The Goings On

On the writing front, I've gone through Jute 1 and finished with the editor's changes. A couple of notes there:

• I'm going to take this opportunity to add a few things now that will be the seeds of sub-plots and reveals in the second two books (which are also already written, but need another pass).
• The editor had some great ideas (and some I didn't agree with), but I found 6 (six!) typos that the editor missed on their pass through the text. I had paid for an editor because I wanted that kind of peace of mind -- knowing that the little typos would be found (you instead of your, for example). Alas, buyer beware! Now, I don't know if this is my fault or, really, if there's any blame to be had, but I know that 6 typos (that I found myself, who knows if I missed any?) in 160 pages is too many.
• Do I mention this to the editor? It's been over a year since we last emailed and so I'm assuming that while it might help them do a better job in the future, they might not want to hear from me after this long.

I'm about to start on book 2, and I still have to get book 3 finished up. I hope to have it all done by October 31st... But then what? I really don't know! Self-publish? Submit? (both?) Create a website? Ebooks? Printed? "Middle Grade" is a good market, but I have no idea (yet) how to get in there.

Ok, on to the garden. Our tomatoes have done very well. We planted two varieties (some kind of roma and some kind of little grape or cherry ones -- those guys taste so good!). Also, we had a volunteer sprout up -- looks to be that uber late blooming heirloom-ish variety we tried last year. You know, the ones the mice destroyed?

Well, the volunteer is huge, and its fruit are taking forever to ripen. They're still green and growing larger.

Speaking of mice, we've been waiting for them to show up this year. Last year was so bad, there was even an article in the local newspaper about it. We have some of our garden encased in chickenwire. On Monday morning, we had two mice to dispose of. So, just two so far! I know there's plenty of time left for the rodents to attack, but we've already gotten so much from our measly little garden, at this point I'm calling this year a success. Well, unless you're a pomegranate tree/shrub, in which case you should sleep with one eye open as I'm THIS CLOSE to chopping ours down. Dropped every bloom again!