Blank.

Song of the day: “Open road” by Bryan Adams. Not strange that this one tumbles through my head, considering it’s grand.

Another scorcher past by, ending in a similarly hot evening. There was an odd kind of light; it literally assaulted the eyes whenever we ventured outside. It was strange. At first, it seemed as if it was because of the sparse clouds dotting the sky, but then, after they disappeared, the light remained. It was as if there was some sort of filter over the sun, which literally deepened the colors and contrasts until they almost hurt the eyes.

There was lots of swimming today. A necessary thing what with temperatures hitting close to the forties and a hot breeze making things worse. At times, it felt as if I was moving through thick molasses. Slow motion movements were definitely the main theme today, for man and dog alike. Hah.

I hit the laundry early, seeing as the day started out heating up fast, and then big brother and I decided to circumvent edits for a bit, in favor of focusing on preparing a couple more packages to send out to publishers next week. We printed stuff out like fiends, checking addresses, names and going over the material for a final time, so if the publisher who’s looking at our material say no, and sends the dreaded rejection, we’ll be able to plunge head first into the mailing spree once more.

It is a rather annoying venture, what with our market being U.S. based on the most part. You see, according to a massive amount of research, a manuscript can be rejected on the basis of a wrong paper size…I kid you not. Apparently, it is not enough to have a good story, an excellent query letter and synopsis; nope the paper has to be U.S. letter sized come hell or high water. Aaargh.

Now, I wouldn’t care one way or other…if we could actually get it around here, but since we can’t this means that we have to cut A5 paper into the required size for the entire friggin’ manuscript, just to be able to send it out. In light of this particular problem, I’m pleased every time we find a particular publisher that is based in the U.K., where our standard A4 is preferred.

Sure, I get it, it’s annoying to have to adjust to different sizes if you have to pour over miles of papers during the course of any given day, but come on. It makes things ridiculously hard for us poor Europeans who are eager to venture across the ocean, doesn’t it. Ah well, at least we’ve got it all figured out now, leaving us with two packets, each of the required sizes.

Another edit follows the mailing preparations, but when it turns out that it is still going as slow and annoying as yesterday, I give up and focus on preparing dinner instead.

Quiche. I’ve been thinking about it for quite a bit now, wanting to try out the recipe in my head so I can, one day add it to the veggie cooking book, and am most curious as to the result.
It takes about two hours to prepare. A crust needs to be made, albeit a basic one. Veggies get sliced and diced and herbs picked. Once a nice mix is created and the crust has baked for 7 minutes (to prevent stickiness) I stir up an egg, milk and cheese mix as the topping.

Dinner is served right on the dot and it was a raving success: Very different, hardy and delicious. Can’t get any better than that, I guess.

A quick dip in the pool is required after the rather lengthy cook/bake but afterwards I can fully enjoy the meal before big brother and I resume our edit…where the same problem continues on until I feel like I want to scream. Finally we just decide to let the scene lie as it is and return to the sections that were dealt with in the past few days.

We are most pleased to not that even though it doesn’t feel that way the efforts of the past week were not for nothing. The changes are good, and with the last remaining semantics and details dealt with the scene flows perfectly and leaves us content when it’s time to retire for the night.

I have another swim and then head for my cabin, the dogs breathing heavy and sluggishly making their way up the mountain when the night persists to be warmer than expected.
The night is going to be mighty interesting, that’s a fact. I’ll let you know whether or not my brain has melted, come morning. Hah.