Song of the day: “Right back where I started” by Bryan Adams. How very apropos. For all intents and purposes it does seem that way now that the excitement is over and done with, and we’re back to waiting. Hah.
After waking up, right on the dot, (the alarm went off after all) on this rather humid morning, I hurry through the morning rituals just so I’ll be able to head for the house where it should be a few degrees cooler than in my cabin. The dogs are acting insane this morning, which isn’t odd considering that big brother took the car, and is over at the shop while I enter the house. I turn on the radio, turn up the volume and set to work on the morning chores.
I take my time today - speed is never a good thing during the summer months - hanging and folding laundry and then have a bit of breakfast as I start pouring coffee down my throat. Waking up is not the best part of the day, I’ll admit, especially not with these temperatures. Still takes some getting used to after a cool winter, I guess.
Since big brother is likely to take a while yet, I get started on the edit for “Hunters” going through the basic spelling and grammar, since that will only keep us up during the rewrite edit. It is slow going, but luckily, Word does have that wonderfully useful program where all the wrong parts of a sentence are displayed. It is put to excellent use for a change.
Going through the pages that haven’t been looked at for at least eight years, I once again see the proof of my improvement in the English language. So many errors, and though most of the words are correct, their spelling is iffy at best. Hah. I’ve a feeling that most of them are written phonetically, more than anything. Yes, it’s going to be quite a bit of work, but it will be worth it in the end, I think.
By the time big brother returns home, I’ve got water boiling for macaroni, which I intend to use for a pasta salad later today, and we switch over to the prequel of “Saving Nina”, titled: “Commanding Morgan”.
It is a fascinating story, really, based on two characters featured in SN, who were just so great that I had to write about them as well. This story, belonging to the “No Escape From Rising Sun” series is an emotional trap for the unsuspecting reader, making it a clear contrast to Nina’s psychological maze that is puzzling at the best of times.
CM is less “out of the box”, true, but no less interesting in my opinion. I loved writing this story as much - and in some ways even more - as Saving Nina, simply because the main character is so emotionally scarred and fighting so hard not to show it, while her innocence is still intact. It not an easy ting to achieve, but it was a successful endeavor, I think.
A story about love conquering all, in a world riddled with dangers that lurk around every corner. What is better than that, I ask you. Hah.
I was excited during the writing, endeared, fascinated and at the same time cried buckets during the touchy scenes. Yes, I assure you, I got plenty of exasperated glances during the course of putting the manuscript together. “Sam, they’re just words. You’re writing it for crying out loud. If it’s so sad, change it. Jeez!” I heard these words a lot. My answer: “I can’t. This is what it’s supposed to be like…and besides, it’s so beeeahuhuhutiful.” *sob, sob, sob, sniff*
Ah yes, the turmoil of an author with tortured characters. I’ve said it before and I will again, no doubt; the things we put our characters through will make is burn in hell for sure. Hah.
But anyways, during the course of the morning (after a quick dip in the pool to fight the stickiness) we go through the first ten pages of the manuscript, pleased that compared to Saving Nina it is going to need some fine-tuning at most. This isn’t a big surprise, considering I’ve edited Commanding Morgan twice as many times, as I did SN. I am glad to see that the effort paid off, however.
By the time our usual working hours draw to an end, the outside temperatures have turned from warm to hot, but since things have been going a tad slow for the past few days, we are determined to head on outside to do some manual labor anyway. Rather than work in the hot sun, we decide to make some cement by hand, and take the full wheelbarrow to the back of the house where a section of the fence needs to be set up again, just as soon as we’ve finished a small wall.
The chore has been waiting for several months now, and since the weather won’t permit anything more taxing, we figure we might as well get to it. Building up the 3’ by 5’ wall takes only little time, and by the time the pole has been set in it, this particular task is over and done with in little under two hours.
While we were working on this particular section, the younger sibs made dinner…leaving a modest amount for my salad, of course…but rather than have dinner, big brother and I decide to head out for a nice relaxing jog, even though the temperatures are still a tad high.
We’ve just arrived at our usual spot and are about to head out when a Guardia Civil (state police) comes driving up, informing us that this path is no longer admissible during the hot summer months. It has something to do with it being a fire hazard, and so, we are forced to return to the beginning of the path. Instead of our usual course, we are now forced to take a section of the path that is a little less level, but all in all, it doesn’t go bad at all. I actually manage to keep up the pace for longer sections than I thought I would. Hah.
It is dreadfully warm, however. So by the end of the run, I’m glowing, and wouldn’t have been one bit surprised if steam would have come off me. Rather than doing the stationary exercises by the side of the rather busy road (all traffic is still diverted to this part of the mountain due to construction) I postpone it until we arrive home.
Feeling remarkably revived after the entire thing, I take a few minutes to soak in the pool and then it’s back inside to have dinner.
We remove the stitches from Amri’s chest…way too late, but it’s looking good and the removing part was less of a hassle than I thought it would be. We have to put him in a headlock, but it goes without a hitch. Next we want to do Clue’s as well, but the pointer has caught onto our scheme and has miraculously disappeared into thin air, in the three seconds it took us to locate his last location. We look everywhere, but he’s gone without a trace. Smart dog. Hah. Ah well, tomorrow’s another day.
The rest of the evening is spent with another page or two of edits, but since we’re both tired, big brother and I decide to call it an early night and head to our respective quarters in hopes of a good night’s rest instead.
The evening is still hot by the time I arrive at my cabin and feed the dogs, so the first thing I do is stick my head in a tub of water before I set up the computer for a quick recount of the day, still dripping and fully enjoying the whirring fan beside my bed.
According to the weather, it will be hotter yet tomorrow. *sigh* The pleasures of Southern Spain, ya gotta love it…and luckily, I do.
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