Good morning Red, and good morning to Elizabeth and Lisa.

I woke up WAY too early today, so I’m assuming my writing will be for crap. Thus, taking the day off from it. Do some chores, build some Lego. I’ll marinate some chicken soon for the grill tonight, and the (cover your ears Red) beginning of the FIVE GAME SHOWDOWN between the Braves and the Mets.

Larry’s Padres are suddenly favorites to win the World Series! Congrats Larry. You need to hang out here more often.

Okay, enough baseball talk. Time for Lego!

I left some coffee perking in the percolator and hot water for anyone who wants tea. I’ll have a coffee and a cookie myself.

Quote by DenimAngel

Hi peeps

Jeff it's always exciting when the Mets and Braves play each other..

GO BRAVES:worship:

Finally gave in and now subscribed to ESPN+

Gotta have my baseball fix .

Fresh cookies tomorrow today is crazy busy

giving the adorable critters fresh water and treats

A super large coffee would be perfect.. tail is dragging.

Stay safe

Sara, I just got cable, so I could get ESPN! The season is heating up! Care to wager a bet on this huge 5 game series?

And Elizabeth, you beat our best pitcher! You did lose Soto, but you at least got a ton of young talented players. The Nats'll be back soon.

Boring day, though my daughter got in a fender bender on the way to jury duty. So I'm definately doing better than her. Let's hope she doesn't get picked.

A coffee and a jellyfish cookie please!

Big baseball moves today (sorry Red, I'll keep the baseball talk under two sentences): Larry's Padres get the best player in baseball, and Elizabeth's Nets get six young players in return. Looks like a good deal for both clubs. Meanwhile, deGrom returns to the mound tonight for the Mets, just before the HUGE five game NL showdown between the Mets and Sara's Braves. I love this time of year.

That was four sentences. Sorry, Red.

Editing today, and for the foreseeable future. It's kinda boring, kinda exciting when things are working.

Coffee and cookies please!

My computer fan is making this weird annoying sound--whinggg, whinggg, whinggg--that is driving me frikkin nuts. I will have to suffer through it and hope the new fan arrives at the computer shop soon.

Other than that, lazy birthday-less day. Time to edit.

A coffee and a starfish cookie please!

Quote by elizabethblack

Happy Birthday to Jeff!

Thanks Elizabeth, for the birthday wishes and the lizard-carrying cat. The day was fun, nothing big, just low key enjoyable. Lego and quesadillas and cake! Talia loves cake!

Today, back to editing. Sigh. At least it's Friday!

A coffee and a pink lemonade cookie, please!

Quote by redwriter

A large latte coffee to wish Verbal a happy birthday. Feeling any older?

Feeling forever young. Thanks for the mug, Red.

Good morning all.

Nice chill day here. Boring editing day ahead. Counting down until my birthday tomorrow. No big plans - lunch with daughters, cake and supper with Talia. I'll probably grill steak and salmon. On birthdays I just like to do stuff I enjoy, nothing fancy.

Thanks for the space cookies Sara! I'd love some coffee too!

Quote by AnnaMayZing

I watched Hugo in 3D. The effects are stunning. The film is based on actual people and events in Paris.

It draws inspiration from the rediscovery of Georges Mélies, a famous turn of twentieth-century film pioneer.

There is a little artistic licence, however. The film recreates a famous train crash which occurred at Montparnasse in 1895. Georges Mélies wasn't rediscovered until thirty years later.

I really liked this movie too. I was sad it didn't get more attention.

We saw Nope this weekend. I was disappointed, my least favorite of the three Peele-directed movies. Talia liked it even less than I.

Quote by redwriter

Day of celebration! 64th wedding anniversary. A day for reminiscing and laughing. Dug up an frayed newspaper report on a sprinting success. The piece read: "AFTER HIS VICTORY HE WAS HUGGED BY HIS NEWLY WED WIFE." I asked, " Did you used to hug me? " Her smiling reply, "Not after that first year." My response, "And I've hung around all this time, hoping for another one!"

That's amazing Red. Clearly humor has had a part in keeping you guys together for so long. I hope you have many more. Congrats!

I'm editing today, and probably for the next several months. It's boring, after the drama of rushing to finish the novel. But, it's gotta be done. I think of this part as sanding a piece of wood, trying to find the shape.

Thanks for the space cookies Sara! I'll have another! And a coffee!!!

Hey Lisa, hey Scott.

My computer is making an incredibly annoying noise as the fan breaks down. Gotta take it in to be repaired/replaced. Wah. I am gonna have to write on a creaky old desktop for a day.

Nice boring weekend. Life's been busy lately, I can dig a little relaxation. We saw Nope last night. It was pretty good. Had some great ideas in it, but it didn't quite pull together. I liked it better than Talia did. Saw an INCREDIBLY SCARY preview of a movie called Smile. Yikes.

No baseball tonight.

Coffee and a moon-shaped cookie please.

Thanks for the cookies Sara! Nice to see folks around again.

Red, I'll try to keep the baseball chatter down, though it's not easy, I can be a little obsessive about things.

Very chill day here. Preparing for a Talia work picnic tomorrow. Should be fun, though as hot as melting asphalt. I've gotten used to it by now, Talia may wilt.

A coffee and a Home plate cookie and a request for snickerdoodles! Please?

Yay! Actual customers.

Sorry the summer is treating you poorly, Gill. When my Dad lived with us he kept it VERY warm in the house, so I get how exhausting that can be.

Sorry too, Scott, that you have Covid. Hopefully it won't be a severe case.

And Red, is baseball sending you back to your burrow because you are hiding from it, or running to watch it?

I'll have a coffee and one of Sara's baseball cookies, please.

I hope Scott is okay. Haven't seen him here in awhile. Or anyone, really. Sara? Elizabeth? Larry? Gill? Ping? Molly? Red? crickets chirp

Sigh. I will start up the coffee and lay out some cookies and do the hot water thing for tea. I'll be here at the counter reading the paper, hoping for customers.

Baseball starts again Friday!

Lights off? No one at the counter? No coffee? I'm on it. does absolutely nothing for 10 minutes

Okay! Water is hot, not boiling, and the tea bags are nicely laid out. The percolator is percolating! Sara's cookies are all freshly baked.

Time to jump back into the novel for the second draft. It sure feels like a lot of work this morning. One page at a time.

I hope everyone is well. The place feels sort of empty. tumbleweed blow by

A coffee and a cookie for me.

Quote by elizabethblack

Sadly, I have no way of watching this. And two of my very favorite actors. And great reviews. Enjoy.

Get Hulu! Then you can watch old Mary Tyler Moore shows like we do!

Quote by elizabethblack

Is married. Happily. Very happily.

As am I. She concurs with Ms. Daddario's celebrity crush-worthiness.

We just started The Old Man. Terrific acting by Bridges and Lithgow.

What? Huh? The lights are off, and I don't smell any coffee brewing.

Okay, here are some of Sara's cookies, I'll munch on them as I sort everything out. Here's some hot water for tea, and the percolator is perking. Disco!

I am so sorry to hear about your cat Gill, and my apologies for this late condolence. Such a sadness to see them go, a pet's love is so pure and unconditional and constant. My heart goes out to you, as does Talia's.

Chicago was really fun. Danced a TON at the wedding, and I will confess I looked reasonably good in a suit (thanks mostly to Talia's help) (who looked much better than I). Saw the Art Institute, never made it to the Science and Industry museum. Next time. Saw a GREAT game at Wrigley Field (Mets won 8-0) and an old college friend. Good trip.

I got a really bloody, angry horror story accepted by Crone Girls Press yesterday. Proceeds go to help health care rights for women, which should give you an idea of the content. Feels good to help in a tiny way.

A coffee and a home-shaped cookie please.

Good morning all!

Off to Chicago early tomorrow morning for a week! A party, followed by a wedding, followed by museums and restaurants and bars, followed by a Mets-Cubs game on Thursday night. Look for me and Talia 9 rows behind the Mets dugout!

Coffee and cookie please!

Quote by Survivor

Good morning. I'll have one of the Padre's cookies. They are in second place now in the NL West.

I've been pretty well locked into Toyota's for two decades now. Presently I have two Priuses. One is a 2008 and the other is 2012. They give me gas mileage in the 40s in town, but if I "get out on the highway" the mileage gets up into the 50s. They love driving long distances.

Good to see you again, Larry. Your Padres really are coming on, in what was supposed to be an unwinnable division.

Ape, I'll eat some leftover cake. The 4th celebration is a bit muted in the states here, with the shootings and the All The Crazy, All The Time circus that is currently American politics.

But. Things to write, a wedding to pack for, walks to take, baseball to watch. It's sunny and hot and I am grateful to be alive.

A coffee and a Mets cookie please!

I will, to no one's surprise, take a Mets cookie.

Lazy day. No writing, just doing stuff I'd blown off while I was hellbent on finishing the novel. Sent payment proof off to the IRS yesterday. Got a haircut today for the big wedding (again: not ours) next weekend. I'll probably get all dressed up like a Ken doll this weekend to make sure the new suit looks nice.

Stranger things is back!!! That alone will compose a good deal of the weekend.

Enjoy the 4th, all you Americans, and enjoy the weekend, the rest of you. A coffee to go with that Met cookie would be swell.

Congrats on the new car. My old gas guzzling soccer-Mom mini-van has a few more miles in her sadly. When I get a new (used) car, it’ll be like Elizabeth’s, a Subaru. I loved my Outback.

I’m going to a bar this afternoon to see if they’d be interested in hosting a poetry/prose reading once a month. Hope they say yes. It’d be nice to get back into the game.

Braves are now THREE games back. Yikes!

A coffee and a cookie please!

Good morning all. Thanks for the setup and the treats.

I actually have to drive across town to deliver proof to the IRS that I paid them. You'd think they'd just be able to look in their coffers, because they cashed my check, but no. So an hour and a half out of my day.

Other than that nothing to complain about. I'm submitting stories today. I hate submitting stories, and I am not very good at it. I'm not very detailed oriented and everyone has their own set of manuscript rules.

Mets got spanked last night. Sara's Braves are only 4 games back.

Coffee and Mets-shaped cookies please!

Good morning all. Thanks for the setup.

Weird waking up without immediately jumping onto working on the novel. I feel lazy! Today is the 1/6 hearings as I battle the IRS on whether I owe them money or not (I already paid you!). Other than that, not much else.

I hope everyone is well. Publish that story,

Scott, you know my answer to that will always be PUBLISH it! Especially since you already have the formatting part down. You can always pull it back down.

So, I have my angry flash, and two different edits of it from two folks I trust (this theme is out of my wheelhouse, I need some help). So today's chore is combining those three docs into one final version and sending it off.

Other than that, it's sunny and warm here, and I have no obligations except those I have chosen.

A coffee and a watermelon cookie please.

Quote by AnnaMayZing

Well done, Verbs, a great achievement indeed. Are you going to you self-publish, or go the whole hog and find a publisher? I wish I could. Either way, good luck with it. 👌😊

Thanks for the kind thoughts. I won't really know if it's any good for another draft. I'll try to get a trad publisher if I like it in six months. Otherwise, I will self-pub or just put it in a drawer.

I got invited to an anthology with a very specific topic--I won't mention what it is, but it's very angry, which should give you a clue. Dashed off 1200 words yesterday, honing them now, they'll go out tomorrow. I have no idea if it's any good or not. I'm really new to pushing out a story this fast, but they want a quick turnaround.

A decaf and a cookie please!

Blinking Hello everyone. Didn't sleep well, but f it, I don't have anything to do today anyway. Take a walk. Listen to the news. Sigh.

I thought there was a Writers Group thread, which is where I was gonna post this. It's the weekly word count doc I used to track the novel (Chew). I hope it's presumptuous of me to post here, but I thought it might be interesting to a group of writers such as yourselves. You can clearly see the horse latitudes when I was selling the house, and the big push I made after that. You can pick out a Thanksgiving/Christmas break too.

Anyway. Extremely lazy day today, for a change. A coffee and a constitution-shaped cookie please.

Quote by Mendalla

Cool. Good luck on the next pass. Hope it is not one of the ones where you go back and realize chapters 4-8 need a total rewrite or something.

Goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooood Morning!

Coffee is black and strong. Tea is tastier but still packing some punch. Iced tea is fresh and ready. It has cooled off here but only for today, supposed to be hot and muggy this weekend.

The whole damn thing needs a total rewrite. But I'm up to it. Not today, or tomorrow. But within a couple weeks. I hope to lose 30,000 words this time around. There's a nice taut story somewhere in all that mess.

Red, you are right, it does feel like a load off my shoulders, though I'll be picking it right back up. It's called Chew, and I wouldn't look for it anywhere soon - lotsa work ahead of me first.

At any rate, thanks for the congrats, it's nice to part of a supportive writing community.

I'd love a coffee and a novel-shaped cookie.

Done.

I'm gonna get to the end of this Damned Thing today. Nothing in the way, I know what to write, and I'm pointed toward toward it like an arrow toward the target.

Let's do this. Coffee please. A cookie when I finish.

Quote by Mendalla

Thanks for the kind words, red. I know it is a bit long for the current climate of this place but I just could not find a good breakpoint to split it and rewriting it into two shorter stories did not appeal. Glad you enjoyed it, hope others do as well.

Coffee is on, teapots are full to the tippy-top with Earl Grey and Red Rose. Iced tea and lemonade and made and in the fridge. Gonna be a hot one in my neck of the woods so might need cold bevvies later.

Later, alligators.

I look forward to reading it.

Writing and 1/6 hearings and lunch with daughter and Mets-Astros tonight! Busy fun day! I think I consolidated events during my walk and have a chapter and a half left to write.

Happy Solstice all! I'd love a coffee and a cookie.