Day 17, Puppy Class, and Summer

We just got back from our first puppy class. Bella, Sweet Patootie, and myself. I'm oddly exhausted and I know Bella is too. This is really mainly a socialization group so there were about eighteen or twenty pups between 8 and 24 weeks. Bella wasn't the biggest but she was certainly one of the oldest at 17 weeks. She comported herself nicely. She couldn't learn the touching the open hand with her nose trick as she already knows down-stay and thought that is what was wanted. We'll go three more times and then try and sign her up for real obedience classes. All fun.

Today I hit the 83% mark on BuNoWriMo with Bright Angel. My meter changes in a weird way every day as I'm revising - not writing. So the total word count changes - now it is at about 55 thousand. I only have about 40 more pages to revise but I think I will be adding quite a bit more now that I really know what I'm after. People keep asking me what market I'm writing for - is it a YA or a non-specific novel (sometimes called, erroneously if you ask me, a literary novel)? I'm kind of torn on this one - we didn't have YA when we were kids (I'm a baby-boomer). We had kids' books like Anne of Green Gables or Girl of the Limberlost or Famous Five or Nancy Drew (the whole range right there) but we certainly didn't have anything that was written for young adults.

We didn't have young adults! No, we really didn't. You were a little kid, then a pesky teen, then an adult. Like that. You turned 22 or you got married or you got a job - and whammo - you were an adult. Think of The Graduate and you'll get it (if you aren't of my vintage). Now, there were books that kids mid-breach between say 13 and 22 liked - like Catcher in the Rye or To Kill a Mockingbird. But adults liked them too and no one fought over it much. Or youngish adults, or oldish teens might tend to like early genre books - sci fi for instance was HUGE especially for guys. Girls might like Romance Fiction which really sucked in the wrong way, but still, some girls liked it. Now books like Anne of Green Gables and the others in that series, spanned many years. Young kids like the first book but you could grow up with Anne. I still like re-reading them.

So, I'm not sure. I might, when I finish the final final spit and polish, send it out as both a YA and an OA (older adult)  too. See what happens. It will have to be longer to be an OA but I think it will settle out at 70 thou and that isn't too long for a YA either.

Hey I'm liking this OA. Perhaps it could be an OA to MA (middle adult) to AA (ancient adult). Or how about CA (childish adult - which I certainly would read). How about feminist-po-mo-vegan adult? That would be FP-MVA - wow! It has a certain zing dontcha think? How about a DGR - that would be a damn good read and I would like that most of all!

Okay - enough already. It is true, and I don't mean to demean it, that identifying your reader is a good idea if you wish to sell it. But it isn't necessarily simple. That's all this DOW (damned old writer) is saying.

On the summer side - things are shaping up. It's getting warm, the June Bugs are nearly done (Bella eats a quart of them a night) and SP just acquired and fixed up a boat trailer. All good. Now to get one of the canoes painted up and seaworthy (they don't need the trailer) and see what can be done to salvage our poor old wherry. It had the scabrous rot, or is that ... ?


Here is a pic of the Sp and the Pooch. Think I posted it already but my own computer is at the hospital and I don't have many pics on this one.