It is hard to believe how long it has been since I last posted on this blog. However, when I think about how many things I have done, it is certainly more credible.
I will confess that some of my blogging had previously been done during breaks from my work as the director of a small-town non-profit organization. However, with State monitors visiting, along with preparation for our annual fundraiser, I have had little time to think of anything to post while at work.
I recently have dedicated a fairly large amount of time to "nit-picking." If you don't know what that is, you have probably not been around a perfectionistic author with a self-imposed deadline for publication of his first book.
I have read the manuscript quickly and slowly. Each page has been disected and digested, pondered and punctuated, with some sections augmented and some truncated. Thinking about denotations and connotations, repetitions and redundencies, clarity and consistency in each passage, I read and reread and read again. Sometimes a suggestion about one word might turn into the rewriting of an entire chapter by one whose wants his creative genius to be understood as only he can see it in his mind. Meanwhile, the characters of the book have taken on a life of their own, often invading my thoughts both day and night. I am very excited about seeing the book come to fruition, and I hope that its value will be quickly appreciated.
Some of the time spent since I last blogged has been entertainment, as well. There was the camping trip to Big Bend over the Memorial Day weekend--my first vacation in years--as well as shorter trips to see a movie (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), a play (Seusical, the Musical), or an afternoon at the zoo (where the elephants and hippos seemed to be in hiding*).
*How can they effectively hide four elephants and two hippopotami?