November again.

My character Patty is a bit annoyed with me right now. She's been trapped in the back of a horse trailer for a few weeks now, along with a nervous mare. She made it out of the trailer at one point, only to go back in when I changed my mind about how to start the scene. Ah well, I guess that's how life goes when you're a made-up person.

I wonder if anyone's ever come up with a special theory of relativity with regard to the passage of time, one that says that when you hit around age 50, your sense of the passage of time changes so much that it's like driving off a country lane onto a superhighway. It doesn't seem to me like it should be November already.

We got enough rain a while back to move us down to the 'severe' level of drought, but have since moved back up to 'extreme'. In case you're wondering, the levels are: D0-Abnormally Dry; D1-Moderate; D2-Severe; D3-Extreme; D4-Exceptional. I don't know that we were ever actually in the Exceptional category during the summer, but according to the drought tracking maps, we were very close to it. Burn bans and all, which meant a number of unhappy fireworks sellers since not that many people were buying. No burn ban currently. The weather's mostly been clear, with temps in the fifties and sixties during the days. Very little to complain about, though, compared to what's gone on in the Northeast.

One of the blogs I read regularly is that of Janet Reid, who is a literary agent who works with a lot of mystery fiction. In one recent post, she talked about authors who self-published their work with the thought of using it to get the attention of the big presses. She has Some Hard Numbers to report about what those authors are up against. I'd heard some numbers bandied about with regard to how many copies needed to sell before a big press would take notice of you, but these are magnitudes greater.

The longer I'm in this business, the more I realize that you need to write because you enjoy it and because you really don't have any choice (a writer will understand what that means), and not because you think you're going to get rich. The Hollywood stereotype of the rich author lounging by the pool with cocktail in hand, taking a break from the latest round of book signings and literary parties, is just that, a made-up stereotype. For the vast majority of us, it ain't gonna happen.

Now, about what I've been reading lately...

On the NOOK:

World's Greatest Sleuth!, by Steve Hockensmith.

Holmes on the Range series. Old Red and Big Red are invited to a contest by Big Red's publisher, pitting themselves against the authors of other dime-novel detective stories and a few real detectives for the title World's Greatest Sleuth. Set against the Chicago World's Fair in the Old West days.

Some Agatha Christie:

Poirot's Early Cases
The Mysterious Affair at Styles
The Secret Adversary
Three Act Tragedy

In Paper:

The Complete Kitchen Cabinetmaker, by Robert W. Lang

Oldly enough, an interesting read. I find myself looking at cabinet details with an eye toward how they were made. Though it's always better if there's no one else in the room when you open cabinets to look at how the hinges were installed, lol!

All for now~~