In one way or another, it seems we all live by them—schedules I mean. For many of us, an ideal vacation has meant getting rid of the daily schedules of work and everything else. Stay up late, because you don’t have to get up at any particular time in the morning. That sort of thing. And, of course, retirement is something we think about as a period in our lives when we can live according to our whims, not on a schedule. In the same vein, I’ve never liked waking to an alarm, another form of scheduled activity. More often than not, I have trouble getting to sleep when I use an alarm because I know it’s set to go off early and I’m not going to get much sleep.

We have reached that time of year when our scheduled transition to rural Florida is fast approaching. Work that still remains has to be rescheduled due to the closing window of opportunity I have been working against all summer. Vehicle inspections and maintenance have to be accomplished before the semiannual trek south. Florida medical appointments have to be set up before all of the arriving winter visitors push availabilities way off. I also have to push work on my manuscript-in-progress forward, which means fitting more writing into my schedule.

It was my intent to achieve a more balanced lifestyle this season here in the North. I was going to give myself more time for things other than house projects, too. Well, so much for good intentions. Now, I have to consider extreme measures to achieve my goals. Getting more efficient is obviously in order. The answer to greater efficiency? Scheduling my time. That includes my writing time, which has to consist of both the creative bit—writing—and the business side of it, which includes book promotions and the sort. If I don’t set up some workable schedule, the most pressing task will take over my time and life will continue as before—behind schedule. Of course, if I’m going to set up a meaningful daily work schedule, I should make sure I get up at a reasonable hour to get everything on the schedule done. That means setting an alarm. And, I’ll have to put reminders on my computer to change task

at scheduled times, and schedule a break for a few minutes so I don’t sit at the computer too long. Next, I’ll have to punch a time clock to keep track of how I’m doing on my schedule.

My series protagonist, Bobby Navarro is luckier. He doesn’t need an alarm clock, or to be living by any particular schedule. He rides his motorcycle, goes camping, meets people and solves murders. It doesn’t seem fair that I should have to schedule my life more rigorously in order to write about him not living on one. Oh well. . .

Yesterday morning, about a dozen farm tractors, some new, most vintage, drove past our place. I thought they might be gathering for a parade, but it didn’t turn out that way. I tried to get photos as they drove by, but I was too slow. Later, I tried taking a photo of a Linn tractor through the window where it is housed. The Linn tractor was built here, and was used not only on farms, but in the logging industry in the Adirondacks. They were impressive machines, with a combination of wheels in front and tracks for the rear.

I think parades are one of the things that typify village life. They are likely to include a high school band or two, maybe an honor guard of American Legionnaires to carry the national flag, and possibly a few floats as well. Of course, there will likely be a line of fire trucks, and participants will toss candy to the kids lining the sidewalks.

When the usual parade was cancelled in a Connecticut town, a bunch of people decided to do their own. They rode bicycles, with boom boxes (portable radio/tape players) carried on their shoulders. It went over so well, it became an annual tradition. Here, I think a string of farm tractors would have been great, after all, the people who built the Linn tractor helped bring the area into the industrial era.

Would my series protagonist, Bobby Navarro, be likely to participate in a parade? I doubt it. But, maybe he would if there were fifty other Harley riders in it. What are your thoughts about parades?

1917Linn Tractor

1917 Linn Tractor

This past week, I’ve been preoccupied with watching skilled operators using heavy equipment to move something like four hundred tons of stone into place to stabilize our stream bank. On my part, it has been the happy culmination of years of effort, skill development, patience and persistence, along with vital help received from others. There are still no guarantees in life, but the stream is now able to flow freely, like it did before a storm toppled seven giant willow trees and left the bank vulnerable to heavy erosion. The work looks great, and I am confident it is likely to provide our eighteen-seventies cottage with a continued lease on life.

Yesterday, we attended a meeting of our village writers’ group. It was fun, and almost seemed like a symbolic act of celebration. In learning to become a mystery writer, I had to unlearn the style necessary to professional scientific writing and learn how to write a good story. I had to join groups and attended professional events to find out what the trade requires. Most importantly, I had to swallow my pride and keep trying.  Both amounted to seemingly never-ending projects with no clear roadmaps or GPS-guided voices to tell me what to do next or if I was even headed in the right direction.

I guess I can say becoming a writer unexpectedly also prepared me for taking on the  stream bank project. Learning how to interact with local, regional, state and federal agencies, submit and revise plans and permit applications, and to keep trying no matter what has paid off. Now, I can look out across our back yard at a brand new stream bank, one that allows the trout creek to flow freely, unblocked by the huge stumps of the seven giant willows that blew down about eight years ago, causing major scouring of the stream bed and erosion of our bank. And, at the writers’ meeting, I was able to report the publication earlier this year of Murder on the Mother Road, a second book in the Bobby Navarro mystery series, and announce that I have made a good start on the third novel in the same series. Better yet, now I can focus more of my time and energy on writing. Am I happy about all that? You bet I am!

One big tree stump