Current location:	Thinking Of 19th Century Conservationists Land
Current mood:	discontent
Current music:	"Bus Stop", by the Hollies
Entry tags:	fitness stuff, progress report, the great valley, writing

Switching Scenes

PROGRESS REPORT FOR 7/6/09

New Words: 2200 on chapter 1 ("The Builders, 1877") of The Great Valley. The bad guys gets comeuppance from an unexpected source. This also partly ends a storyline that stretched through most of this chapter, and I'm moving back briefly to an old friend.

Total Words: 32500. And the chapter is only about 3/4s done, which means it's too long. But I can always trim it later.

Reason For Stopping: Finished the scene.

Book Year: 1884.

Mammalian Assistance: None, through Friday tried getting in.

Exercise: Most of an upper body workout with 5 gym laps and stretches, 15 minutes on the elliptical (5-6 mph the first half mile, 6-6.5 mph the second half, and then a three-minute cooldown), most of the resistance machines and free weight exercises with 20 and 30 pound weights, then a five-minute cooldown on an easy-level bike setting at around 90-100 RPMs.

Stimulants: None.

Today's Opening Passage: Part of Callie’s brain could still absorb the beauty of the mountain hollow once called Ama Springs. The Alleghenies were still magnificent; the wind drifting up the mountainside through the forests was still sweet-smelling. But thanks to Hardy Gillespie, Callie had seen the land here before the village was swept away and a hotel built atop the hot springs. Amid all the life she felt like she walked atop a grave, chilled despite the sticky heat.

Darling Du Jour: Do you really think I don’t know you were the head of the night riders here? Callie wondered. She fought the rising bile in her throat by turning to Amanda Cooper, the namesake of the hotel—though knowing the hollow’s original name, she wondered about that as well. “Have you read my work as well, Mrs. Cooper?”

She gasped, her fork frozen halfway to her mouth. She glanced at her husband, whose amiable eyes turned slightly colder. “Why…in fact I believe I have read some number of them, Mrs. Schenk.”

“How do you find them?”

“Oh, I…I couldn’t say...”

“Please.” She found herself laying her hand on Amanda’s. The woman swallowed hard and glanced at Henry again. “I’m very curious as to a woman’s opinion. Certainly you have one, Mrs. Cooper? This woman is opinionated enough to write them, after all.”

Callie noticed that this time she looked at her son, who seemed to hope no one would look at him at all. “I think them...quite fine, Mrs. Schenk. You seem to look into the very heart of things. And people.”

Callie smiled with genuine warmth. “It’s a joy to me that you think so, Amanda.”

I also like

Henry stormed to their bedroom, found a jeweled cameo of Amanda, and threw it at the wall. But he missed. Instead it sailed out a window, over the veranda, and flew as if soaring towards the endless mountains beyond the town.

Non-Research / Review Books In Progress: ccfinlay.