Yeah, We Get It

We are aware of the black humor – not irony, because it was totally predictable – that we moved from the Caribbean, where Isaac passed by as a relatively minor tropical storm, to New Orleans, where the same Isaac is now taking aim as it builds up steam across the gulf.

It's a strange feeling. The weather's lovely right now, the storm is still about 36 hours off. People around here are kind of freaking out, and you can't blame them, what with the recent history of Katrina. We are watching warily and getting our stuff together.

But there's one big difference. On a small island, when a hurricane comes there's no place to go. You HAVE to hunker down. There's no alternative. I don't look forward to the idea of long lines of evacuation traffic, but the point is, if we have to go, there's someplace TO go. And we trust that authorities will tell us when it's time, and we will listen. In hte meantime, just in case, we're pulling a couple of suitcases together and gassing up "The Beast." At leaast it's big enough that, push comes to shove, the kids could sleep in it.

Anyway, we're getting ready, but we're not panicking.

Back to Work

Summertime, and the writing is non-existent.

As I have observed, summer is not the time I am most prolific as a writer. And this summer has been less so than usual.

It's hard enough when your schedule changes, with family out of school and everybody home. Instead of sending people off to school, then settling down to write in the empty house, I have to accommodate other people's schedules and presence. It's hard under the best of summer circumstances to get three or four or more hours in the chair, uninterrupted, every day.

And this summer has hardly been the best of circumstances. Without going into details, which are still difficult to write about, this has been far worse. I've explained it here and I'm not up to doing it again. Bottom line – not only did I not get much work done, I didn't get any work done on the project. It's a misnomer to call it the Work in Progress because I haven't worked on it and there's been no progress.

I have thought about it quite a bit, but haven't written a word. But that's got to stop. I have work to do. So I'm back on the beat, so to speak. For now, I've decided to put up the story I thought I would be writing this summer and get back to Scurvy Dogs! Time for the second draft.

I have been playing it over in my mind for several weeks and I know what needs doing. It's just a matter of doing it. And this log is part of doing that work. There are a couple of minor tweaks to the story, and a couple of major changes. The general idea is good. but I need to raise the stakes. Not just by making the action more dangerous and the drama more compelling, but changing some of the relationships in the story. 

I also realized there was a scene I had envisioned very early in the writing that was going to be great, very touching and at the same time very funny, and I completely forgot to include it in the first draft! Completely! 

Scurvy Dogs! is going to be good. But it'll never be worth a damn if I don't sit down and get plugging. So I'm back on the job.