Chapter 3 is nearly up to 38 pages and I'm going to head out. Skywise is home and I'm beat.

Everyone sleep well and be safe.

Skywise left for work about 35 minutes ago and so far the weather here isn't doing much. I suspect that isn't the case farther north but it shouldn't be too bad yet. I just want him to get home okay tonight.
I'm doing laundry, dishes and writing this afternoon in the hope of keeping my mind off of the weather...

Chapter 3 version 2.0 is finished. It came it at 39 pages so I'm pleased. I'm working on Chapter 6 now and I expect to finish with it in an hour or so. This is good 'cause I'm going to need to make dinner soon and put away the three loads on laundry that are on the bed! Tomorrow is going to be spent baking, pies for Skywise to take to work on Thursday and the first round of cookies for us.  Spirit wants chocolate chip and scotch shortbread. I have a hankering for my "to die for" chocolate brownies. So the flour is likely to fly tomorrow but I'll have a chapter on the desktop so I can work on it while things bake. I'm not anticipating having to do anything really major with the latter chapters although something might come up. We'll see what my editors say...

It's been a lazy day so far. Everything is coated with a thin layer of ice so we decided to stay in today. The temperature is expected to go above freezing overnight so we'll do our "stuff" tomorrow. Skywise is already on his way to work. We're both hoping that INDoT has gotten the highways treated. We don't have THAT much ice and it IS in the afternoon and it HAS stopped freezing raining so they SHOULD be on it!
I thought of something else that needed to go into Book One. I'm putting it in chapter 9 and a paragraph can handle it. It was something that was mentioned as "coming up" that never happened in the original thread but it should be taken care of in the novel so I'm taking care of it right now. Just need to decide how long the paragraph should be.
I've also "crunched some numbers" and I have a pretty good idea of the population of the castle's home planet so I'm hoping to be able to put that information up soon. Probably when I'm done with the second draft.

Skywise is home. The last sheet (for tonight) of cookies has just come out of the oven. I bushed! I'm gonna grab a cookie or three and head out!

Everyone sleep well and be safe!

According to the radar, we have freezing rain but Spirit just came in and says, no rain yet. I'm working on Chapter 11 right now. I should get it done tonight, barring power outages or some other distraction. And since I SHOULD bake the shortbread tonight, I probably won't get it done until tomorrow. I want to take my time with 11. I think that it is my favorite chapter in Book One. Hopefully, I can tweak it a bit and make it even better....

Just stuck my head outside. Ice on everything. Gonna be a nerve wracking hour plus for me until Skywise gets home.
Later.

Afternoon! It is windy as hell here today!  Last night's temp when we went to bed was around 32 degrees and it was pouring liquid rain. Now, about 10 and a half hours later, it's around 20 degrees warmer! The weather is really weird....

The second draft is finished. Or at least, it is as finished as it's gonna get until BR and her editor friend can get back to me with feedback. All fourteen chapters/650 pages are going out in an email as I type which is taking a while on dial-up let me tell you! It's gonna feel weird to not work on it every day. I've been working on the original, the reposts, the first draft and now the second draft pretty much continuously since late '05.  I'm not going to know what to do with myself tomorrow. At some point soon, I'm going to print it all out, put it in a loose leaf binder and read the whole thing to find the things I've missed in proofing. I've also got to start my market research although the way things have been going with the book, something could just drop into my lap.
Anyway, to those who believed in the book and me when it was an idea being tossed around in PMs. We're in the home stretch. The thing is pretty much written and most books don't make it this far. And for the rest who believed I'd fail or hoped I would or prayed I would..... 
I'll save the serious "razz" for when it goes on sale..... 

Evening. I've been taking the day off from writing today although I did write a piece for my MySpace blog since it had been a while since I'd done that. I'm needing to get out of the habit of pulling out the novel every time I sit down in front of the computer. Those days will come back when I start on Book 2 [Note to self: Gotta have a title!] but for the moment I'm at loose ends writing wise although I do have a few small things that need writing, some of them Castle related. I'll probably be spending more time on my dancing -- I'm starting to get the hang of the more challenging moves. Coordination was NEVER my strong suit! --  as well as taking care of some "stuff" that I've let slide these last six months or so while I pounded out the book. [I bought two 22 count boxes of heavy duty contractor's trash bags today if that tells you anything... ahem... ] I'm probably going to add some sort of strength training to my workouts now that I have the time since, while belly dancing does a lot of things for you, it doesn't build physical strength.
Right now, I need to use strong language on the chicken that Spirit wants for dinner. It is still wanting to be frozen....
Later.

HAPPY [FRIGID] YULE!!
It's colder than a polar bear's toe nails here today. The wind is steady at about 25 miles per hour, the temperature is 10 degrees F. with the windchill somewhere around 13 below. The middle of last week, it was springlike.
To add insult to injury, we went to the Children's Museum today and I grabbed my Dutch Police Coat that I've been wearing all week instead of my L.L.Bean BLIZZARD WARNING coat or my BLIZZARD WARNING WITH WIND CHILL FROM HELL!!!!! coat. Then when I got out to the car, I discovered that my gloves were NOT in my coat pocket or in my purse. At that point, Moonie piped up to remind me that I'd dropped my gloves into the bag from Border's yesterday and they were likely still there. Grr...... Fortunately, Skywise had an extra pair of gloves in the car so he gave me the ones he'd had on so I could thaw my fingers. *sigh* I will get out a heavy coat for tomorrow's trip into town and make SURE that I have a pair of gloves with me!!!!

Good [frigid] morning! It's still colder than a polar bear's toenails here but at least that damned wind has STOPPED blowing! (High, sustained winds put my nerves on edge, especially at night. I could never live in S. California. The Santa Ana winds would drive me insane!) Anyway, it's cold, 7 degrees in Indianapolis and the local weather says that it is 3 in town. We're getting ready to go into town. Bundling up is the order of the day!
Later.