Editor has requested some more changes.\u00a0 Work is in progress.\u00a0\u00a0 I am still in confused mode, since my brain had moved on to “project manager for renovations in the house we bought to provide rental property for our son when we croak.”\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 That house–which we have owned for just a hair over a month–now has a new roof,\u00a0 all the old (bad, bent, falling apart) aluminum siding on the gables ends and soffits is gone,\u00a0 and there are new soffits, new eaves,\u00a0 an LVL beam neatly spanning the carport in place of the sagging mess of badly-built “support” that was there,\u00a0 the old (about to fall down) sunporch rebuilt, reworked wiring by the electrician inside and out,\u00a0 and an exterior paint job that looks, if I do say so myself, spiffy.\u00a0 Tomorrow the new tub\/shower insert will be installed.\u00a0 The floor guy was here today measuring for the new flooring.\u00a0\u00a0 The main contractor should be back with us in a week (he has been fitting us in between other jobs he’d already scheduled.)\u00a0 That’s when the “gutting of the interior” will start.\u00a0\u00a0 That ugly hole in the ceiling of the small bedroom where the water poured in (followed by various animals you really don’t want it a house)\u00a0 will be replaced with nice clean new drywall.\u00a0 Ditto the water damage to wall and closet.\u00a0 That closet will be enlarged (by the squinchy little coat closet in the foyer)\u00a0 to be a decent size for a bedroom closet and it will have a larger door.<\/p>\n
If you’ve ever had renovation done (R and I did some ourselves in the first little house we bought, using a book on home repairs for people like us)\u00a0 you know that it always takes longer, it always costs more, and it always makes more mess than you expected\/hoped.\u00a0\u00a0 And certain things (like deciding partway through to move even a non-bearing wall) cost more.\u00a0 So I’m resisting my creative urges where the house is concerned (the kitchen stays where it is; the bathrooms will not be enlarged mostly, because of the difficulty of moving plumbing that runs through a concrete slab.\u00a0\u00a0 You work with what you’ve got.\u00a0\u00a0 The old, dirty, stained, full-of-rodent-pee shag rugs will disappear, and so will the old, cracked, chipped, and downright ugly floor tiles in kitchen, entrance, “family room” and baths.\u00a0\u00a0 Meanwhile, as with any projects involving multiple people working on a house, each with their own idea of what to do in what order and how,\u00a0 the owner needs to show up bright and early every day and–without actually interfering–keep an eye on things.\u00a0 So my head is stuffed with price per square foot of this, price per running foot of that,\u00a0 how much has already been spent and how much remains in the budget,\u00a0 colors and tonalities\u00a0 for things that aren’t on site (or even in samples yet)\u00a0 and the overall “concept” for the finished project.<\/p>\n
Jumping back from there to deal with how prominent a character is or isn’t in X part of the book, or the right balance between complications,\u00a0 or trying to grasp exactly what the editor means by “dire” (there’s supposed to be more dire in a certain section) is not, for me at this time, easy.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I wish I really was on Slotter Key, in the Vatta town house, which is not my dream house but is a house that’s extremely well-designed and well-built…though Helen’s color scheme would drive me nuts.\u00a0 But the kitchen and pantry are larger than mine, the dining room (though too small and too fussy–that’s Helen’s color\/fabric choices)\u00a0 has wonderful built-in storage including the linen drawer that can handle BIG tablecloths rolled on padded dowels.\u00a0 And the living room sofa is superbly comfortable.\u00a0 Also if I were there, and not here, I’d be in the book, not having to work on the book.\u00a0 A distinct advantage.<\/p>\n
DragonCon’s coming up; I have my tentative schedule but not the final one, so I’ll wait to post schedule stuff until later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Editor has requested some more changes.\u00a0 Work is in progress.\u00a0\u00a0 I am still in confused mode, since my brain had moved on to “project manager for renovations in the house we bought to provide rental property for our son when we croak.”\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 That house–which we have owned for just a hair over a month–now has Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,16,10],"tags":[39,17,7],"class_list":["post-384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-into-the-fire","category-life-beyond-writing","category-the-writing-life","tag-into-the-fire","tag-life-beyond-writing","tag-the-writing-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=384"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":385,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384\/revisions\/385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}