Originally posted on The Writers Vineyard

Last month I mentioned how much I enjoy spending time on my deck writing and enjoying the view.

Well there is a downside to all that nature and I discovered it a few weeks ago. I came downstairs one morning to take the dog for a walk and noticed that the new sod I had laid under the deck had been rolled up. From the lingering odor I guessed that a skunk had been our nocturnal visitor. It was probably looking for food and rolling up our sod to eat the grubs underneath seemed like easy pickings - pun intended.

Over the next few nights I tried numerous tactics that I found while searching on the internet. Unlike the time when we lost my son’s hamster, these didn’t work. Every night I tried something new - cayenne pepper, hot chili pepper flakes, and finally moth balls. Needless to say my wife was not impressed by the resultant mess. Our lawn was a mishmash of red, green and white. And the shunk was still enjoying eating at Chez Boultbee.

Finally I went ‘high tech’. I headed to Canadian Tire and picked up ‘The Scarecrow’. No, this is not an actual scarecrow but a motion activated sprinkler. You hook it up to the hose, add a 9-volt battery, set the sensitivity and stand back. Literally. If you don’t stay out of sensor range, you are liable to get soaked, as has happened to me numerous times, including last night.

The end result? Success. Now when I go down in the morning the lawn is wet but intact. Occasionally we’ll still smell that distinct scent so the skunk is still around but as long as it stays off my lawn I’m a happy man.

This little ‘war’ and a busy month slowed down my writing a little but I still made some progress. Here is my last stat.

Next month I’ll probably be posting about my new release, a novella called Venus Inferno. It should be released mid-July and I’m expecting edits and cover art any day now.

Until then.

David

Posted by David Boultbee

Originally posted on The Writers Vineyard

Writing?

Not quite what Tennyson had in mind when he penned that famous phrase but as I was mentioning to fellow author KS Augustin last weekend, the warmer weather is turning my ‘fancy’ to writing.

I find that I write best when I am not sitting at my desk. The Gender Divide was partially written on plane trips but mostly written at a cottage that we had rented from friends of ours. During the day I’d sit on the deck or the dock and write but my favorite time to write was early in the morning or late at night, when it was quiet and cool. I’d sit in the living room on the sofa, with my feet up on the coffee table, and let my characters take me away into their world.

We haven’t gone to the cottage in a while but last year we took advantage of the Home Renovation Tax Credit and had a deck built off the back of our house. We back onto storm water ponds and despite the traffic from the nearby road, the view is quite soothing. When the traffic dies down the sounds of birds, crickets, and the rubber-band twang of frogs can be heard quite clearly.

When I was let go from my old job last summer, my focus became a) obtaining a new job and b) keeping said new job. As a result my writing got put on the back burner. Being able to spend time on the deck again has inspired me to start writing once more. I have an as-yet-untitled manuscript that I am working on and I recently reached the 70% mark, based on a target of 80,000 words.

In order to keep me on the path of righteousness (or at least on the path towards publication) I found a simple progress Bar that I will be including in future posts. If it proves to be counter-productive then I’ll drop it but in the meantime it will prove to be an interesting experiment.

Hopefully my post next month will show the progress that I’ve made. Until then, the deck is beckoning me.