Moving Right Along

My newest book, Big Lake Fugitive, is moving right along through the pre-production stages. Terry finished the initial editing and proofreading on Saturday, and yesterday I finished making all of the corrections she suggested. Then I sent it off to my second proofreader. She’s usually pretty quick, and as soon as I get back from her and make her corrections, it will go to proofreaders number three and four. They are all very dedicated people and don’t waste any time, so it should be finished, formatted, uploaded to Amazon, and available by the end of the week, or the weekend at the latest.

Somebody asked me if this is the last book in the Big Lake series. No, it’s not even close to the last. I still have a lot more stories to tell you about all the things happening in Big Lake. And I haven’t forgot my Florida buddy, Somerton County Deputy John Lee Quarrels. As soon as this latest book is out, I’ll start working on the next John Lee book.

Back in May I wrote about getting a set of Arlo security cameras to mount inside and outside the house. So far I’ve been very impressed with the cameras. The picture quality is excellent, even at night, and we haven’t had any problems with the Arlo system like we did when we were using the SimpliSafe. The Arlo system is strictly cameras, and I wish it had sensors for the doors and windows like the SimpliSafe did. But then again that system never worked properly, so I guess having them didn’t do us much good anyway, did it?

The Arlo cameras are battery-powered, and I wasn’t sure how long to expect them to work before they needed charged. I originally set them up on May 6, which was a Sunday, and yesterday they were all down somewhere around 15 to 18%. So I started recharging them, which went pretty quickly. All you do is plug a charging cord into them and within a few hours they are ready to go again. We have six cameras in the system now, but I’m thinking of adding at least two more to cover a couple of blind spots.

Two readers have asked if we have to pay for the rock that the county put in the other day to try to stop the erosion on both sides of their flood control ditch. I don’t believe so, nobody ever said anything to me about that. In fact, as I wrote in the blog, I didn’t even know they were going to do it. I’ve been complaining about the problem for quite some time, and when we came home from running some errands, it was done.

Somebody else asked if we are going to continue with the retaining wall project. I think we will eventually, but for now we’ll wait and see what the rock does. With daytime temperatures in the low to mid 90s and high humidity for the next three months at least, I’m not feeling all that energetic to get out there and do a lot of physical labor. Okay, let’s be honest, I never feel like doing physical labor if I can avoid it.

And finally, because I haven’t shared one with you lately, here is a funny sign from the collection we accumulated in our travels as fulltime RVers or that our readers sent to us.

Congratulations David Bushouse, winner of our drawing for an audiobook of Dog’s Run, my mystery set in a small Ohio town in 1951. I have 20 mystery novels out, as well as 10 nonfiction books, and I have to say that Dog’s Run is my favorite. It’s a gritty tale that is loosely based upon a real crime that took place in that part of the country when my father was a young police officer there. We had 80 entries this time around. Stay tuned, a new contest starts soon.

Thought For The Day – I don’t know what your problem is, but I’m pretty sure it’s hard to pronounce.