Venturing Out....Back in the Saddle Again

I am searching for writing support and it has been a slow, gradual process. I attended a book festival back in September, then attended a meeting of the Ancient City Writers in October.  November and December screamed by with family visits and the holidays.  In January I missed the first class of a Creative Writing Class by one day. I consoled myself with the thought that it was really an "Introduction" to Creative Writing Class and I hoped I was beyond the "Introduction" part of writing.  I also determined I would not let any more opportunities pass me by!

I found a Sisters in Crime group meeting in Jacksonville the first Saturday of the month, so I made plans to attend the February meeting.  Since my granddaughter Kinsey was spending the night Friday night (her parents' wedding anniversary) I knew I would have to be razor sharp Saturday morning to get us both up, dressed, fed, and out the door in time to make my meeting more than 40 miles away.  My plan included a list of errands, a quick bite to eat, a quick trip to Publix, and then playtime at home before bedtime.  Friday evening clicked by right on schedule and Grenah and granddaughter were both in bed by 9:00pm and asleep by 9:30!

Harley helped out by jumping on the bed and waking us both up at 2:00am to be let out!  *FLB!!!!  He has never done that before!  I woke up enough to leash him up, take him out (with Kinsey holding my hand - "It's DARK, Grenah!"), bring us all back inside, and get Kinsey and myself settled back into bed.  She went back to sleep immediately.  I tossed and turned and finally dropped off after 2:30am. 

Saturday morning dawned foggy and damp and chilly.  I showered while Kinsey watched Milo and Otis in my bedroom.   We had a quick breakfast and took the *FLB (AKA Kinsey's "BEST FRIEND HAHRY") for his morning walk.  We packed up her things and I dropped her at her mom's house about 15 minutes behind schedule.  I tore up US1 to Jacksonville and only made one wrong turn before I found the SE Branch of the Jacksonville Library. 

The presentation had already begun, but the secretary Pam was gracious and signed me up as a new member and took down my information.  I found a seat - not too hard, there were only about 10 people in attendance.  The speaker was a traffic accident reconstructionist who also investigated crime scenes.  He had brought a slide presentation of an actual case and he demonstrated step by step how he started with the evidence at a crime scene and then worked backwards to see how each piece of the scene ended up where it did.  Among other things he had to determine where the shooters were standing, how they were standing (upright? crouched?), where the victim was standing, how he was standing, the path of the bullets from starting point to ending point, etc.  The main differences between real life and the CSI shows seem to be: 1. CSI's don't solve crimes in real life, and 2. what happens in less than an hour on TV can take weeks in real life.  He logged 178 hours on just this one case in Alabama.

After the talk I met a couple of the members and found out about their book club, too.  Networking, it's all about the networking.  One of their future speakers teaches a Creative Writing class - great!  I received a great boost from attending this meeting and getting "out of my comfort zone". 

I ran an errand and treated myself to lunch, then drove home on A1A with the ocean on my left, sun shining brightly through my windshield, and my windows down to catch the breeze.

*FLB=Harley