the sky has dandruff

we got our first snow on Saturday. The first snow that I had to get a shovel for anyway. It pretty much all melted away by Sunday afternoon but we still have a couple of odd patches floating around on the north side of the house and garage.

I can tell I am getting old. My fingers are worn to the nerves from handling shingles in freezing temperatures. Tiny bits of fiberglass are embedded throughout my soft writer's hands. They aren't used to doing much manual labor anymore. (I used to live for shingling houses. I loved to do it and I was good at it. Now not so much.) Thank god I have a roofing nailer yet. I really would have been hurting if I had to swing a hammer all day.

Of coarse I didn't get anything done with NaNo this weekend, but I have managed to get a couple thousand words written this morning already and plan on doing the same this afternoon. I still plan on being done by Wednesday.

On a happy note. A story of mine, Coffin Nails, that I started sending out to markets last November (and has undergone several re-writes in the process) has been picked up by Night to Dawn for publication in their Fall 2009 issue. Not a huge market but I think that the readers will enjoy it.

I hear my boy rattling around in his bed and I think I can get another hundred or so words in before he thinks he wants out. Later.

What am I Thinking?

Okay, it is November 22, 2008. It is snowing and the temperature outside is a balmy 25 degrees Fahrenheit (I am not sure what that comes to in Celsius but it isn't real warm, I can tell you that). I could be working on my NaNo book (I am 40,500 words into it now, Yippee!) or I can go shingle a garage with a friend.

Guess which option I am going to take?

Yep, you guessed it. The sit on a roof and freeze option that at least involves getting paid, especially if I finish it today.

What the hell am I thinking. I wish my friends didn't know I was handy at all sometimes. Sadly it isn't even my friends garage, which would be a lot different. It would mean I would be doing this for nothing. It isn't the coldest I have roofed in, the coldest was a little house on a private lake where we shingled it (I shingled it, everyone else was too busy putting in windows) when it was a whopping 5 degrees.

I better get going. The darn place isn't going to shingle itself.