Tarantula, Mice, Snakes, Oh My

A Scary Morning

Well, I have finally pulled my mind back to the here and now from editing. Or maybe I should say it I was scared back into the here and now. Yesterday I went out to get a cup of coffee. I got to the edge of the divider and stopped, screamed and raised help. I was so scared that I didn’t think to get a picture of the monster so I took one from the web…..this is what I saw:

Doesn’t belong in your kitchen.

It was a good 4” across, standing there laughing at me. (At least that is what I thought as it bounced up and down.) Luckily my screaming brought my exterminator who removed the offending intruder to my domain. I can handle mice….

Doesn’t belong in your house

This was from where I work…a brave soul. The dog whose food he is eating is big and eats mice when he can catch them. This was right beside where I sit at the counter.

I can handle snakes…..

Belongs outside catching the mice.

This one lives in my back yard. He is over 4 feet long and about 3 inches thick. He didn’t bother me at all.

But I can’t handle tarantulas.

At least not in my house. When I moved here, I didn’t know that there were over 30 species of tarantulas living in Arizona. The one in my house was a blond one like in the picture above, supposedly harmless. As if any hairy spider that is 4” across is harmless.

I despise spiders and big hairy ones don’t belong in my house. No way. No how. No time. Nope. I’ll let my exterminator take care of it.

And yes, he is my exterminator. That is a work picture since he’s part of the Cataract Gang and is a professional train robber. Every day a 5 PM they rob the train coming back from the Grand Canyon.

What I’ve been doing

All fun aside, I’ve been really busy this past year learning how to edit, plot, and market. I’ve been doing my best to get my next two books edited, but seems like life gets in the way. While everyone else was out of work, I ended up with more work than I could handle.

Because I’m isolated with where I live, I was asked to care for several fragile children. I love the kids I work with, but I can’t work 80 hour a week. Or maybe I should say, I’m not going to work 80 hours a week.

After six weeks of 48 hour weeks, things are getting back to normal. I’m back to having time to edit and write plus take a few classes that I’ve been wanting to take for quite sometime. I love getting a crash course from a renown teacher for half price. I don’t even have to leave home, pay for gas, hotel, food…ok I pay for food but that is a lot cheaper than eating out. Great deal when it’s a virtual class.

I’m going through the book I want to publish this year…again…using what I’m learning to make the book a lot better. As one of my colleagues said, I’m getting a MFA for a quarter of the price and learning how to do it correctly.

Most people when they begin to write (including me) will say, “Oh I can write better than ____. Today, I’ll laugh and say…maybe, but I doubt it.

The easy part is typing out a story. But making it into a really good story that people want to read isn’t so easy. Ask Dan Brown. It took him 15 years to become that overnight sensation. Most authors take 5 years or more to get noticed.

With that said, thank you for sticking with me. Reading what I write and letting me know that you enjoy some of my updates. I very much appreciate your loyalty.

Stay tuned. I’ll let you know when I have the next book ready for pre-order.