{"id":3197,"date":"2017-01-24T10:02:18","date_gmt":"2017-01-24T15:02:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ttgnet.com\/journal\/?p=3197"},"modified":"2017-01-24T10:02:18","modified_gmt":"2017-01-24T15:02:18","slug":"tuesday-24-january-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ttgnet.com\/journal\/2017\/01\/24\/tuesday-24-january-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"Tuesday, 24 January 2017"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: bold; color: #000099; font-family: Arial;\">10:02 &#8211;<\/span> It&#8217;s been chilly, windy, and wet over the last couple days. We&#8217;ve had about 3 inches (7.5 cm) of rain in the last couple of days, which takes us up to about 4.5 inches (11.5 cm) for the month to date. When I took Colin out around 0715, it was 39.3F (4C), with sustained winds of probably 40 MPH (64 KPH) and gusts to 60+ MPH. I almost literally got blown off the driveway as I attempted to retrieve our newspaper from the mailbox. I had to grab hold of the mailbox to avoid being blown off my feet.<\/p>\n<p>About two dozen readers have requested copies of my book sample, which should be enough. You&#8217;re still welcome to a copy if you want one, but I&#8217;m getting enough feedback now to tell me what I needed to know.<\/p>\n<p>I asked for brutal honesty, and that&#8217;s exactly what I&#8217;m getting. I haven&#8217;t gotten any replies yet that began, &#8220;Dear Zsa-Zsa&#8221;, but the responders so far are criticizing freely. No one has given me a letter grade or a number grade so far, but the general consensus is that I&#8217;m not terrible at this. Responders have compared my writing to Unintended Consequences, A. American&#8217;s Home series, and David Crawford&#8217;s Lights Out, which I take as a complement. OTOH, various responders have criticized my narrative, dialog, plotting, characterization, and even the setting. No one has told me that I actually suck at this and several people have commented that I&#8217;m as good or better at it than PA writers that they like, so on balance I&#8217;m going to keep at it, a couple hours here and a couple hours there, mixed in with everything else I have to do. I just sent copies to a couple of pro fiction writers I know, to see what they think.<\/p>\n<hr style=\"width: 65%; height: 3px; font-family: Arial;\" \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>10:02 &#8211; It&#8217;s been chilly, windy, and wet over the last couple days. We&#8217;ve had about 3 inches (7.5 cm) of rain in the last couple of days, which takes us up to about 4.5 inches (11.5 cm) for the month to date. When I took Colin out around 0715, it was 39.3F (4C), with sustained winds of probably 40 MPH (64 KPH) and gusts to 60+ MPH. I almost literally got blown off the driveway as I attempted to retrieve our newspaper from the mailbox.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ttgnet.com\/journal\/2017\/01\/24\/tuesday-24-january-2017\/\">&nbsp;&raquo;&nbsp;Read more about: Tuesday, 24 January 2017 &nbsp;&raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ttgnet.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ttgnet.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ttgnet.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ttgnet.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ttgnet.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ttgnet.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3197\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ttgnet.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ttgnet.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ttgnet.com\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}