Making A Living As A Writer

I wonder whether this is just a temporary change in the weather, or a more seasonal shift. It got down to 57 degrees this morning, and I awoke at six o’clock feeling so cold that I had to drag a blanket across the bed for the first time since the end of June. Most likely it was the thunderstorm, which hit just about sundown last night, and dragged the temperature down from around 86 to 61 in twenty minutes. It looks as though we may have had something approaching a half inch of rain.

I was cheered, when I went to do my emailing, to hear from a friend who is spending a couple of months in India. She reports on a colleague of hers, a novelist, who has just taken seven years to complete a new book. She also put my snake worries in perspective, telling me that they are infested with cobras. Of course, all I’ve seen  since I bought those $125 boots is a single bull-snake on the door-step, which I chased off with the broom. So maybe they’re doing the job they were intended for, in which case I’d say I got a bargain. Not that I’m relaxing. I’m still bearing in mind that when Jules Sandoz got bitten that time, and had to use his shotgun to blow the poisoned area off his hand and let it bleed, it was well into September.

For some weeks I’ve been seeing what look to me like common or garden daisies scattered around the grassland. Closer inspection – as I tried, unsuccessfully, to photograph one – revealed that they were certainly different from our bellis perennis, which grows in lawns. What I’ve been seeing is in fact fleabane – but I still can’t get a decent picture of it. I blame the wind.

Either today or tomorrow I expect I shall be visiting the dentist, in the hope that he can re-build my disintegrated molar. Otherwise I expect this to be a quiet week, a busy and productive time at my keyboard. The roofing job, I understand, is scheduled for Labor Day weekend, so it’ll be a while before I’m interrupted. Some time ago I mentioned that I might be reining back on the blog in order to concentrate on writing this longer piece. Yesterday, when I picked it up  to read through what I’d got, I must admit I was worried. What sets your pulse racing after a long day’s work often looks flat and second-rate next day. But… maybe. Maybe this time it’s working. I added 1200 words during the morning, went back several times and tinkered with the crucial opening page or two, and finally decided that, yes, I can probably take this forward. When I’ve got a few more pages written, and feel more confident about it, I hope to put up an extract. Meanwhile, I will be putting fewer, maybe shorter posts over the next two months.