We are fine. Houston had no winds, no rains. As far as I know, no power outages. Nothing remarkable at Houndstooth Hall. Please turn your good energy and thoughts and efforts toward the areas where people and animals were impacted by Hurricane Laura. Cleanup and recovery are miserable things to go through.
In more personal news, I thought I’d discovered a tendency to use passive voice in my fiction writing. This is a huge NO for me. Such usage is so clunky that I didn’t see how it escaped my notice. I’ve reconsidered. I think the problem may be past perfect continuous tense. It, too, is clunky when I look at examples online–more clunky than what I see in my writing. It might not be an accurate diagnosis, but even if I can’t name the malady, I know how to cure it.
Last night, Tom helped me outline the last three chapters of this book. After I write them, I’ll pause for severe editing of the first two manuscripts. It’s more fun to edit for content than style, but it’s all part of the job. While this version of the job isn’t paying and may never pay me, writing in 2019 and 2020 has helped keep me alive. I like being alive, so that’s a good payoff.