The AH Coffee Shop and Reading Room 09

[MrPixel]

Wow. Just rolled out of bed - 11:00 a.m. local time. Must be catching up after that bout with the medication making a mess out of my sleep. Switched back on Thursday.

We're under a "heat advisory". Heat index is forecast to be >105° for the next several days. Backyard is finally drying-out enough to get the fence planted.

Writing? What writing? Still not in the frame of mind. I have been proofreading a chaptered story that's been moldering in the "Ready... but..." folder for nearly two years. It's a continuation of a story line published back then and there's really no problem with it. Ostensibly it's in my usual GS theme, but there's a fantasy thread woven into it - influence of a semi-corporeal "spirit" - and therein lies my reluctance, does it really fit in GS?

I have another chapter ready in my "normal" (ha!) series, but the follow-up isn't finished, and that's where I'm hung-up at the moment.

Okay... now that's weird. Pandora channel is now playing When the Saints Go Marching In... on bagpipes.

 

[NotWise]

Okay... now that's weird. Pandora channel is now playing When the Saints Go Marching In... on bagpipes.

I scrapped Pandora for crap like that. Their classical music offerings were pretty limited to start with and no matter where I started they ended up playing easy listening and miscellaneous garbage. I pressed thumbs down over and over to try to get it back in line, and they informed me that I had to listen to their garbage so they could pay their bills.

So I informed them that there are better sources.

Amazon music has a much better selection of Classical music, but they also follow the same pattern of mixing in easy listening music and other classical-adjacent garbage. So far they haven't told me what I have to listen to. I've also messed with their algorithm. They don't know whether to offer me classical, heavy metal, or alt country.

I also have Spotify available, but I haven't gotten far into it.

 

[MrPixel]

It must've been a few years since you were on Pandora. They expanded their classical offerings two years ago and there is/was obviously a curator who knew what he/she is doing. Channels like Romantic Era Classical seems to be well-behaved, although there is a lot of female composer bias these days. Now that's fine, exposure for composers you've never heard of, and it's all quite good.

I have a free Spotify account, but their UI is a nightmare. Amazon? Bezos. Not going to contribute. Apple? More than I'm willing to pay, though a friend has it and its in-genre choices are really good.

My main gripe with Pandora these days is the crossovers. "Favorite" something on another channel, it eventually shows-up on the one you're listening to regardless of genre. However, this, too has recently moderated, and the C&W channel my wife infrequently has up has not yet intruded on any of "my" channels.

The bagpipe stuff showed-up on an easy-listening channel - Harp Twins Radio - that crosses-over into Celtic. Celtic = bagpipes. Sometimes. In fact, at this moment, it just changed from a lilting harp number to Amazing Grace on 'pipes with an orchestral backing. Funny, there's one high note on the 'pipes that (I know from experience) is impossible to control, and even these pros can't get it in tune!

 

[NotWise]

It must've been a few years since you were on Pandora. They expanded their classical offerings two years ago and there is/was obviously a curator who knew what he/she is doing. Channels like Romantic Era Classical seems to be well-behaved, although there is a lot of female composer bias these days. Now that's fine, exposure for composers you've never heard of, and it's all quite good.

Two years ago I was already long-gone from Pandora. I don't have good feelings about them, and I'm not going back.

I also don't have any special problems with Jeff Bezos.

 

[Candy_Kane54]

Another beautiful sunny morning and looking forward to another hot sticky day. I've finally had to bite the bullet and call in a landscaping company to help me get my raised flower beds cleaned out since I haven't been able to do it myself.

There's a fresh pot of coffee brewing and the teapot is hot. The peach cobbler disappeared so fast that I thought the dragon may have snuck up and devoured it. I guess I'll have to make another one now. There are donuts and pastries on the counter. With the blackberries coming into season, I may have to make a blackberry cobbler soon.

I finished the last scene of my new story and will begin the editing process today. When I started this story, I knew where I wanted it to go, but the journey to get there surprised me. I think that's the best part of writing - the discovery of where it takes you.

 

[iwatchus]

Damn! I missed the cobbler.

The good news is that the muse returned to me yesterday after a week of misery fighting my writing. 9K of what will probably be a 12K story. Not exactly sure how happily ever after will look, but they are just about there. Should be out sometime this week.

 

[NotWise]

Sunny and dry expected here, but the weather service thinks we'll take a hard dive into cool and potentially wet for the first half of the week.

Today will at least break my routine. I have some chores to finish off early, then my afternoon will be in Santa Fe for the late boss's celebration. Might meet old friends. Might be able to talk a little business. My wife had planned on going, but she pulled out on the belief that her time was better spent with her cousin in hospice and with his family.

The lead engineer on my last project called Friday afternoon. It looks like the administrative road blocks to continuing that work will be lifted, but I only have until July 8 to substantially complete the project and build a presentation. Then I'll have to drive the six hours to Lubbock and present to a large assembly of the client's board and their engineers.

I managed a few hundred words yesterday, and I might be able to do a few more early today. I'm at the sexual climax of the story and the emotional climax is a few paragraphs away. Then I'll have to figure out how to take the denouement from obscure to crystalline. Maybe life, or at least writing, will be easier with Zelda behind me.

 

[NuclearFairy]

I'm sorry, I let the dragon in.

In other news, I managed to write most of a chapter yesterday before my muse abandoned me.

 

[NotWise]

Y'all are so productive!

 

[Rustyoznail]

Y'all are so productive!

@Duleigh invited me to join another site where they run a 1000 word monthly themed competition. That's been the limit of my attention span this year. I can't seem to get fired up about anything longer. The ideas are there, but getting them going is not happening.

I'm hoping I get one of these jobs I'm going for. A couple of weeks break, then a new challenge might wake things up.

 

[NotWise]

I'm hoping I get one of these jobs I'm going for. A couple of weeks break, then a new challenge might wake things up.

Changes in one aspect of your life can make big changes in others, so good luck with that. I broke my year-and-a-half drought by finding something I wanted to write, and doing it.

The celebration in Santa Fe was fun. Not surprisingly, they ran a loop of slides from the boss's life. A lot of them were interesting. One thing that really surprised me were pictures from when he and his wife first got together in the 1960s. She looked like a cute hippy chick. She was a math major at Columbia.

 

[Candy_Kane54]

Another beautiful day that's going to get very hot soon, but right now, it's not too bad ...

I've got a fresh pot of coffee going and the teapot is hot. I'm going to head out in a bit to get some more peaches and make another cobbler. For now, there are cookies and donuts on the counter so help yourself. I've tossed a lump of coal down to the dragon and I saw the guilty look on his face so he did get into the peach cobbler the other day.

I've made the first pass at editing my story and I think it looks good. I'm going to set it aside for a couple of days and start on something else before I take a final look at it before submitting it.

 

[NotWise]

The weather service is sticking to their forecast of a cooler start to the week with a chance of thundershowers. The tomatoes should love it.

I have a few chores to take care of this morning, including cutting the first gladiola of the summer, then I'll stick my nose into a database while I wait for some junk removal guys to show up this afternoon.

I wrote through the last(?) sex scene in my WIP. Question mark because I haven't entirely decided on the denouement. Everything I've considered so far has been a variation on a single scene, but if that scene really worked for me then I'd have already written it. I may need to rethink.

But before that I have the emotional climax to write. It looks like the story will stay under 20k words.

 

[calmlikeabomb]

The Monsoons have started. The Days are hot and sticky, the nights are no better, and the sky grays for a couple of hours before the sun glares at us again.

I have read some Blake and Browning. Prose seems too hard in this heat, and poetry provides very little solace.

In a week or so, the Monsoons will hit us hard. The burning summer will be a distant memory. Maybe then, if the lights stay on, will I properly out fingers to keyboard.

Until then, I dream of stories to write and tales to tell.

 

[NotWise]

I just got a voice message that made me laugh. It wasn't the voice that was the problem, but the phone's speech-to-text conversion. The call closed with "Thank you and have a nice rest of your day." The voice was a little accented, and what the phone interpreted it as was "Thank you and have a stressful day."

 

[MrPixel]

"Thank you and have a stressful day."

Was that intended for me? I must apologize, for it was obviously misdirected. Big pile of bills on my desk, and C just retrieved three more big ones out of the mailbox. Nothing unexpected, but timing is such that our biggest outgoes for the year are all in July, adding to my worries about the squirrelly investment markets tromping on our nest egg.

It's friggin' hot outside again, and we're still under a heat advisory. Haven't heard from the fence guy today. Things are finally dried-out and we're waiting on him now.

As mentioned previously, I've been reviewing back-burner stories to pull them out of limbo. Last night I dug into a 34K-word whopper about a visit to a swinger encampment. I don't know if it's my current mood (not good) or I went off the deep end writing it two years ago; current thought is to 86 the whole thing and start over with the "girlfriend gets crazy" theme. I should hold off until frame-of-mind lightens a little.

 

[_Lynn_]

I lost track of how many days it's been over 90. Then there's that lovely 'feels like' number. I wouldn't mind if the AC was working but it's not. A call last Wed. resulted in a tech coming and saying the compressor was out. It took until this afternoon for management to approve the work. It's really difficult to write (or do anything) when it's as hot inside as it is outside.

 

[GrantBricksly]

So, I'm getting a late start to my writing today, but I'm here and I'm writing...

Also...It's Monday....and we are under a heat advisory...until 10 pm....ON FIRIDAY!!!! Yes, you read that right, the heat advisory lasts for the entirety of the week. no break, just hot...all the time.... I'm going to melt people....

 

[GrantBricksly]

I think my muse is having issues with the heat today as well..... cause I can't seem to get the ball rolling on my writing.... somebody motivate me.....

 

[MrPixel]

Wow. I just walked from the house to the mailbox and back, and have thusly determined that it is fucking hot! It's a penetrating, whole-body hot. Maybe my health isn't the best, but... damn... that little hike of maybe 200' has sure knocked me on my ass. This nonsense is going to supposedly last all week.

Yes, I grew up in the Mojave Desert, but never felt the heat like that. HX here is 105°. I was hoping to mow the courtyard at the studio this evening, and I'm now wondering if it will have to be after sunset. At least the house and studio are staying cool.

 

[Bassytian]

It's hot as fuck where I live too. I had to go out there for a little while at work today. I downed two bottles of water and needed to puff my inhaler, heat sucks when you have asthma or any kind of breathing issue.

 

[iwatchus]

Miserable here today as well but we only get two days of it. Good luck staying cool

 

[TarnishedPenny]

I think my muse is having issues with the heat today as well..... cause I can't seem to get the ball rolling on my writing.... somebody motivate me.....

 

[NotWise]

I got the junk hauled, so now I can start piling up more junk.

There's been no writing today to speak of. I'm rethinking the denouement.

 

[Candy_Kane54]

Another beautiful beginning of another extra hot day. I'm going to water the herb garden and call it a day for outside work.

There's a fresh pot of coffee brewing and the teapot is ready for use. I made another peach cobbler and it is on the counter. There is vanilla ice cream in the 'fridge if you want to put a scoop of it on the cobbler. Just make sure the dragon doesn't get it today.

I'm going to review the story I finished for the 2025 Crime and Punishment Story Event and see if it still looks good. I found an error in the new story and made some fixes to it. I'm looking forward to receiving the accolades that it deserves when I publish it next week ...