, early mornings, getting some of the pieces reworked and in presentable form but the book is not as far along as it should be. All, or at least most, of the minor distractions will end this coming week and remove any logical excuse for the delay.

I did get a few pictures for the book cover last week. The "E" suggested a church to, sort of, follow along with the first two books but I'm not sure. This area has nice looking churches, white with tall steeples, and stained glass windows, but there is a problem tying it all together with the crime, blood, and stuff. Light a candle so that I may see my way to an evangelical solution. As always, I'm still searching for that perfect street scene that will fit the descriptions in the story. I never did find a Town Hall that I liked. The Book II cover came from the old courthouse square in Perry, GA. That was close to what I had in mind for the stores on "Main Street" Powers Trace.

I'll add a few pieces of the book here to let everyone see where I'm heading. It's mostly catchup items now to get everything in sync so, maybe, by the first part of April I'll have enough to show off at least part of the first chapter.

The Web Site is blooming.

Up until now the Web Site ("Seventy and Beyond") has carried the book stuff. I planned all along to use a separate site for the books, for general, basic information with a blog linked in for less formal chit-chat and comments from the readers. It is now a reality. I have taken the posts from the Web Site and will continue that part here. If you are reading this, then you found the blog, either from the main book site or through the blog URL address.

The whole procedure is straight forward so no one should have any problems getting here. If you follow the link from the Web site, you can use the "Back" key to get out the way you came in. Dropping from here, the blog, will probably take you out of the browser, back to your main screen.

I plan on updating this sight weekly and use Twitter for the daily blather. Follow along. Use the "Comment" below to send me a note. Also see the new feature where you can rate the post as "Funny", "Interesting" or "Cool". None of this means much but it's there.

And so it goes

I've passed into the 'sloppy' period again. I spend part of the day writing, think of something new, switch to that, and then forget where I was in the beginning. Focused? Not yet it seems. This book will have three, count 'em, three main plots. I like all of them and want to get to the meat before the brain locks up. One of the choke points is that this book starts five years after Powers Trace II ends. This means I have to bring the characters up to date, filling in what has happened in those five years. I need to do this to get to a point in this, the third book, to bring the story of the town The Chief, and his people to a conclusion. There is a lot to cover but I think it will all come together and allow me to say goodbye to my friends and move on to other projects.

I can't start thinking ahead to what comes next. That's probably the reason for the lack of focus.
(A term I hate.)

So there already!

Yes, nonbeliever, there is a snow fairy and he came through middle Georgia on the 1st of March 2009. He didn't stay long but the show was beautiful.







The cookout in the Gazebo has been called off until the weather returns to warm and humid.



I have already received notes from those who don't believe the SNOW story. Middle Georgia received light rain from Friday evening up to about 10:00 Sunday morning when it suddenly turned to snow. Not little bits of snow but the BIG flakes you see out west in the mountains. The ground was still warm, or not cold, so nothing stuck until a couple of hours later, around noon. Every flake that hit pavement, streets and sidewalks, melted so the snow built up on the grass areas. It snowed until mid afternoon and stopped. It all melted within 30 minutes. An hour later it began to snow again, harder this time, with the wind blowing it in circles. It lasted long enough to get a good covering as seen above.

This is all the winter I need, just a taste to remind me of what it looks like but with the decency to head on up North where it belongs. I doubt that the county has a working snow plow. Just a few John Deers with lift bucket.

Plugging along

A new month, March, is here and I hope it will help to get me organized and focused. As usual, I go into a new book with an overall plot plan in my head, which gets me going. But an overall plan means many divergent paths and I tend to jump from one to another as I dream up new stuff. It's not really a waste of time because I can save all of the drivel and go back to cut and paste it into the book as needed. This is my version of the "Shotgun approach". Sometimes the pattern is too wide and you have to choke down to get back on track.

Had to laugh last night. As I was writing about weather in Powers Trace the NOAA radio beeped warning of tornadoes in the area. Then the TV guy started talking about snow, yeah SNOW on the 1st of March. I think it is wishful thinking but, I can assure you, anytime the weather guy even hints at a possible snow flake in this area half a dozen good-ole-boys start digging through the basement looking for the snow chains. This morning the sky is a dark gray, the wind is picking up and snow IS falling in Alabama. For the kids sake I hope it comes here. I have friends who have lived in this area for decades and have never seen a real snow flake.