I’m working on copy edits for Deceiving Derek, Story 1 in LOVE & OTHER CALAMITIES. The story should be available this month! In the meantime, I’ve received the cover for Catching Claire, Story 2 in the series. Yes, Catching Claire features a laundry-room scene. So this cover is perfect. Another winner from LFD Designs for Authors!
You want a blurb, you say? Sorry, I haven’t written it yet! I am working on the blurb for Deceiving Derek, though. So have no fear, when I update my Books pages, the blurbs will magically appear.
“Seeing” (get it?) as some of you have been following my progress (or lack thereof) following SBK laser eye surgery in December 2011, I thought I’d offer yet another follow-up. I went to see the clinic again last week.
The good news is, they think a touch-up can help me. The bad news is I’m not confident how much it can help me. My left eye remains bionic—it’s wonderful at reading close (which is what it was designed to do) and it’s not too shabby in the near-to-mid-distance department. I am in love with my left eye.
My right eye is the one that requires a touch-up. I had measurements taken last week and compared to the measurements taken 6 or 8 weeks previous. The measurements haven’t changed all that much, and that’s good. There’s always going to be some fluctuations. The eye guy can’t see anything on the surface of my right eye that might be hampering my vision. That’s good, too. However…and this is where my disappointment comes in…At this nine-month point, I simply could not stand going without glasses for driving any longer. I know from this whole experience that you’re allowed to have pretty crappy vision and be considered legal to drive. Honestly, I’m amazed how bad your vision can be and you’re “legal.” It’s ridiculous.
I no longer care if I’m “legal” or not, I like clear vision when I’m driving. And, I’m attending the Novelists Inc. conference in a couple of weeks. Which means I’m going to be in a few airports and in a hotel (and catching some Broadway—it’s only a minor addiction), and I need to be able to see to enjoy a successful conference. Just in case a plane is late, I can’t be squinting up at monitors. I need to glance and go.
So…I decided that even though I should be getting my laser surgery touch-up before the end of the year, I wanted driving glasses now and glasses to take to the conference.
Luckily, I never gave away my old frames, so this meant getting one lens replaced that I would eventually need for night driving anyway (the left eye—the reading eye) and getting the right lens temporarily replaced until after I have my touch-up. I decided I could live with that extra expense. So I had the laser clinic write me up a prescription.
It never occurred to me that I would not be able to see distance clearly with a glasses prescription! Yet that is what’s happened.
My left eye, the bionic eye, can see fantastic distance with the glasses while driving. But my right eye, even with glasses, I STILL can’t see distance clearly. And I could see distance clearly with glasses before laser eye surgery, thank you very much.
I am hoping this is a temporary condition. One of the reasons the clinic didn’t schedule me for touch-up surgery now is that my right eye wasn’t seeing clearly in the office, with the aid of the doctor’s fancy machines. At the last check-up, I could see clearly when he passed this little monocle thing in front of my eye. Last week, I couldn’t. Somehow I thought I would be able to see clearly with the glasses, but nope.
So something is going on with my right eye. The eye doc has prescribed a steroid eye drop to take in my right eye three times a day. It’s supposed to help with irritation and/or inflammation. My next appointment is mid-November, after I return from White Plains, NY. Cross your eyelashes that I can see clearly at that point (I mean with the aid of lenses) because then we can schedule the touch-up.
In the end, I might have to accept that I will never again see distance clearly out of my right eye, even with a touch-up and even, after that, wearing glasses. I might have to be content with better mid-distance vision and then letting my left do all the work when I’m driving.
Anyway, you know when you read the fine print about how you might never be able to achieve your “best personal vision”? I think that’s what’s happening. The eye guy is hoping the steroid drops (not as strong as the drops I used when recovering last winter) will do the trick. And so am “eye.” 🙂
Ever seen this picture? It’s probably one of the more photographed Galapagos Islands settings:
And for good reason. It’s a breathtaking view!
This shot is from the top of Bartholomew Island. That little white dot in the ocean to the right is a yacht or catamaran. The pointy rock it seems to be heading toward is Pinnacle Rock. To see this view in a magazine or on a postcard is breathtaking. To see it in person…well, there’s a reason our guide kept saying the Galapagos Islands were “paradise.”
To get to that amazing view on Day 9 of our cruise, we set out bright and early only to be faced with this hike:
Well, “hike” is a bit of an exaggeration. It was a steep walk up to the top of Bartholomew Island, but it’s not like hiking up a volcano. Well, actually it IS like hiking up a volcano, because Bartholomew Island is a volcano. But it’s not like hiking up a volcano on Isabela Island when it’s wet and sloppy and you don’t have nice wooden steps. All right, depending on your usual activities, it’s either a “hike” or a “steep walk” up a volcano with zero chance of precipitation and sliding onto your elbow a la Joan Wilder in Romancing the Stone (as was my experience on Isabela Island). So I’ll go with calling Bartholomew Island a “steep walk.”
You can see a little windmill at the top. Okay, it’s probably not a windmill. It’s probably a marker of some kind. I can’t be expected to remember everything! Sheesh.
So the marker was a long ways away, and it was a warm morning. But on the way up, you get to look at stuff like this, so who’s complaining?
That’s the jetty where the pangas landed. We steep-walked up to the point in the previous photo, which was where I took THIS photo. Then we steep-walked up to the marker at the top.
At least we had a boardwalk of sorts. You get a boardwalk, you’re steep-walking. Don’t be a wimp.
I know, I know, I’m one to talk, considering I visited the Galapagos relatively “early” in my life. If I can offer a Travel Tip! of any sort, visit the Galapagos in your personal best physical condition. Unless you’re a high-endurance athlete. Then you can visit the G.I. whenever. If you’re a granny from Sweden, probably 89 is a good age to visit. Swedish grannies could skip to the top and poke fun at the North Americans (like me) huffing and puffing our way along.
The problem (as I see it) is that, unless you’re super wealthy, you’re probably not visiting the Galapagos until mid-life somewhere. Or, you’re visiting the G.I. in your early twenties, but on a boat that sea lions wouldn’t venture onto. But you’re young. What do you care? You can handle it!
Me, I waited for mid-life. I wasn’t second-to-last-picked in gym class for nuttin’.
There’s a view of a spatter cone as we hiked up the 375 wooden steps. I know there were 375, because I just looked it up on my Cormorant Itinerary (although, Frommer’s Ecuador says there are only 372—who built the other three?). Apparently, the “walk” (they don’t even call it a “steep walk” on the itinerary) is 114 meters. A meter is roughly a yard. So it’s 114 yards. How many feet is that? About 342 feet. Or 4104 inches. So if you feel the need to take a breather, iz okay. Plenty of other travelers are taking a breather, otherwise known as “taking pictures.”
Never forget at least one bottle of water per person when you’re visiting Bartholomew. If your itinerary calls for you to visit Sullivan Bay on Santiago Island in the afternoon of that same day, stock up on TWO bottles of water. And take extra sunscreen. Because, at Sullivan Bay, man, you’re sweating it allllllllll off. You’re sweating off the backs of your knees. You’re sweating on your eyelashes. You’re sweating on—never mind.
We last saw Santiago Island on Day 6 of the Galapagos when we went snorkeling at Espumilla Beach and got mega-rained on. So, three days ago. On Day 9 of our cruise, there was not a drop of moisture in the air! Sullivan Bay, where the pangas dropped us off and we hiked all over lava, reminded me a lot of our hike on Moreno Point on Isabela Island, during Week 1. You need to be pretty able-footed for these “walks.” Your guide will always caution you to take a walking stick, which are plentiful on the Cormorant. Depending on your agility, take one. However, sometimes balancing the cameras with the walking sticks just becomes a PITA. On Moreno Point, I learned to rely more on my developing sense of balance and less on the stick.
A view from Santiago Island looking out toward Pinnacle Rock, which is on Bartholomew. Unless we were anchored in port, this was pretty much our busiest site. There are just so many areas to discover. So, even though there are a lot of boats anchored, while we were at Sullivan Bay, we were quite alone. Our 16-person group with guide, that is. The guides and boats do a wonderful job of not piling too many people on one “landing site” at one time.
You can also see, in the picture above, how rocky the lava was!
Below…looks like a moonscape!
We came across this hole in the lava. Harry looked at me and said, “Get in.” I wondered what he was on! “No,” I said. He said again, “Go on. Get in.”
“No way on earth I’m getting in that hole,” I said. See, I thought he was teasing. I didn’t realize it was SAFE to get in the hole. I didn’t realize he was providing a photo opp. The photo opp. would have been more clear if he’d said, “It’s all right. It’s a photo opp. You’ll look very brave if you’re the first to get in the hole. If you’re the second, you’ll just look like a follower.”
But he didn’t say any of that, so I refused to get in the hole. Instead, the youngest member of our group (by which I mean she was in her late twenties or early thirties, I can’t remember which) got in. THEN I realized it was quite safe. However, by now I wasn’t the brave one! She was! Frog on a stick!
Not brave, but cute nonetheless. “Get in,” my eye!
So then we happened along another area of lava where Harry said to my husband, “Go ahead, lie down. It’s a human barbecue.”
Of course, by now we all knew it was PERFECTLY SAFE TO LIE DOWN (if a trifle hot). So Steve got to look all impressive by lying down and making a snow angel on the lava, like a slab of meat on a barbecue (except they don’t generally move):
I have a little video of Steve making the lava angel, but it’s on my Facebook page. Sooner or later, I’ll post all the videos to a YouTube account. However, “later” is more likely to occur than “sooner.” To see the lava angel video now, visit my Facebook page, click on Photos, then click on Videos.
Ever wonder what encroaching lava looks like? Imagine running from this baby if it were molten hot!
After visiting Sullivan Bay, you develop a whole new admiration for the survivors of Pompeii…
This month I’m Indie-publishing the first of two romantic comedy short stories in a five-part series called LOVE & OTHER CALAMITIES. The series follows a group of friends in a fictional Seattle suburb called Rosewood. The series starts with the bachelorette party in Deceiving Derek and will end with the wedding of one of the secondary characters from the first story.
Deceiving Derek has been previously published (whereas the remaining four stories in the series will be Indie originals), and so I’ve taken the opportunity to update it technology-wise and also revise it both to reflect changes in my writing style and also because the hero, Derek McAllister, is a police detective and I wanted to make sure I nailed his character to the best of my ability. I had a great research resource in the form of a writer I’ve critiqued with over the years, but because geography can make a difference I also took the opportunity to pick the brains of a resource in Lynwood (near Seattle) and most especially a very helpful detective with the Edmonds Police Department, also near Seattle. All three resources were invaluable, and of course any errors or, ahem, fictional liberties are my own.
Deceiving Derek first appeared on the website of the first publisher of HEAD OVER HEELS. Later, before epublishing took off, I sold the story to another small epublisher, who sold maybe 11 copies from their website over a period of seven months. The Kindle was getting introduced just when that small epublisher went under. I began to wonder if this story was cursed.
Then I was offered another contract to publish the story—from a traditional epublisher that is still around and has published a lot of books. I decided not to accept that offer, because I wanted to retain audio rights to the story and the publisher, while they did not have plans to release the story in audio at the time, wanted to contract those rights for the possible future. And so I declined, and the story sat on my hard drive.
Will it ever release in audio? What inspired me to take this story and develop it into a series? You’ll have to stay tuned to this blog!
For now, Deceiving Derek will see life again as an ebook, and once I’m finished writing the series, perhaps also in a print anthology (depending on the eventual length of the series). I’m very excited to get it out there again, especially in its new incarnation. But I need to learn formatting first, so the release date is still a couple of weeks off.
In the meantime…drum roll…I love this cover designed by the talented Dara England of LFD Designs for Authors. It totally captures the romantic comedy mood with some winky-winky flair.
