Turned in

STEAM MOLE is turned in. Now the process of waiting for editorial input... and then waiting to get paid (oddly that part hurts) begins. It's a very fine book. I've been entering edits since 4AM.

There are days when they couldn't pay me enough.

Then occassionally someone writes to me about a book, or I read a piece i got right... and them paying me at all is a bonus.

Sadly the bonus doesn't pay bills.

But I got an SMS today saying I won a million pounds in a microsoft award...

I am so wealthy I will donate the contact for it to the next poor widow of an ex dictator who needs help with 17 000 000 dollars...

and now, to bed!

olive & edit

I got last minute word that they were about to pick the school olives for the olive oil crowd (we had first dibs on 9kg) - the mob we picked 66kgs for last year, and I ended up with half-litre of oil in recompense. It's not something I'll do again. So I shot out and picked about 3kg before they got there. It's less than last year, but will probably do. We still have about 3kg from last year. And other than that I have edited. STEAM MOLE second draft is now finished and third is about to start.



is up as freebie at the moment, to celebrate.

Well, I have added another 3K so far in edits, and we're still going. I seem to have ye cold - justice for mowing the lawn in the pouring rain. I'm going to pick olives tomorrow... and such is life. We nearly got to babysit a lamb for the weekend - interesting with our dogs, but fortunately someone else stepped in.

In which we begin to recover

M'seur le Possum has not been back. I am slowly catching up, firstly on sleep, and secondly on all the million things that need doing - which includes work on the first draft so it can become the second draft and taking a couple of hours for Barbs and I to go to Red Bluff with Peter and Helen - not one of your great fishing trips, but I did get an Australian salmon of about 2kg - foul-hooked by the back and with the drag on my the reel stuck (problem with gear bought at garage sales - it's not always quite what you thought it was) on an old fly-rod. I got it in, which was more luck than judgement. And now... once more into the breech. Need to get this turned in.

I seem to lurch from chasing my tail... to chasing my tail. I need to
1)get this in
2)do the beehives (have to return the model bits)
3)sort out the cold frame.
4)get winter veg in
5)Down to 2 packs of wallaby mince. Need to go and help a couple to avoid being roadkill
6) get some backlist up on kindle
7) get some shorts finished and up on kindle. You can badmouth Amazon all you like. They pay me in gaps when it really helps. On time.
8)get the firewood sorted out before we really start to freeze.

Then start on the next book...
Still, it's a good life, if you don't weaken.

Steam Mole

Well, 2.43 AM and Steam mole's first draft is finished.

Anzac day dawn service in 3 or so hours.

Possum-bly

The pie-eyed possum was back last night - it didn't even wait for the lights to go out, but wandered in bold as brass to come and watch NCIS with Barbs. Shouted for beer and peanuts...

Well, when Barbs realized she had a co-watcher, there was quite a lot of shouting going on. And those words might have been 'beer' or 'peanuts'. Or so I will choose to believe.

Tonight there is a drop-cage possum trap, and me trying to reach the final page of this book.

Playing possum

2 Am in the chez Freer and there is a suspicious crash. Dave gets up to see just what the cats have broken now, in a state of dozy irritable (rather different to South Africa, where I would have gone down with the dogs in a state some nervousness.) Only it was not the cats, it was an intruder that had come in via the kitty door. One LARGE possum. A possum who was not very intimidated by the deadly weapon I had seized, to wit, a sofa cushion. A face off ensued and possum decided departure was perhaps the better option than being smothered by a largely naked man, a sentiment I can quite understand.

So possum-trapping is in order.