NoraLeduc

Check out the picture of Winter, our proud graduate of puppy class. She's got real class. After, Winter celebrated with treats and hisses from Scaredy and Bad Girl the cats.

Nora

Well, my blog has returned.  I've no idea where it's been.  I've tried and tried to get on it. It could be seen but never touched.  Anyway, it's back in time for good news. I've sold two books!! Hurray, hurray!  Murder Came Calling will be appearing, not lost like the blog, in June of 2009.  Pick Up Lines for Murder still needs a date of publication but I'm hoping it may be this year.  We'll see. Edits are to start this month so I'm optimistic.

Happy Fourth of July!  May you be blessed with many barbecues.

Nora 

I've been writing more this month. Not in my blog, of course. But in WORD. I've joined NANOWRIMO or National Novel Writing Month. Eighty thousand people from around the world have signed up to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November. So here I am at 35,000 words and only a few days to go.

Will I make it? YES!! And then there's the rewrite. They should have NANOREMO or National Novel Revision month immediately following it. then we could have NANOPUBO and onward.

The good news, when I turn off the editor in my head, wow, I can write fast. Course, the story has plot holes big enough for the US Army to drive through and invade another country. But what the heck. It's the thrill of success. Wonder if those striking writers feel any of that success now? Hmm, I'd like to write for Gossip Girl. In April is National Script Writing Month. Maybe I'll write a soap opera or two. Desperate Housewives look out!

My dh and I went to the new arena seating cinema today to watch Bruce Willis in Live Free or Die.  Everyone else had also already arrived...to see Harry Potter. I don't think I've seen Bruce Willis since Moonlighting.  He doesn't look much different except he's rid himself of the few strands of hair that used to cling to his head.

Bruce looks so fit, I'd like to go to the same gym. Bruce can outrun terrorists with machine guns, slide down street ramps without as much as a rug burn and jump on planes in flight without going through the lines at security.  Since I have trouble going up three flights of stairs at work, just sign me up to work with his trainer.  Next time I needed a lift, I'd just wait for a jet to fly by and jump on.

I showed a friend a picture the other day. I was sitting in a chair, outside, reading a book. When my friend asked what I was doing, I explained. Camping.

Then there was the picture of me sitting by a pool.  I explained again, I was camping.  Recently I had the pleasure of camping again.  There was no pool this time as the temperature dropped to a fall temperature of 55 degrees when we pulled into our site.  The wind blew and the rain poured while we sat in our car waiting it out. I realized this would make a perfect addition to my camping album. Here I was again, sitting around but was I wasting time?  No, I was camping.

I'm sure others find camping a much different activity, but I realized that no where else would my dh take a picture of me just doing nothing and we'd save it. Actually as the rain beat down on our car, I began to see I'd hit on something with this camping.

Jerry Seinfeld may have acted in a show about nothing, but I was living it.  Camping my favorite sport. I think. Is camping a sport?  Well not the way I do it.  Maybe I'll send a character in my book camping or better yet, kill someone at the campground.  But then they'd have to do something.  Darn. 

Thursday I walked the Rock N Roll Race.  All the money raised goes to the cancer center at the hospital. Considering, I think walking a mile a day is an accomplishment, making it three miles was one for the books. 

Though my dh wasn't impressed with my time and asked what took me so long.  It took me one hour and two seconds to walk the three miles.  Course I had to battle my way to the end. I had harsh conditions-constant rain, five thousand people around me, hills, mud, and worse, I hadn't eaten in six or seven hours. On the other hand, that was a good motivator to get me to the end since food was waiting at the finish line. Unfortunately so were the other five thousand people and they were all trying to get food. Or so it felt.  My friend Ann stuck by me even in the wait line. True friend. When it was all over we said, sure we'd do it again.  Just next year, we decided we'd go out to eat.

Yesterday, I received a call from the campground association. The caller told me I had won a drawing I'd entered at a camping show and I would receive twenty days of free camping!  I'm a winner.  The caller explained the office had moved and the notifications were lost etc. He'd send out a letter explaining everything to me this week.

Dh and I went to the camping show in March, so this was really out of the blue. At the camping show, my favorite type of campers were the ones with the push buttons and a wall pushes out, extending your room. It's like presto magic you're in a different room or camper.   I'm not a real rough it camper, as you probably guessed.  In fact, I'd probably be ineligible to join any real hiking and camping groups or associations. 

Last year, on our first camping trip, it rained all weekend. I stayed inside with my DVD player and watched old Remington Steele shows.  (Still love that Pierce.) In between bouts of rain, dh sat outside and tried to converse with the neighbors. He met our next door neighbors and their new dog.  He learned about the floods last year and how the high lake waters  caused the campers to flee the campground at the last minute. He talked with our neighbors across the street and found out they camp every weekend at this campground even though they live in another state.  And then he met a man who'd had his name on the waiting list to  buy a seasonal site for twelve years!  I guess that would put us at the bottom of the list and at a wait time of twenty years if we tried.

The last day of our trip, it cleared enough for us to walk the campground.  I took in the chipmunk crossing signs, the outdoor fireplaces, the little patches of flowers on the permanent sites with wooden signs naming the owners. Here was a whole new world filled with a small community of eager campers.  And when my letter arrives this week, I can join them. We'll pack the fire wood, the walking stick, and the bug spray along with our other necessities and we'll travel into the other world of campers where as Mr. Rogers used to say, Won't you be my neighbor isn't a question.  It's a given.

From snow to summer heat all in one week.  Is this New England?  To celebrate our good weather, my friend Kathi and I took off on one of our Road Trips.  We traveled to Art In Bloom at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.  Getting there is always half the fun. It started with the challenge of a parking space at the bus station and continued as we learned about Charlie cards and how to use them to ride the  T.  We also managed to end up on the right side of the tracks and catch the train going in our direction every time!  Seasoned travelers.

 So we arrived at the museum, the perfect place to get away from it all.  Inside we were faced with questions?  Do you want to travel to Egypt?  Middle Ages Europe?  Asia? Early America?  Africa? Big decisions.

Besides our books, where else can a writer and reader travel in this world and yet be in another?  I guess the museum.  We decided to join a tour that took us around the world, and we returned in less than eighty days. From Egyptian Mummies to Paul Revere's Sons of Liberty bowl, we fell into another time of revolutions and chaos. Our guide bravely held up her book of index cards to lead us forth. Of course we were never in danger except in the cafeteria where the crowds jostled for food, the check out line and a table! Phew! After lunch, we toured the early days of civilization with war masks and sacred rituals. When we finished (after a third tour) and walked (maybe it was limped) to the T, we were treated to summer weather and flowers blooming.  On the streets the Boston drivers zipped past in their own little worlds.  

 Now I"m at home ready to revise the pages of my work in progress. The heroine, Jozy, is in for a surprise. Her stalking ex is about to appear at her apartment.  I can't wait. Have a great day yourself and may your dreams and Road Trips take you on many adventures.

Easter dinner has come and gone, but as I look outside for birds hopping on the lawn, buds on the trees, the grass greening, the flowers pushing up, the signs of--spring.  Instead I see-- winter. 

Yes, Mother Nature played a late April's Fools Day joke on us. Just when I had finally reached that inbetween coat stage.  You know, the morning is cold enough for a winter coat but by afternoon everyone is wearing a spring jacket.  This year, I thought I'll be in style. I'd wear my winter coat in the morning and when I go outside in the afternoon, I'll  be with it and wear my spring jacket.  Well, I gave up that cool trick last week with the snow. Winter coat all day long. My quest to be weather cool didn't make it.  I wonder if the birds are sitting in the trees checking their compasses and calendars.

It's Spring, but it snowed last night.  What a disappointment. I'd seen the heads of my daffodils poking thorugh yesterday when Mother Nature was acting cooperatively. Now she's thrown a blanket of snow over my hope of spring.  Was she throwing a fit?

I had the most exciting letter yesterday. A fan letter. Yes, someone is reading my books Lots of time, I wonder. Is anyone out there reading the stories of my hero and heroine? Is anyone reading my blog? It's like being in a separate universe. But yesterday, I realized it's all one. Thank you for the letter. I hold it dear to my heart.