Betsy Whitt

The fall theme I chose doesn’t let me display the links to my website pages other than the blog, which is problematic. I’ll see what I can come up with to fix it in a suitably autumnal fashion.

Also, for those of you who are keeping track, I’ve revised through 76% of the manuscript. You know, except for the bits I still have to write. There are some of those. But woohoo more than 3/4 of the way done! (Sorta.) Woohoo!

Since I’m thinking of autumnal things, I decided it was about time to change the blog theme, so enjoy the pretty fall design!

I would really rather read instead of work on the novel today - it just seems like that sort of day. But Will assures me that at this point in his own Seton Hill experience, he felt the same way, and he highly advocates working on the novel every day *before* reading fun stuff. So I’m listening to the Voice of Experience (and logic) and making myself work first.

I was up early to take Matt to campus, so I swung by the local farmers market to see if our favorite orchard folks were there - they were, so I got some peaches and pears, a few tomatoes, and our first 20-pound box of apples of the season. We look forward to these apples all year. They’re a Jonathan cross (I never remember what other variety they’re crossed with), with the perfect balance of sweet and tart. They’re small - the big ones are rarely larger than a baseball, smaller ones look rather like squished golf balls, so they’re perfect for a little snack as we go for a walk. And they make fantastic apple chips. I expect we’ll be pulling down the food dryer from its usual place on top of the kitchen cupboards and running it more or less nonstop until we get through this box. Then we’ll get another box and do it again.

There are things I love about each season, and apples are definitely a big part of fall’s goodness.

Dear Betsy,

Please double or triple check that you’ve entered your express bill payments online in the right rows. Otherwise, you may misplace four thousand dollars and trigger a money meltdown the next month.

Tell yourself all you like that it wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t tuition-paying season. You still have every right to feel sheepish.

And strangely triumphant.

Better luck for the future,
Betsy

It’s cold outside today. No, not just “I might wear capris instead of shorts” cold, 53 degrees cold. That’s like. . . 30 degrees colder than yesterday. And I have to say, I love Colorado. You just never know what you’re going to get.

Also, the jeans I was so happy about last week? They’re still fantastic, thanks.

Shiloh has turned into velcro-dog this week. She’s been extra-cuddley, extra interested in being nearby, to the point of settling down next to the Wii Balance Board for her morning chew while I exercised this morning. She’s currently leaning against my desk stool.

Mom and I were talking this morning, and realized that there might be a connection between my recent discipline in exercising every day (okay, 8 out of the last 9 days) and my positive outlook on the manuscript work. It certainly isn’t hurting, at any rate. And I’m still having a good time with it. I’m less of a push up weenie already.

Pretty much everything else proceeds as usual. I’ve got one scene that needs a bit more emotion, and then I’ll be reading the latest chunk of manuscript out loud before I send it along to critique partners and mentor. And then I’ll be jumping right in with revisions on the tail end of the book.

And since I haven’t posted an excerpt in a while, here’s a bit of Kerris’s-rusty-horsemanship-meets-headstrong-horse for you:

I lost my stirrups and hung on somewhere halfway down Zayiit’s shoulder. Beating hooves drilled out any thoughts except trying to haul myself back into the saddle with the untrustworthy fist full of mane I’d managed to hold onto.

Barak appeared on foot up ahead, though I had no idea how he got there. He shouted commands and set himself to block the horse’s path with his considerable bulk. For a moment I almost believed if he could get a hand on the reins Barak could haul the horse to a stop, but in the end it didn’t matter. The last tendrils of Zayiit’s sparse mane slipped through my fingers.

Good times, good times.

63% done with the general revisions/edits stuff. One read-through of chapters 10-22 out loud, and I’ll be moving on to the tail end of the book, and hopefully working through it fast.

Aside from one scene that I still can’t find the right way to end, I’m functionally 60% done with the novel revisions. . . maybe a touch more. The numbers are misleading this time around (if you’ll note, I was 48% done on August 5th) since I figure the percentages based on word count, and how far through the document I’ve edited. But this last 12% of material had a lot that needed deeper adjustments than just a quick line edit or wording tweak. Several scenes got rewritten, several got written in the first place, and it became essential to really map out my adjusted timeline, among other things. So I’m feeling quite good about this progress - there’s still a bit more that will need more extensive adjusting, but then it will ease up again toward the end.

At the moment, I’m pretty sure my head won’t explode, after all. Don’t worry, by Tuesday there will be explosion warnings again. Just you wait.

Because I try not to leave you without entertainment.

Because I wouldn’t want to leave you with nothing to do:

I figured out the major malfunction with the novel this week - something I’d identified while we were on the trip, but didn’t have time to fix. It’s been dealt with, though there are still a few things to do to make sure all the plot points have been accounted for. Yesterday I was at The Day Job, but today I’m going to make significant progress if it kills me. So that’s that.