Never will I claim to be the most observant of humans. In fact, my husband of nearly 44 years, Studly Doright, is fond of telling me that I have “awareness issues.” I’d disagree with him if he weren’t so right.
Yesterday I wrote about a woman who, while visiting in my home, thought that when I said that I’d just finished my first novel that I meant I’d just finished reading my first novel.
Okay, I get it. I don’t look all that scholarly, but she was in my home, where literally the first thing one sees upon entering Doright Manor is this:
And this:
Look around a bit and you’d see this:
And this:
And even this:
Oh, and then there are my Star Wars books:
And
The dust is real.
Most of my books are on kindle nowadays, but the evidence that I’m a reader is pretty clear. So perhaps I’m not the only one with awareness issues. Maybe we can start a club.
One day last week I ordered new carpet for the room that suffered damage from our recent water leak here at Doright Manor. The saleswoman who helped me decide on a pattern came out to the house to measure the area to be carpeted and talked me into also buying carpet for the two adjacent rooms. She was quite good at her job.
We chatted as she measured and eventually she asked what I did with my free time. I told her I’d recently finished my first novel. She looked at me kind of funny, so I elaborated, saying I one day realized I’d written 100,000 words.
“Oh,” she said. “I thought you meant you’d finished reading your first novel.”
We laughed, but then I wondered if I needed to upgrade my image. Surely I don’t look like a non-reader. Right?
I’ve spent the past three days combing through the novel I just finished writing, looking for the things I can fix before handing it off to people who’ll tell me what else needs fixing. It’s been an interesting process, and I must say I think I’m probably crazy as a bedbug. I have made some observations, though, that I thought I’d share. Here goes:
1. I can’t count. It’s going to take me a day to fix all of my chapter numbers. I skipped chapter three right off the bat, accidentally repeated a chapter number to get back on track around chapter 32, but then somehow jumped from 48 to 52 and then to 57. And, friends, I used to teach math.
2. Sometimes I crack myself up. Hopefully I’ll crack others up, as well, otherwise this story won’t work.
3. Some parts of my story make me cry. That’s good, right?
4. I use the word “just” too often. Way too often. I blame Nike.
That’s it, so far. I’m sure I should have noticed other stuff, but I’ll leave that to the experts.
I’m giving my manuscript the once over—looking for stuff that spell check didn’t catch, names I might’ve gotten confused, conversations that might not make sense, etc. I knew that I’d gotten my chapter numbering off at some point, maybe even more than once, but figured I’d come to that sooner or later.
Turns out, it was sooner. I laughed out loud when I realized I’d totally skipped having a chapter 4. How did that even happen? Must’ve been a “write drunk” kind of night. Well, today’s an “edit sober” kind of day.
Now I’m hoping I’ll find an instance where I repeated a chapter number so I won’t be spending tomorrow typing nothing but numerals.
I’d add a number 3. Those who are merely disorganized and pretending to be insane.
Studly Doright sometimes must travel overnight on business. During the pandemic, though, he was able to be home every night. Company travel was suspended for the last three months. Now that businesses are opening up again, though, he’s had to make up for lost time.
Last night was his first on the road, and I hate to admit that I was kind of looking forward to it. I’d already planned on getting a bit drunk and finishing my novel after determining that too much sober writing was inhibiting the writing process. However, I completed the novel while stone cold sober on Monday morning, so now I had no excuse to get tipsy whilst Studly was away.
I did go to bed later than our usual old people time of 9 p.m., and I read awhile longer before falling asleep. Such a little rebel.
Usually when Studly is away at night I struggle to fall asleep, but I don’t even remember the light of my Kindle fading, so quickly was I in lala land. But around 1 a.m., Scout kitty sauntered into the bedroom meowing loudly.
I knew she had no immediate needs, so I turned over and tried to go back to sleep. Scout promply jumped onto the bed, stood by my head, and without warning, puked all over my pillow.
My reflexes took over. I plopped her onto the floor, where she continued retching, and ran to the bathroom to get a wet cloth to clean up her mess. On my way back to the bed, I stepped in the additional cat puke. I said a really awful word before wiping the sole of my foot and returning to the bathroom for a clean wet cloth. This time I thought it wise to turn on the lights fearing there were piles of puke everywhere.
Apparently, though, I’d stepped in the only little pile in our oversized bedroom. What are the odds? Maybe I should buy a lottery ticket.
I took the soiled pillow case off of my pillow and wiped the sheet off, then the underlying mattress, but since it was the middle of the night and no one was sleeping on the other side of the bed I figured morning would be soon enough to change the sheets. I’d just take over Studly’s domain.
Once back under the covers I used the Calm app to begin relaxing enough to return to sleep, and I’d almost succeeded when I caught a whiff of cat puke. It was on my shoulder! I jumped out of bed, took off my pajama top and washed my left shoulder before putting on a different top. Fortunately I hadn’t been laying on that side and the sheet wasn’t contaminated.
Back in bed again, I tried to relax, but I began to worry about Scout. After all, I had ejected her from the bed rather violently. What if she was she really sick? After about half an hour of internal debate, I put on my glasses, turned on the lights, and went in search of my 16-year-old baby.
Scout was curled up on the sofa in the den and meowed when she saw me. I apologized for being so abrupt and for calling her a bad name. She followed me back to bed where she couldn’t stop giving me head butts and kitty kisses. She was so apologetic that I couldn’t go back to sleep for at least another hour.
Now, she’s off, happily patrolling the screened-in porch, while I’m preparing to wash the sheets and treat the carpet to a good cleaning. It’s 8:30 a.m., and I’m already looking forward to a nap.
Praying for Eyebrowz 