We're leaving soon...

I'm just stoppin' in to say a quick pass-through hello-goodbye. Hope you all are having some good times and getting the things handled you want to be handling! (OK - I admit, coming from me, that sentence was a little {unintentionally} dicey.)

As for me, we're flyin' outta here on Friday, and my edits, so far, are right on schedule. Slow. But on schedule.

When I'm not writing and hugging on people I love that I haven't seen in a while, I'll be drinking with them in this pub called the George & Pilgrim...



...and, if the weather is warm enough, I'll be up here, sharing a bottle of white wine with my white wine friend who is my sister-in-law. This is her rooftop garden. (And if the weather isn't really warm enough, we'll wear blankets.)



This after a week in Wales where we've rented this converted barn and stable, which just happens to be twenty yards from an excellent, musty old pub, and only a ten minute walk from the hillside I talked about before. I'm going exploring again.




Exploring, writing, pubbing, coastal cliff-path walking, pubbing, hugging my daughters and other family, pubbing, writing, whatever. And maybe I'll even come back. (Maybe.)

The penalty: having to go to the dead zone from hell - the airport. I hate airports.
They suck. But there you go.

So, I hope you guys have a wonderful beginning of August - if you do something kinda crazy, please let us know - and freddie, isn't school about to start? Paca - how's the paper coming? Chris, have a great time in California! And all the rest of you lot, behave yourselves and be thinking about what piece you're gonna choose to do for the mid-August voice-a-thon, please!!! Whirl, you're on that one, right? ril, selfishly,I'll sure be glad when you're back from being gone.

EE, are you doing one? Please? (If you don't wanna write one, Sparky, I've got just the thing for you to read.)

We'll be back the evening of the eleventh. I may or may not be able to be on before then - so be good, you all. (Sure.)

Hiatus

I've wanted to be a writer, to write and finish a piece of fiction and see it in print and bound in book form, since I was about seven years old, the age I was in the picture above.

Now, I'm quite close to finishing the novel that's been wandering around inside my head for a long time, waiting for me to finally believe that I was capable of working it out and thinking it through, and of writing it.

A sentence in what has become my tenth chapter is a sentence I wrote, verbatim, one night when I was about twenty years old, just after I'd arrived home, worse for wear, from a long, long weekend in New Orleans... She saw herself sitting there, a slender tender blonde girl, chewing on her orange slice, nibbling on her cherry... And there are other phrases and a few sentences here and there in my novel, that I've carried around a whole long time.

I'm excited and concerned at the same time right now, because I'm worried I'll trip myself up with a mighty chunk of procrastinating, right here before I finally finish.

I'm gonna miss you guys like crazy - in fact, because I'm a sap, I'm tearing up a little just thinking about this - but I have to take a total blogging break until mid-August if I'm going to actually do what I've wanted to do for so very long.

Hope it's all right - and that you all are still around when I come back.

Whirl, when you get back, if you're reading this, can you send me a note after we get back from Britain (we fly back to the States on August 11th)? I'd love it if we could all do our voices in mid-August.

And EE, if you're reading, please do one, too, and maybe we can trade off reading material, as Whirl suggested. It would make for a wonderful close-to-the-end-of-summer celebration.

Meanwhile, I hope you all have amazing days and your summers are fine ones!

See you all in mid-August.

Love,

Robin

P.S. I'm pretty sure there will be a surprise on here in a few weeks - one that I didn't create.

Wanna ask my husband some questions? (Almost) any questions?

Hi you all,

I thought you guys might get a kick out of having an open mike night with my husband, JB.

Here's a picture of JB's arm, sitting in the hot tub I'm always talking about. As you can imagine, I don't sit in it all alone, and he is who I sit in it with.



When I asked JB if he'd guest blog for me, until my friend who was gonna guest blog for me has time to do so...well, JB made a face at first. I know he did, even though he was on his cell phone when I asked him to do it, because of the ever popular pregnant pause he employs with me when I've asked him a question out of seeming 'space', and he's quickly processing the ramifications of said request.

Anyway, he said yes, slowly, which means he'll fuss about it but he'll do it, and then, after a while he'll enjoy himself, even if he never actually says so, as he's a Brit, and thus must make certain he doesn't come across as having too much damn fun, because we can't be having that, now, can we? Gratuitous fun? It's just not right.

Feel free to ask him whatever you want - no holds barred. If he doesn't want you to know the answer, he'll do the polite verbal tap dance his people are famous for. And then, take my word for it, he'll get a big good grin on his face. Just remember, if he was boring and dry and had no sense of humor, I wouldn't love him so much.

Just post the questions whenever you have time - and he'll be on here, answering and hanging out a while, beginning Tuesday after about 6:00 pm Eastern, and on for a while.

P.S. My baby, JB, knows stuff. He really does. So have fun with him. He'll like it.

And it's fine to ask whatever floats your boat. He's a hardy soul- he can handle it.Take my word for it - I oughtta know.

Here's a picture 'of his eyes only', so you'll sort of know who you're talking to when you're talking to him.






JB and Robin

Coming soon...

I'm gonna be out of town again this weekend. And all this week and next, I'm gonna be slogging away on my edits.

So for now, for your listening and viewing pleasure, here's some music that I absolutely lived by a while back. Southern blues rock.



I tried to find a good YouTube with my absolute favorite Allman Brothers song, Ain't Wastin' Time No More - but the choices were limited. It's worth a purchase on I-Tunes if you're interested at all in the mindset of a certain societal strata in the American South, in the 1970s, and on down to now. It's got the rain, the trains, and the whole damn thing, all embedded and distilled into one sardonic and damn good song.

And, a much more important thing to know, is that coming soon, one of my favoritest favorite people will be here, blogging on this blog...Don't know which day it will be. I just know that he's said he will, and that's enough for me to know it's true.

Weekend in New York City

Hi,

While waiting on a certain evil someone to make my day (or not), here are some pictures of where I was the past three days...

The first two are views of Central Park from our room.





A blue head on Park Avenue...



View from Pier 16 - a place I didn't know existed until this past weekend when we went up to see the waterfall art. We didn't end up going on a boat out to see the falls, because we could see four of them just fine from this pier. And, an added bonus, that dead-bodies-stripped-down-to-nerves-muscle-etc exhibit was in a building upstairs from where I sat at a bar, drinking white wine and talking to an interesting and engaging Albanian bartender while my husband, my closest friend who is my cousin, and her husband were all upstairs checking out dead people.



Here's one of the waterfalls, as seen from the pier...



Then back up to the Boat House in Central Park...



So there ya go. I never thought all of those "WhatI Did on My Summer Vacation" essays they make you write in elementary school would ever actually come in handy, but turns out, they do. Especially when you 'say it with pictures'. If only the nuns had let me do that. Maybe I'd have liked them better.......nah. Not a chance in hell of that ever happening.

How about you all? Where are you going this summer, or where have you already been?
Got any pics for us?

Telling each other a story...

Hi you all,

Here's my mini-story (and my side patio) for you:




I'm really looking forward to hearing yours!

And if I did this correctly, here's ril's - which I am damn well dying to hear but won't be able to hear until I'm home later...

Speak up...

Hi you all,

July 10th is the day we talked about having everyone post voices again - as it was so much fun before. As that is a week from today, thought I'd better check to see who's up for it.

I think maybe ril, paca, phoenix, freddie and a few others may join this time, right?

And if you don't have a blog, feel free to post your PodBean or YouTube or whatever, here on the day. If you have a blog, pop a note on the post next week that it's ready so we can come and have a listen.

Here's the question- Whirl had a cool idea about doing a voice exchange- where we'd read each other's work.

We just need to know whether you all want to do that this time or do one more of our own voices, and exchange in mid-August.

The only reason to wait would be to hear the voices we haven't heard, read their own prose, but it doesn't matter either way.

What do you think? And, are you in for voices next week?