[Spoiler Alert: Images in this post may cause a case of the Willies or goosebumps to form on one's forearms -- I know they do for me]
Last week yours truly survived a truly harrowing ordeal. 3-4 days of snow and freezing rain. Know what freezing rain looks like? Ever been through it before? Well, if not, so we're all on the same page here. Freezing rain looks something like this:
And last week most cars in Washington looked something like this:
Hey, I think I see E.C. Henry's Toyota Corolla somewhere beneath that mess!
Mess, indeed. I know, I lived through it. Had to spend three nights in hotels because of it. Two nights at the Days Inn at Kent were okay, but that one, five hour stay-over at the King Oscar Motel in Algona, Washigton was entirely forgettable: small Styrofoam cups in the rooms, Continental breakfast that smelled like barf (I think that's what one unlucky patron did after eating their offerings). But at least I saved my 6 remaining days of vacation time. May use that come Nicholl's deadline later this spring for some last minute polishing.
If you don't live in Western Washington you can image the carnage this last storm caused. I'm talking snap tree limbs EVERYWHERE. This is a typical, post-freezing-rain carnage image:
And here's a little more of the same:
Nome, Alaska, indeed. Weather that you'd expect to see from some far-off, remote, ice hole like Nome, Alaska came a'calling my hometown -- and I didn't like it at all!
Thank you, Jesus, that the storm only made a mess of things at our house. LOTS of broken limbs to clean-up, but thank you, Jesus, neither our house, garage or cars were damaged. That's the Lord. And I'm not ashamed to give Him the just praise He deserves for perserving what was ours during this onslaught. The only real inconvenience we suffered was that we were without electrical power for three days, and our phone line and Internet service was out for 5 days.
Worked a lot of hours during the storm. As you see, many people use the first snowfall of the year as convenient excuse to skip out on their work responsibilities. Thankfully, the leads in the department I work in have very good work-ethic. Same cannot be said about some other slackers, who will remain nameless to protect the guilty. I'm hoping my hours lessen in the upcoming weeks. Working 12 to 14 1/2 hour days really gets old quick. Sure the overtime $$ is appreciated, but I'm a writer dammit! And I value my time at the keyboard too.
Still slaving away on my latest spec. script which is entitled, "A Heart Built on the Sand." Don't think I'll have it ready to show my guy by my earlier self-imposed deadline of the end of the month, January. But I did give it my best...
Just doing line editing now. I'm an artist, you see, and trying to achieve perfection means something to me. Does it mean my stuff is always great? No. But I do try. And I do try very hard. Last week I spent like two hours on less than a page of description. Just experimenting with different words. Seeing what sounded the best. Why? Because that's what writers do. They play with words, then go with the best combination thereof that they can. And like I said, I do try -- I do try very hard to get it right.
So what's next for yours truly? Well-p, just ordered a long-range, motorized antenna, which hopefully will fix our free TV reception out here in the sticks (can't see paying for cable when all I'd ever really use it for is sports broadcasts). Will probably play with, and install that sometime next weekend. Also gotta go furniture shopping with the mom. AND gotta run the chain saw and clean-up the post-storm carnage, probably after church tomorrow. Five acres of wood leaves for a lot of carnage to clean-up. Writing wise, I'm really excited to start work on my next spec. script. This time I get to re-live high school... Hmm... Maybe that won't be so enjoyable. Still, it's a much brighter place then where my story world is now with "A Heart Built on the Sand."
Maybe in my next post, I'll go into line editing some more. I know I already did this earlier last year, when I was finishing up on "Puppies? Puppies?! Puppies!!!" But it's where I'm at now, and maybe I'll spice it up with a little of what I'm working on now.
Till then, stay warm. Hope this last image I'm going to leave you with takes away some freeze and Willies that the previous images gave me. Thanks to a generous gift from my friend at work, Ruth, I actually got to enjoy some hot chocolate when I finally made it home after doing the three nights in motels.
- E.C. Henry from a recovering Bonney Lake, WA
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