Catching Up

I've spent the last couple of weeks catching up with things that I neglected while I was writing the Carver book. I also did a few things for fun. Last Sunday I went with three friends from the Photo Club on an all-day shoot. We went first to a balloon challenge in Middletown, Ohio at 7:00 am. Photographed lots of colorful hot-air balloons with a beautiful blue sky. About 10:00, we went to breakfast, then on to Cincinnati, where we went to River Downs to shoot the horses. (Sounds cruel, doesn't it?). I promise, we only used cameras! We got to sit on the rail along the track and shoot, mostly as the horses crossed the finish line. I'd never shot horse races before, so it was a new experience and lots of fun. Went back to Ken's house and ate pizza, then he put all our digital photos on the TV screen and we critiqued each other's. See, authors aren't the ONLY ones who critique each other's stuff! I'll post a couple of pictures.

I spent most of my time last week getting ready for a garage sale. I'm not sure $86 was enough compensation for all that work! I sold mostly scrapbook stuff that I had duplicates of.

Today a friend and I went to the Dayton airport and photographed the Thunderbirds practicing for the air show this weekend.

I really am starting to work on my proposal for the Pioneers for Kids book. I'd better, or he might decide to have someone else do it! It's not an assignment, but I think I have a good chance of doing it unless I mess up the proposal. It's something I'd really enjoy doing, with the activities and all.

I enjoyed Suzanne Lieurance's Coaching Club's conference call with Margot Finke. She critiqued the first pages of some of our mid-grade novels, which was helpful and interesting. I need to send my novel out to some more publishers. It's had three rejections so far.

I also wrote a short article on Daniel Boone for Fandangle, Nancy Cavanaugh's online children's magazine.

A Fun Day of Subbing

I had an interesting experience when I was subbing in fifth grade the other day. A boy raised his hand and said, "What did you say your name was?" I said, "Miss McCarthy." He asked, "Is that McCarthy or McCartney?" I told him. He asked, "How do you spell that?" I spelled it for him. He gave me a strange look, then said, "What is your first name?" When I said it was Pat, he said, "Did you write that Daniel Boone book?" I said I had, and he cried, "Hey, guys, she wrote the Daniel Boone book that Mrs. H. has in her room! That blue one!" They seemed quite impressed, then a girl pulled my Henry Ford book out of her desk and said, "Then she wrote this one, too!" Kind of fun to be just a LITTLE bit famous!