Hot Rod Lincoln

“My daddy said, ‘Son, you’re going to drive me to drinkin’ if you don’t stop drivin’ that hot rod Lincoln.’” All of my teen driving posts should have that song playing in the background.

My spies tell me that Jeremy plays air guitar with his right hand while driving with his left. Remember when I told him he shouldn’t sing and drive at the same time?

Sunday

 fuzzy bee fly

dusty red beetle and shadow

Overheard #151

"Bass clef just screams boss."

Wednesday

Blogger finally let me post this photo of the first fairy rose of the year. I didn't notice the bee fly when I snapped the picture.

Sunday

June is a good time to photograph spiderwebs because they catch cottonwood fluff.

From underneath our deck, looking up at the web.

Playing with contrast and brightness.

Overheard #150

"You can fund schools or you can fund prisons."

Does Anybody Really Know What Day It Is?

One of my readers for SSA remarked that my characters were driving around Chicago at an impossible time of day. I’m a California girl who totally understands rush hour. In the early drafts, my characters behaved sensibly, but somehow in one of the revision shake ups, my characters ended up in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

I fixed it, by having them drive all night. Believe me, it’s a better option. Other changes expanded or contracted the original time frame, and now all references to the day of the week are incorrect.

My next revision step will be to make a calendar for my novel. I’ll block out a page of scratch paper with a box for each day of the story. I’ll note what the characters are doing on that day and where they spent the night. Let’s hope they’ll make it home on time.

Sunday

 I played with the exposure an color a little with this picture. Taking photos of white things in full sunlight tends to result in a bleached out picture.

Damselfly. Unfortunately my profile shots didn't turn out well. If you click on the picture to enlarge it, you might be able to see the hairs on his legs. 

Overheard #149

"I don't think we can do well, but we can do our best."

95 Degrees in the Shade

Is this the same squirrel as last year?

Chaotic Paradise's First Concert

Jeremy’s band, Chaotic Paradise, performed at Lake Lansing Park band shell a few weeks ago. The concert is now on YouTube. In case you’re not up for thirty two minutes of metal music, slide the timeline to 20:24 to hear “Graveyard,” the song Jeremy plans to audition with. When the camera zooms out to show the kids dancing on the lawn, you get a quick glimpse of Sam. He’s wearing a dark blue shirt and standing on the sidewalk.

(If the video takes too long to load, try clicking on Chaotic Paradise in the sidebar.)

Sunday

 poised

landed

Overheard #148

"Falsetto happens."

That Thing Called Love

I’m currently revising two YA novels with male protagonists, so when, Agent Jill Corcoran asked her friends and followers on facebook to name romantic YA novels written from a male point of view, I copied down some titles. From reading them, I learned much about the details that make the voice and passion realistic. Below are three novels listed in order of increasing edginess.

Seth Baumgartner’s Love Manifesto
By Eric Luper
HarperCollins, 2010
When Seth (17) loses his girlfriend, his faith in his parents’ marriage and his job, he creates a supposedly anonymous podcast to figure out love.

 

The Secret Year
By Jennifer R. Hubbard
Viking, 2010
Colt (16) has been having a year-long clandestine love affair with a rich girl. When she is killed in an accident, he is left alone with his secret and his grief.

 
 
 
 
 

I Am the Messenger

By Markus Zusak

Alfred A. Knopf, 2002

Nineteen-year-old Ed meanders through life, stuck in a dead-end job and in a hopeless relationship with the girl he loves. When he inadvertently stops a bank robbery, he starts receiving mysterious messages that direct him on missions to help others, sometimes at great personal risk.

Sunday

Ants love peonies. The sweet stuff must ooze out along the seam.

shiny

Overheard #147

"At what point do you walk away from the monster and say let’s create another one?"

I'm Back

For some reason, Blogger wouldn't let me log on to Words and Pixels from my old computer. My new laptop went to college with Sam (because his laptop crashed). Thanks to Blogger Help, I'm back. It was kind of locking the keys in the car ...

Overheard will be up tomorrow.
I'm not sure if I'll have a picture on Sunday - unless I go out and photograph raindrops.

Sunday

It's hard to photograph bees, but I have all summer to work on it.

 sparkle

 perhaps a faster shutter speed

bee's eye view 

Teen Driving Update

Many years ago, I plated deep purple irises by the edge of the driveway. They've survived an onslaught of rebounding basketballs, but now they have a new peril.

Me: It looks like one of the boys backed the car over the irises.
Husband: It won’t help. They’ll just grow back.

Overheard #146

"His confusion is your confusion."