Tuesday, May 21, 2013

All's Right With the World

Riddle: A horse is tied to a five meter rope in front of an old saloon. Six meters behind the horse is a bale of hay. Without breaking his rope, the horse is able to eat the hay whenever he chooses. How is this possible?

C’est fini!  Sort of.  That is, I sent a completed manuscript of The Drowning Spool to my agent and my editor at 2:30 am Monday morning.  But it’s only around 65,000 words instead of my usual 80,000.  That can be fixed – there are some holes in the plot that need filling.  One is a siamese kitten Betsy is offered that otherwise will go to the Humane Society.  I avoided making her decide what to do – because I didn’t know what to do.  I’ll have to think about that.  Oh, I’m sure it won’t end up on death row at the Humane Society, but where will it end up?

Coming on toward the end of the story, the plot took a few turns I wasn’t expecting, but the surprise I was planning on did happen.  I sent the last few chapters off without much editing; that, too, can be fixed.  But right now it’s out of my hands.  Hurrah!  And I made good a promise to myself to turn in early Monday evening and slept till 7:30 this morning..

Spring is sprung here with a vengeance!  We have crocus, daffodils, tulips, flowering crab and pear and apple and cherry trees, forsythia, dandelions, iris, and even some lilac, all flowering at the same time.  I don’t think we’ve had a single day where the temperature hovered in the seventies.  It’s been either forties and fifties or eighties.  I think we’re going to have about ten days of spring, then the pools will open and it’ll be summer.  I’ve played golf four times and each time either froze or sweltered.  Weird.




One effect of having gotten that manuscript off is that I can now pay attention to other things going on in the world.  And one effect of that is a decision to go downtown at noon today to take part in a protest demonstration at the IRS building on Marquette Avenue.  Those people need to hear from us!

Heads up: An entry from my first mystery series, Ashes to Ashes will be offered free as an Amazon e-book download June 1 through 5.  If  you like dogs, you’ll love meeting Michael D’Arcangelo, a black standard poodle with guard dog training and a mind of his own.

Solution:  The other end of the rope is not tied to anything.

2 comments:

Linda O. Johnston said...

Congrats on finishing the manuscript, Monica, even if some edits may be required. Glad you're catching up on some sleep, too! And I'm sure those unexpected plot turns helped to make the writing even more fun.

Betty Hechtman said...

I loved the answer to the riddle. It made me laugh.

Congrats on sending off your manuscript. Nice that you can enjoy spring. When I was in Chicago last month the spring flowers were just popping up, but I missed the lilacs.