Category writing

Jan 15 2013

Tues.. already :)

Sometimes I just don’t know where the time flies.

What happened to Sunday and Monday… lol.

Well, loved the 40th party for my friend. It was really frosty going out, but I wasn’t driving so I relaxed and let hubby look after me.

Colin had a lovely birthday party, the food was good, the singing was good. And the DJ his brother was good too… 🙂

Sunday, was just a chill out day for me, I’d drank more than a bottle of wine, and something a work collegue introduced to me, called ‘desperados’ very strong, had tequila in it. yikes.

When they announced the bar was doing shots for 1.50 I steered clear. Didn’t have a hang over or anything so that made a nice change.

And then we were back in work. A frost morning and a dull start to the week. That sort of continued across into today. People don’t have the cash after the hols to buy lunch out every day. It’s to be expected, so it always drops off this time of year, still it makes the day’s drag when you don’t get to see or chat to everyone.

Got a good couple of reviews on the first two chapters of TSK – The Beginning now. 🙂 Think I am getting there, still a long way to go, but I know the more I learn about my own style and mistakes the easier the other chapters are to alter.

I am very hopeful that this latest ‘version’ will have much better thoughts from my beta readers.

I also sorted out some hours with a ‘mentor/coach’ yesterday. When I get paid at the end of the month, I can arrange some time with her to work through any other issues, but it’s all really exciting now. I am so stoked to be getting this book ready for market. I don’t care how long it takes, even if I miss the June deadline for createspace. It will be published.

In other news, Best Friends Ep 5 is being filmed in Feb, a little harder to do for the team this time around as it involves actually being in LA… mega stuff.

Can’t wait for that, they’ve secured a wonderful location to be the ‘ice cream parlour’ Do check it out on their facebook page.

🙂

How is everyone else doing?

D

Jan 12 2013

Started well :)

Hey there everyone, this morning started well.

Got some more editing done. 🙂 yey!

Then went to help my brother with the new dance school. Painting and cleaning. They’re having a party for my niece this afternoon, but I didn’t go to that, wanted to get some rest before going out this evening to a friends party in Skem.

Got home and found the bottom drain on the pond blocked had to sort that out… it was freezing, not a good time to mess about in water, but I sorted it.

Had a small sleep, and now we’re ready to go out. Whoop whoop!!

Going to enjoy myself tonight, catch you in the morning…

Dawn x x

Jan 10 2013

Tough first week…

Hi everyone.

It has been a tough week and this has reflected on everything I’ve been doing.

Work is slow, which makes the day drag, I love my customers, love seeing them to chat even for a brief moment while they buy their lunch, but it’s a drag for them, and it’s the same for me. They’re all suffering with January blues and it makes me feel even worse too. 😦

Anyway, last night I went to a gent’s house to do a pond visit. He put a message up on the forum I help mod and seeing as he bought pond equipment off me last year, and lived local, I offered to take a look at his fish.

Paul took me up there, Liverpool isn’t too far away, but I don’t like new places in the dark. lol, we had dinner in a local pub which was really nice and then went to visit the pond.

Catching fish in the dark, wasn’t so easy for him, but we caught two.

When you first look into a strange pond. There are several tell tail signs which your looking for.

How the fish are reacting to you being there?

How are they swimming?

and when caught how docile are they?

what the mucus scrape looks like when you first take it?

to be fair his fish were quite responsive, they were for the most part swimming about okay, one or two were a little lopsided though so that was the first indicator.

The second to me was the mucus sample we took. It was grey and thick.

A healthy fish has an almost clear sample. This wasn’t.

So, really I knew I was looking for something under the scope, I just wasn’t so sure what I’d find.

The first sample was from a sanke, it had pinked shiro (white skin) and stress veins showing. Under the scope, it also had flukes…

First one done. Looking over the slide, probably around 20 flukes.

Second scrape came from a Magoi, much bigger than the first, and although it should have been a rich black, was greying with over producing mucus.

Again this had flukes on, (skin flukes I believe)

But I also found a few Chilodonella as well.

I carried on looking for about 30 mins, checking both slide again to make sure I wasn’t missing anything smaller, like Costia, but even though I thought I saw the odd, tiny movement, I couldn’t spot anything else.

Job done. And I left, at least knowing he could treat the pond correctly and his fish would soon be much happier. 🙂

—————————-

On the writing side of things this week.

I’ve read a lot, and I’ve edited a lot of the first three chapters of TSK – The beginning. I’ve also had some very good crits back from the nano website and from the OWWSFF which is a crit site specifically for sci fi, fanstasy and horror writers.

I finally think the first three chapters are getting there. Only another 26 to go… lol.

Looking forward to the weekend.

How are you all doing? Busy, slow, what’s your first full week back at work etc like?

Take care and speak soon.

Dawn

Jan 7 2013

Gutted!

After a wonderful weekend spent editing. I can to open my file today and realised in horror… I’ve been editing the wrong one 😦

I have had a much earlier file open and I’ve left it open, day in, day out.

‘cries’

I can only hope that I haven’t strayed from my goal ‘the first three chapters’ and that its easily fixed. Or, I might have to just start all over again.

I am more than gutted.

Tip to all writers. Make sure you’re in the correct file….

😦

Dawn xx

Jan 5 2013

Love Sat mornings :)

Been up and about really early. The other half is always in bed till after ten.

It gives me time to be out and about, clean the ponds, look over the fish and see how they’re all doing.

The weather today is lovely and dry and sunny 🙂 bonus, so the garden really looks nice and ready for spring.

However, I do think it won’t last long. Feb and March are usually our worst months. I guess we will have to see.

So, my goals for today are after finishing off the ponds to take a walk to the village and get some exercise and then to carry on with editing the first few chapters.

I’ve had a couple of days to think things through, so I have a plan…

I also want to post a blog later with all the editing tips I’ve found that are very useful. And some of my own which cross over from script writing.

Busy day, so I should get on with it.

Hope you all have a lovely morning.

Dawn x