Just passed 200 pages. If I’d stop having disasters at home, maybe I could finish this book before it really is Christmas season.

Funny thing. I’m over the midpoint of my work in progress, and I’ve run into a problem I haven’t encountered before. About half of the book takes place during the Christmas season, though it isn’t a Christmas book as such. As most everybody knows, even if you don’t live in Alabama, the weather outside has been frightful and not in the Christmassy way. It has been hotter than normal for even north Alabama, and it has been quite a chore trying to write about chilly December when it’s so hot outside. I will prevail.

I remember what I meant to write about last week. My question is, what do you think about book covers with a bulked up, bare-chested hero on them? I figure even if the story idea is tantalizing, I’d much rather read the description than have it shoved right in my face, and it may mean that the story is short on description.

It’s sort of the same way I feel about half-naked heroines on the cover. Enough is enough. I think showing a little bit of skin as a tease is far better than having everything in your face right from the git-go.

Feel free to provide your opinions.

I’m sure somebody is likely to notice that I’m a little late posting today. It’s not that I forgot. At least, not in the traditional sense. I had been mulling over a particularly interesting topic to talk about over the weekend, and for some odd reason it exited my brain today, and I have been trying to conjure it up again. I will confess that as a sufferer of Attention Deficit Disorder, it isn’t hard for me to forget things. Should have written it down.

In the meantime, I’ve been busy juggling phone calls and trying to get other people to call me back. Many years ago, pre-motherhood, I was a telephone secretary; I worked at a telephone answering service, something I think should come back again. It is so frustrating to call a company expecting service, only to be presented with the dreaded voice mail. It’s bad enough when you are given a number of options, none of which quite seems to cover the problem or issue you want to talk about. What is worse, or maybe not, is the cheerful, “Please leave a message and we will get right back to you.” Maybe I’m wrong, but right back, means pretty quick, like a few minutes. Even an hour would be acceptable, but when the day is over, and someone still hasn’t returned your call, that is not.

It seems to me a switchboard operator with a working knowledge of the business’s services, could not only answer right away, but direct the call to the proper person. Yet, it’s cheaper to continue with the dreaded voice mail. Hasn’t anybody noticed that people who don’t get called back often go elsewhere?

And that’s probably exactly where they should go.

Just for the record, I did pass 100 pages when I said I would, in spite of having several appointments, and having people come over to do various inspections on my house. In fact, yesterday, I reached 124 pages. I will confess that I normally aim for 7-10 pages a day, but recently, with all the interruptions, I haven’t reached even 7 pages a day. A couple of times I did six. I’m hoping now that I don’t seem to have any appointments or other things that could interrupt my mornings, I might actually get closer to my usual goal.

Some of you might know, that my comments sometimes show up on my website (bonniegardner.com). I have a darling friend who puts them there for me. I have been nagging her to show me how to do that. And I now know how to actually get into the site, and maybe in a short amount of time, it will become an actual blog. Time will tell.

Seems I claimed that I would have finally made it past 100 pages last week. Well, I did. Sort of. I typed page 100 yesterday. Seems to me that life and emergencies and all that jazz always intrudes. At least, I got there, even if it didn’t happen quite as soon as I’d hoped it would.

As much as writing is an inside task, the hot weather has sucked all the energy and maybe inspiration out of me. However, I will press on. I like the characters in this book and now that it’s finally coming together, maybe it won’t feel like waiting to give birth as the story progresses.

I don’t know if it’s the same where you are, but today my granddaughters went back to school. Yup, book bags and new shoes and everything. Of course, I expect fall cold fronts and falling leaves, but we are having heat indices of over 100. Still as a mom, I understand the logic of having the kids back in school. First and foremost, it’s too hot for them to play outside and so they just hang around inside saying they’re bored. As a former teacher, I understand the school system’s desire to want to finish the semester before the Christmas holidays. With semester exams coming about three weeks after the vacation ends, I spent the entire time reviewing what would be on the tests, not teaching new material because everybody knows that you absolutely cannot be bothered with studying during the holidays and when it comes to testing, you have complete amnesia. Maybe in another ten or twenty years, we’ll get used to school starting the first week of August but for now, it really seems too soon.

I think I might actually have a book here. Just finished the first three chapters, and I’m pretty happy with the beginning. Usually, once I get through three chapters the rest comes much more easily.

Well, I posted something, but it never showed up. I guess it’s back to the drawing board.

I am making progress on the book. I guess being stuck inside because it’s too hot to go outside is a good thing. You can only be lazy for so long before you get tired of being lazy. I have started on the third chapter and I’m beginning to think that there is a story there.

Just a reminder that WHAT A DAY! the collection of short stories by me and ten of my writer friends is still available in both print and electronic versions at many online bookstores. Unfortunately, it isn’t available in brick-and-mortar bookstores. One nice thing about short story collections is that you don’t have to invest days in reading. You can relax in the sun and read a short story and then take a nap in the shade in your hammock.

It’s hot. I don’t know why that surprises me, but it does. I live in Alabama, after all. I think it’s because for the last few summers, it has been unusually cool and rainy. Now suddenly, after having been spoiled by cooler weather, even if it has been gray, the sun is shining, and it is HOT. Anyway, I’ve been having a hard time getting motivated to write.

I have been writing, but I’ve been deleting as many pages as I write, so my page count isn’t changing much. It really discouraging. Sigh. I have a story in my head, but I don’t seem to be able to get it going. Once I get past this stumbling point, I hope I’ll start making progress.

Fingers crossed.