Happy New Year!!
2015 was an eventful
year. First, my very first Daisy mystery was reissued with beautiful
new cover art to match the later books.
That was March. April, Heirs
of the Body came out in paperback.
June, Superfluous Women made
its/their appearance.
Why so late? Stuff happened, distracting my thoughts from my story. (That's my excuse, anyway.)
I was backed into in a
parking lot by a very large pick-up—the driver said my car was too
small to see in his mirror!! We were both doing about 2 mph so no
damage to me or Trill, and too-small car was driveable, even with a
big dent in the side and a door that screamed when opened or closed.
His insurance co. was very cooperative but it still took a lot of
phoning and paperwork and emailing to get it fixed.
On the other hand, the
car emerged from the body-shop looking better than it had in years.
They even gave me two new hubcaps though I said one had been missing
for ages and the other was already cracked. Pride of workmanship, I
reckon.
Most disruptive: The
school district is building a new school on the school field behind
my house where I and my fellow-dog-people have walked our dogs for
many years. For several months we were able to get in, crawling
through a hole in the fence when necessary, but now it's all closed
off tight. Meanwhile, they excavated and dumped gravel and tamped it
down, making the whole house (and my neighbours') shudder and shake.
Worst was that they
unloaded their biggest digger in the street directly outside my
house, inefficiently, so that it dropped instead of rolling down the
ramp. I really would have thought there was an earthquake if I hadn't
watched it happen. It left dents in the roadway and opened a
1/4"-wide crack in my living-room wall. That took weeks of
emails and phoning to get them to acknowledge responsibility and send
someone to fix it.
When he came I asked
how much he'd charge me to fix the longtime crack between the brick
mantel and the wall (Someone took out a mantelpiece?). "Don't
worry about it," he said. "We'll get it." And he did.
Hurray! Would you believe I once had a mouse come in through that
crack?
Speaking of which, the next event was a huge swarm of termites emerging from a crack in the concrete floor of the back porch. I called in the "green" pest people, who puffed oils of cinnamon and citrus (smelled wonderful!) and diatomaceous earth into every nook and cranny. It was expensive, but for free they fixed the crawl-space screens a raccoon tore off a few years ago and fastened all the rest thoroughly.
All's well that ends well. Now I'm just biting my fingernails as I wait to see what revisions my editor will ask for!
May the complications
in your life in 2016 be minor and easily fixed. Have a great year!
www.CarolaDunn.weebly.com
or come and say hi on Facebook!
This is a happy birthday pic for my sister who apparently can't open it in her email but I hope can look at it here!! Excuse the intrusion...
or come and say hi on Facebook!
This is a happy birthday pic for my sister who apparently can't open it in her email but I hope can look at it here!! Excuse the intrusion...
Happy birthday, sis!
2 comments:
What an adventurous year, Carola. Let's hope this one's adventures are less traumatic. As for your enormous output, I can only admire you. I've been working on my WIP for longer than I want to count up. In fact, reather than a WIP, it's just a W. Happy New Year.
I could do with a little less drama, Bill, and I didn't even mention falling flat on my back in the driveway... As for my output--I've been writing since 1979, so I ought to have something to show for it!
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