Sunday afternoon...

The bee balm explosion in my garden...there's so much of it this year the hummingbirds have no reason to squabble over it, but they still do anyway... at any given time I could have at least four or five buzzing throughout this area, all is well until one bumps into another or a sixth bird shows up...then all hell breaks loose and the chipping and shit spraying begins...(yes, they spray poo!)

There is a wee bunny living in that tangle too...but I guess I haven't downloaded that batch of photos...when I do, I'll add it in...(promise!) Although I know it's the little shit who ate my morning glories, I rescued a few of the seedlings and have them growing in a pot on the porch out of wee bunny's reach...(edit later: here's the bunny!)



I just added my new widget at the top for The Fractured Hues of White Light, a free read of chapter 1 for anyone interested...I've been slowly adding "readings" and discussions to my Q&A at Goodreads, it's a little slow, but it should pick up once readers finish reading it and have things to talk about...and of course, I'll do another giveaway as soon as the current one is over...

I had fun on Thursday night at The Gallery, Suzanne put henna tattoos on my feet...I'm enjoying them...but once in a while I forget and catch a glimpse of this "stuff" on my toes and say...What the hell is on my foot? (That's a hell of a rash.) Oh, good, it's just henna...

I've been relaxing a lot this weekend, between the unbearably hot weather and just being on the go all last week, I'm beat. I'm still feeling a bit rough around the edges...Monday is coming too soon...

I've been working on chapter 2 of my next novel in line for publication Drinking from the Fishbowl, proofreading is a slow process, I read the chapter forwards last weekend, and now I'm reading it backwards, I just go paragraph by paragraph, page by page, scene by scene, once I'm satisfied that these bite-size bits are "settled" I move on to the next...I'm always suspicious when I glide through without a hitch...did I read it, or did I just scan it? I'm shooting for next June to publish (seems like the pattern.) It is a fairly clean manuscript, but I want to take my time to fine tune and catch anything dumb that I might've done...I maintain that if my name is on it, it's got to be at its best...

I keep poking around looking for more photos...the ones I haven't downloaded yet...guess, that means, I'll be back later! (Here's more pics, bumble bees!)

This little guy on the catnip has an orange stripe...

This little fellow seemed to be taking a nap on this flower...

Vacation...

The view from my porch...it appears that my daisies are growing dog ears... but it's just Max lying there watching the world go by... he has the life, right? He's the best of good boys.

I spent a good share of the week between the garden and the porch, when it was raining, I was inside writing, reading, painting...I'm getting into the proofreading groove again with the next novel I'd like to publish from my "stable" of stories, Drinking From the Fishbowl is on deck again, and I'm nearly done with chapter 1.

I started a Q&A at Goodreads a couple of days ago, I'm talking about my book The Fractured Hues of White Light, doing "readings", it isn't easy to discuss a book no one has read yet, soooo I'm having a one-woman discussion...that's okay, I don't mind, in a way this is good practice for me to learn how to talk about my books and it gives curious lurkers a chance to see what it's about before they commit to putting it on their 'to-read' list... here's the link should you decide to lurk or join the discussion...

http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/34801.Q_A_with_Laura_J_W_Ryan

Yeah, I know, there's going to be a few smirks around the Internet, "Who brought the weird girl?" Hey, I fly my weird girl flag with pride... at least I have the tits to do it (well, since I don't have 'the balls', I go for what I've got, right?)

There's going to be an opening of The Gallery at Healing Art Passages in Liverpool (I'm one of the featured artists in the exhibition, with my Fred and our two friends Ken and Suzanne, here's a link to my art blog http://ohdrat.blogspot.com/) so I'm preparing for that, I have paintings up, and I have a small bin for flat work, in which I tucked a few original drawings and a selection of photographs, some are mounted and some are loose in bags. If you're in the area stop by on Friday night! I'll be doing a book signing there at some point this summer, and possibly, if there's a big enough turn out for the signing, I'll do a reading from one of the two books...

There's a thunderstorm passing through, cooling things down (or possibly making things stickier, it's a crap shoot at this time of year) It's mid June, the bee balm is starting to bloom, it's my favorite time of year!

Sunday afternoon...

Yesterday was a very busy day for me, a book signing in Johnson City NY, then a Gallery closing reception in Syracuse, they overlapped and we (my Fred and I) made it to both, I'm exhausted today...but I did enjoy a bit of sunshine on the porch early this morning, with my laptop in lap, a cup of coffee, and my doggy buddy, Max, at my feet (his black fur smelling sunshine sweet!) The humming birds were buzzing the bee balm, at one point three were buzzing quietly together in the same clump of balm...well, until they bumped into each other and they started to squabble, chipping and spraying poop at each other...good grief!

My flower garden is looking wild from all the rain, and because of my back, I can't do the maintenance that I usually do to tame it...but the photo opportunities have still been a delight!

Along with my self-promotion of Dusty Waters through Good Reads, I've been working pretty steady on The Fractured Hues of White Light, I'd really like to get it ready to publish sometime in August or September...but I keep fussing around with chapter 3...it's a good kind of fussing because I'm tying up loose ends and filling in a crucial time in my character Sylvester's life that also has an influence in two of my other novels, and it's sort of helping me write the one currently named Wish, which has been "on hold" for nearly two years...

Allow me to explain, the nifty thing about my books is this interconnection of the characters...the books are individuals, they're not written to be read in any order or anything like that...but the characters know one another, their lives overlap in a variety of ways...just like life, people know one another, sometimes briefly, sometimes longer (or forever)...life goes on for these people after the novel is finished...they show up in the background of another story, moving on beyond their story...or in a time or place before...depends on which book...but the familiarity is there...a community...it's been growing for a long time...

So...White Light...yes, this odd book about the autistic artist Samantha Ryder...I do love this book, it only gets better with every visit...it's my garden that I'm tending this summer...she's bloomed to 520 pages (at one point during the early drafts she was tipping into 600 pages, so she's "streamlined" now...) I'm immersed into this world for now, and I'll know when she's ready to go to print...just not yet! I'm going to take my sweet old time!

A rain soaked rose, ain't she lovely?

Bee Balm or Creepy Space Aliens...I want to believe...

Yes, I want to believe that the weather will get better so the rest of my garden will take off...grow more than weeds...I love bee balm...it just like a creepy space alien...and it's so dang gorgeous...my hummingbirds are waiting...tapping their tiny toes (listen lady, we came all this way for this garden and it's just taking for-EVER to bloom)...sorry, any day now kids...we need another string of hot days...warm nights...if there's a little more sun tomorrow...getting so close to popping out their spindly red legs!

The bunnies finished off my brussel sprouts...poop.

Busy editing The Fractured Hues of White Light today...I had chapters 3 and 13 open, side by side...my character Sylvester was talking to Jacob...it needed to be done...there was just this spot that bugged me in chapter 3, something needed to be said, and it wasn't being said, and okay...it was sort of said in 13, but it really needed to be moved to chapter 3, and something in chapter 3 needed to be moved to chapter 13, so...word juggling...it's part of the fun of being a writer...and the book only gets better from the extra effort, and I'm happy as can be about what I just did to it today...and then this also got me back to thinking about my big fat epic Washed Glass, which I plan to work on this winter (gotta have something to look forward to while the snow is up to my ass and no garden to play in...)

I'm in the process of starting a give away of Dusty Waters through Good Reads, as soon as I figure out what I gotta do...if there's anything more I gotta do in this shameless self-promotion effort, I'll get 'er done and keep you posted!

Max didn't like this little bug buzzing around him on the porch the other day, his little tongue is sticking out here because he just showed it his teeth (tho' he didn't bark), ears in full bloom...cool looking buggy-boo...
The pattern reminds me of a tribal mask...nifty...it escaped from Max, I gave the pup something else to think about before he smacked it with his paw or chewed on it...he was getting pretty upset with it "teasing" him...

One of my roses finally bloomed...darn fussy things...I love 'em tho'!