Thanks to some advice from an editor, I've been revising Wucaii. My passive voice has become screechy and unrelenting. I have an overabundance of "She did this" and "She did that," so I'm going back through to fix it. It's actually a really interesting exercise. It forces me to look at the story and figure out ways to rewrite sentences to make them more active. I can't take out all the "she's," but I'm fixing what I can. I love it when I have direction!
As soon as I'm done with that, I plan on getting back to my middle grade book. It should have had plenty of time to sit and think about what needs to be done. I'm looking forward to getting back to that.
This week has not been a good week. On Monday, my kitty, Alia, got out of the house. The boys were playing in the garage, and while the door to the outside was closed, I left the door that leads into the house open so I could hear them.
The dogs were out and running around, and, normally, Alia stays out of their way. It didn't stop her this time. She got into the garage and waited. When my spouse came home from work, she darted out. I didn't realize she was missing until Tuesday morning.
This isn't the first time she's gotten out. And for the first 9 months of her life, she was a stray. She has street smarts. However, we live fairly close to an open field, and I know there are fox in there. I've seen them. She's been aching to get out for a while. The nice weather gives her Spring Fever.
As I said, she's gotten out before, but the longest she's been gone from our house was a night. She comes back fairly quickly. At lunch on Tuesday, I went to the back door to see if she was waiting. No kitty. I did the same thing when I came home after work. Still no kitty. The boys and I went walking around the neighborhood to see if we could find her. No kitty. By this point in time, I didn't expect her to come back. I just knew she had made a fox family a lovely dinner.
Wednesday was a horrible day. It snowed in the morning, then rained all day. I figured if the wetness and cold wasn't going to bring her home, then she probably couldn't get home. It was devastating.
On Wednesday morning when I got up, I checked the back yard. No Alia. Again, same thing at lunch and when I got home. Still no sweet kitty. It was really getting to me at this point, and the 3 year old was having a horrific day and being a butt head. It was almost more than I could take. Finally, the boys went to bed, and my spouse and I stayed up talking. Right before I went to bed, I thought, "I'm going to check one more time." I turned on the back light and moved the curtain, and there she was, staring back at me.
"Oh, my god!" I screeched and opened the door. This, of course, got the dogs all excited, so they tried to lunge after her, which made Alia want to run. Thankfully, we got the dogs corralled and my baby back in the house.
Immediately, she went for her food dish, then curled up next to me all night. Since Alia is my familiar, I'm not myself unless she's around. Things have been looking up since my kitty came home, and they can only get better.
Have a fabulous weekend!
