Have any of you used StumbleUpon? I just started using it last week, and I find some of the craziest things on there. I guess that's what it's for, though, right? I came across this one site that would show you a different picture of a cat every time you wrote one hundred words. It made me laugh. There's a whole bunch of interesting sites that I saw with writing tips and ideas, so I'm pretty happy that I created an account.
How is your summer going? Enjoying the nice weather? Here in my home town in Ontario, we are in a draught, people aren't allowed to water their lawns, and there is a no-burn policy. No one can have fires, even if they have a permit and a fire pit to do it in. Someone flicked a cigarette butt out of their car window without thinking twice, and a fire started. The grass is so dry that it hurts to walk around in your bare feet. It hasn't rained since early June, and everything is dying. For those of you who still think that global warming isn't an issue: look around you. Signs of negative change are everywhere.
The countdown continues until I leave for Nova Scotia. Ten more days! I'm hoping to get all caught up in my Treason work before leaving (yes, I have fallen behind) so that I won't be too busy working while we're on the road. I really want to go out and explore the different places that we're going to be visiting along the way. It would really help if I wasn't working like a crazy person, though. This week coming up, I have over forty hours of work. That's more than a full-time employee gets to work, and the only difference is that I don't get the benefits. Sometimes, I don't like my job.
I read somewhere online that in order to make sure that your book is really what you want it to be, you need to put it away and not look at it for six months. I thought that I might have a problem doing that, but it really hasn't been that hard. A friend of mine is still looking over Promise for typos and grammar mistakes - for some reason, I have a habit of typing it instead of the or vis-versa when I'm tired- and she still hasn't given it back to me. She's a pretty slow reader when you take into consideration the fact that it has all ready been three months and the book is only three hundred pages long. Oh well, the more time she spends working on it, the less time I have to have it with me and force myself not to correct it.
I think that the thing that I am really unexcited for is reading the whole thing out loud. To make sure that everything sounds right and that I'm not missing any words anywhere, I'm going to need to take a few days to just sit down and read the whole book out loud to myself. One thing is for sure: I'm going to need a lot of water because I'm going to get really thirsty.
How am I doing on Treason? Well, like I said, I've fallen behind. As of today, I am four cards behind, and as of tomorrow, I'll be five cards behind. I know that I really need to step it up, but I've just been so busy. I've started to work eight hour shifts, and on top of the fact that it's a lot more than what I'm used to working, the shift also starts at seven in the morning. When I get home, I'm tired. And then I have this whole debate with myself on if I want to work so that I don't fall behind, or if I want to wait until I'm not tired so that I don't end up writing garbage. I end up pushing it off to the next day, and then the whole thing starts over. I have made progress, though. I am a third of the way through in terms of the estimated number of words. In terms of cards, I've finished nine out of twenty-nine.
I should be off. I have had the last few days off, so I want to use the fact that I'm well rested to get some more work done. Just because you are all the best readers, though, I'm going to leave you with a little treat. They say that to see if a book is good or not, you should read the fifteenth page; so, here's the fifteenth page of Promise. Leave me a comment below to tell me what you think!
“I love it! It makes you look even more ready for summer. This year is going to be our best one yet. I can’t believe they let us come back as campers again.”
“I know! How did you even manage that? The age limit was fifteen.”
“I just told them about Emily and how she wouldn’t be allowed to come to Canada if she would have to pay to be a counsellor in training because she couldn’t get a job in Germany. They’re pretty understanding, but it took me almost an hour of persuasion. After they agreed, they told me that we weren’t the first ones to call and ask the same thing. Apparently a lot of people our age wanted to come back again. They told me that they were thinking of changing the age limit to seventeen and that it was great that we wanted to come back so bad because they want to use our cabin to try out a new thing they were planning for next year.
“If they bring the age limit up to seventeen, they figure that those of us who are sixteen and seventeen can take care of ourselves, and that we don’t need counsellors since most of them are our age anyway. They figure we can take care of ourselves, so they want to see how well we do this year if there’s no one with us every minute of every day. If it works out well, they might use it for next year.”
“Anna?”
“Yes?”
“How exactly is it that you can ask someone a simple question and have them telling you their entire life story within a minute? I mean, come on! You called to ask the directors if we could all come back this year and you end up getting all of the camp’s plans for next year and everything that they want to try and do. Did they happen to tell you what was going to be on the menu while they were at it?” I teased.
“Hey, you know how I am. I can sweet-talk anybody into anything. Hey, do you think I could be a spy after I graduate? I mean, I’d do a really good job of persuading people not to do bad things and give me the secret intelligence instead. Okay, moving along now, can we please change the subject?” she asked, trying to direct the attention away from herself.
“Okay, fine. Any cute guys yet?” I asked, and we both broke into a fit of laughter.
“You’re in my cabin, I’ll walk you to it and when we walk past the lodge, look on the front porch; he is gorgeous,” she said, giggling slightly.
“All right,” I agreed, sharing with her a sideways glance, which was all it took to start us laughing again.
Copyright © 2012 by Diana Knight
Alright, well, I'm off. I am going to get some work done on Treason. Check back in next week because it'll be my last post before leaving for Nova Scotia! I will keep you all posted on my progress!
Love you all,
Diana!
This week's song is Long Hot Summer by Keith Urban. This summer is bringing out the country in me. Enjoy!
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