Re-entry

I wasn't planning to take a week off of The Writing Vein. But I found myself going non-stop from the morning of Tuesday, August 3rd until, well, right now - nearly 2:30 AM on Monday - no, make that Tuesday, August 16th. I attempted to keep a few things going with posting some writing events and contests that caught my attention. I made a few posts throughout the Willamette Writers Conference - where I was volunteering and attending. I was also doing interpreitng work at that same time. And all of that ran into me going out of town for three days to the Oregon Star Party - a five-hour drive each direction. Out to Indian Trail Spring in the middle of the Ochoco Forest, without my computer and with weak cell phone service (most people had none) and a car charger that died on the drive out. I think the dead charger was the universe telling me to unplug for a couple of days! I turned my Blackberry off except for a couple of quick text messages to home and a couple of urgent theater related emails.

And I didn't mean to just drop out of site. But I did.

Now I'm back. With some quick writes done, a couple of writing assignments completed and submitted to my writing group/class/workshop. And working on translations and preparation for interpreting ZZ Top on the 27th and Lynyrd Skynyrd on the 3rd - creative and time consuming.

In thinking about this post, I realized I didn't know where to begin. There is so much left undiscussed here that I have done in the last couple of months. So I started with why the recent gap happened. And I will add in more details about adventures later. They are all good and mostly "big": my dragon boat team taking 3rd place in our division, rafting the Grand Canyon for 8 days; cutting our team time by 76 minutes in the Cascade Lakes Relay and having an average pace of only 3/100ths of a second slower than the next team ahead of us. Then there were the other great events, though probably of less magnitude in terms of impact on my life: the Willamette Writers' Conference and the Oregon Star Party.

And I'm working on the novel again. I rescheduled the writing road trip for me memoir due to weather and that the original trip was early December and not the middle of August - although I won't be making the drive in December since we may hit snow and ice. Being back in the writing group is helping get me get writing back up my priority list, again - it was always there but time was short. Now, it's back up there where time is made for it; the big adventures are done.

With all of this will be a return to more regular posts. Also - keep your eyes on the posts over the next couple of months. I have plans for some changes and things are in the works. Part of it depends on the asisstance of other people, so I won't say anything more for now. I will share a picture I found online from last year's Oregon Star Party. I have a few pictures I took, which I will share later. The picture below is from douggro.com - it shows only one small section of several little hills where this scene was repeated over and over. Hot during the day, chilly at night - and an incredible, amazing view of the stars and - my reason for going - the Perseid Meteor showers.

It was also the perfect venue to finally get to read the second installment of the Star Crossed series, Taurus Eyes, by Bonnie Hearn Hill. It was a wonderful read and I can't wait for the third book in a couple months.