We didn't hit a deer this time, for which we are deeply grateful. Dan camped with Evelyn and Andrew for the our tent's maiden camping trip--and Oliver and I slept in a hotel. Partly because we're wusses and not ready yet to share a tent with Oliver (things work better if at least some people get sleep). Also because I've got a bunch of student papers to respond to and I needed some internet access. So I missed the evening games and Sarah's cookies (I'm told they were awesome), but I got some grading and writing done.
The kids had a fantastic time running around with cousins and getting dirty. Oliver especially, though it meant extra exercise for Dan and I, trying to make sure we knew where he was at all times.
In between there was lots of food, good conversation, a nice hike (I'm told it was nice--Oliver and I missed it b/c of a long nap). Mostly though, it's nice to hang out in a lovely area with even lovelier people.
We took the long way home, which took us up over Cedar mountain. The fall colors were gorgeous, especially against the cloudy sky. Every once in a while the sun would come through and the mountain looked like it was glowing.
We got home just in time for me to attend the temple dedication (Dan volunteered to stay home--next time we'll have to switch), which I'll admit I wasn't excited about more sitting, but ended up being just what I needed to hear.
Other news from the week:
My sister is currently moving cross country. I am going to miss her--I'm realizing how spoiled I've been to be close for the last seven years.
Evelyn's newest drawing: a wolf with two wolf cubs, eating a nice hunk of meat.
Last, a little writing update for me. Most of you know I'm trying to write a novel. Every time I think I'm done, I get new feedback that reveals a new set of issues/opportunities. Luckily, it's getting better each time. But it also takes a lot of time. So if sometimes I look a little abstracted or lost in thought, I'm probably thinking about a plot hole. (For the curious: I'm on the 8th draft. It's currently about 95,000 words, or 325 pages. I have a deleted scenes file that's nearly 60,000 words--so I've cut nearly as much as I've kept!)
At the end of August, I entered two different writing contests. The first one is called Pitch Wars, where writers can submit to a mentor, and each mentor chooses a writer (and an alternate) to work through their novel, polishing it before they pitch to agents (unless you self-publish, most big publishing houses require your work to be submitted by an agent, so you need an agent if you want to publish). I was lucky: one of the mentors picked me! Only now this means I'm also trying to revise the *entire* novel in about a month. For some context, there are 75 participating mentors, which sounds like a lot, until you learn that over 1200 people entered. Since you could submit to up to 4 mentors, each mentor received on average 67 submissions.
The other contest was called Pitch Plus Five, where we submitted our first five pages (the first fifty submissions made it in), then a panel of judges narrowed the field to 25, we revised the pages and added a pitch, and another set of judges chose the top 10. I just found out that I made the top ten--you can read my submission here. Anyway, I'm not entirely sure what happens in the next round--a group of agents are judging and choosing winners, but I'm not sure how many or what the prizes are.
Anyway, I'm mentioning all this because a) this is our family's blog and this has been important to me over the last little while and b) even though I still have a lot to learn as a writer, it's gratifying to know that I'm getting better.
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