The Wild West

I’m out west! As you know I’ve been out here since the 8^th. And so far it’s been a whirlwind of one adventure after another. The first day I was here we dropped my bags at the house and went off to the county fair. There were animals…

^Honestly look at the Duck's hair.... crazy!^

And a Water Buffalo!

I’d never been to a county fair. You see the quaint fairs in tv shows and what not. You know where they judge pies and cakes and jams. Apparently it’s a real thing.

I laughed a bit over it.

Then that night I was dragged to the clubs. I offered to DD because I wanted to get the feel for the club scene. We stayed out till almost 3am so it was a tough 45 minutes home for me since I’d been up since 5:30 the day before. But it was worth if… the people watching! Oh I love my people watching!

The next day we went to Promontory**. 

Then Lagoon the day after. It’s a theme park. My favourite ride was the one that went from one side to the other. The views were great!

^Feetsies!^ 

I had a few days of down time to finish adjusting to the altitude. It was hitting me really hard, headaches and nausea, the whole nine yards!

The next adventure was the Dino Park!! **

My second weekend out here was supposed to be a wee little trip to Idaho and Craters of the Moon**. What ended up happening was an impromptu road trip to Yellowstone!**

A week of resting and working on my manuscript left me well rested for the grand adventure to California!**

And that all pretty much catches you up to where I am now, post Cali pre weekend adventure.

Now the ** next to places I’ve been are there to let you know that they are getting their own blog posts! So hang tight while I now proceed to take ages to put together the posts and post them!

Cheers,

New Adventures

Good Morning ladies and Gents,

I’ve been super insanely busy since the SCBWI conference over a month ago. Real life and all that.

After the conference I had a lot to think about with my book. So I tackled that head on. I redirected a few of my ideas that I was going to tone down for it to be a young adult book. In retrospect I should have known I couldn’t hack YA with my series when I was considering toning down two story arcs. I did a whole lot of writing, almost 20,000 words worth! Woo! Last week I decided I decided to take a character out. Camber was supposed to be the snake in the group who wasn’t really for the good, you need that cliché person sometimes. It was like walking through peanut butter when I had to write scenes with her. I couldn’t make her a fake likable and enjoy writing for her because I just started to hate her and how manipulative she was getting. And when you don’t enjoy writing a character nothing is fun with them around, they’re like the friend you invite out but hope they don’t come and when they do they ruin all the fun. So Camber got cut. It was only 75 pages that needed reworking. It took me over a week. Eek I know ages, but I have a good reason.

My good reason? I’ve been in PA babysitting during the week. I lived with my pseudo sisters three weeks out of the last five. Last week we were at the beach and it was amazing! I really missed the beach this summer so I enjoyed getting up and putting my bathing suit right on and skimboarding and lotioning up and all things beachy! This week we just hung out and ate a lot of ice cream. Yesterday we stuck to the hobbit eating schedule for the main reason that we wanted ice cream early and I didn’t want their parents to accuse me of ruining their children by giving them ice cream for breakfast. So we had ice cream for elevenses. Totally justified right? Plus it was Owowcow ice cream. It’s just about the best ice cream ever, it’s local ingredients so it’s super hipster as well as tasty. Needless to say by the end of the day I was feeling a bit on the fat side having eaten every two hours essentially. Props to the hobbits for eating so much and staying in shape. It was also fun babysitting because the girls are 13 and 8 so they’re in that phase where sometimes they whine, so I got to whine back. I used to hate when my mum did that to me so it was gratifying to do it to someone else. I’m turning into my parents but that’s okay, they’re snarky so it works.

Aside from babysitting and writing I’ve been hitting up my local coffee shop. I’ve got to give then a shout out because Harvest Café just opened in High Bridge and when I’ve been home I hit it up almost every day. Their mocha’s are the most amazing things ever! And they’ve got amazing gluten free brownies and they have organic options so not only is it tasty it’s good for you! I’m a bit sad that I’m leaving for a bit because I’ve been dying to have a good coffee shop close to home so I could have a place to act like a real writer and write. Alas I must wait till I get back from my adventures.

And what adventures are these you ask? I’m heading out west. I’m going to hang out with a friend in Utah for 6 weeks. His husband just came over from China so I’m going to be “Americanising” him, whatever that actually means. I’ll be teaching him how to drive and pretty much just hanging out with him a ton. Plus weekend excursions! Such as Salt Lake Comic Con, Las Vegas, San Francisco, and hitting up National Parks out there. So it’s going to be a grand time of gallivanting about in the west. Then I’m jetting to Nebraska to visit Sheridan. We’re going to cause trouble in Nebraska and have fun…. Well as much fun as one can have in Nebraska I suppose.  

So expect blogging to be a bit more frequent then it has been. I’m bringing my lovely boyfriend Felix with me. Incase I’ve failed to mention Felix is my new macbook. It’s a bit weird to be traveling with a laptop. I feel sophisticated. I’m chilling at gate 33 in Newark and blogging. I’ve blogged traveling before, but from my Nook. So this is crazy and fun. And I’m doing my normal gig of carry on only. I’ve missed my trusty backpack, it was nice to break it out last night and pack. I’ve had the travel itch really bad these last few months and it’s already feeling good to be at the airport!

As you all know I’m crazy about airports and all things airporty. I got here at 7h40 and my flight boards at 9h55… yup I love airports. Security was insanely quick this morning. When I was getting my ID checked the guy at the desk said I was too perky. I’m fine with that, people need to be perkier at airports. I mean come on people you’re about to take off and go somewhere! Plus come on take off is the best part! And I favour of boring you all with more rattling on and perkiness I’m going to read. I’m staring Fighting Pax by Robind Jarvis.

Cheers,