Finally caught up with the finish line!!

sunny and hot - again! temps 30

Wow - what sizzling days!!! Great to be in the country - but too hot to sit outside. I know many of you are experiencing the same thing. Hope you aren't suffering too much with the heat. I find not being able to sleep the worst. God bless geo-thermal, and our great good fortune to be able to put it in, and to do it before the heatwave.

Finished the second draft!!!! 5pm yesterday. I was determined to do it....but not to rush so fast to the end that I skipped over things that needed to be done. I can do that if I'm not careful - get caught up in the goal and forget that point is a great product. A month from now it won't matter what day I finished the draft - but it will matter if I did a good job.

I'd not sooner finished, though, and celebrated....than I remembered an issue that needs to be added. But I won't worry about that now. Plenty of time to do that in the next draft. I'll take the week off, relax, watch the old Avengers and My Cousin Vinny and the new Poirot movies on DVD....and zone out. Then start the next draft next Sunday.

Each draft gets less scary, as I grow more confident that the book is shaping into what I want. What I'd hoped and dreamed it would be before I started. I aways have a 'feeling' for a book....what I want to feel when I've finished it, and what I long for you to feel when you finish reading....and that's what I'm aiming at. And with each draft, I get a little closer. Actually with the first and second I get a lot closer...and then each subsequent draft is fine tuning...those small but crucial elements. The grace notes. Smoothing, simplifying - getting my fear and ego and need to impress out of it - and make it simply the story I want to tell.

Of course, my ego masquerades as 'brilliant' writing. Turns of phrase that will enthrall and delight the reader. But over the course of drafts they get taken out, if their only purpose is to impress. And what stays is what needs to be there. I hope. But, wow, is it every painful!!! It's an imperfect process, because I'm so flawed. But the books, and perhaps I, get better. As a writer, but mostly as a person, I hope. Happily, I think the two for me go hand in hand.

So the second draft is done....and I'm going to chill out (sort of) this week....and just enjoy. Phew!

Had such a fun week with the Mounts and Trevor. As you can see from one of the photos, we had them over for dinner one night, and Michael spent dinner with them at the cottage while I was in Montreal working. When they came here for dinner we did a barbeque we'd never tried before, but had heard a lot about. Fresh salmon on cedar planks. I found the whole idea so intimidating I wouldn't consider trying....but then we decided that we might as well. Michael and Trevor did the actual barbequing - after we'd marinated the salmon. And it turned out beautifully. though i was a little concerned that when Michael invited them over for dinner he seemed to imply that we were serving them barbequed cedar planks.

but they showed up anyway. We also served fresh corn on the cob and broccoli salad, and tomato, bocanccini(sp?) and basil from our herb garden.

A few days ago I showed you our first tomato...well, the plants have been chugging away, producing more. But we seem to have invented a whole new form of agriculture. Micro farming. Producing micro-vegetables. We started with cherry tomatoes and now they've become slightly larger than atoms. We'll take out the magnifying glass for the next harvest. You can see the photo...the giant tomato is in fact a cherry tomato.

Michael is now off picking raspberries with Trudy.

Hope you're enjoying your Sunday and your summer. and I really hope this heat isn't getting to you too much. speak soon!