We had a summer storm last night with heavy rain – an inch of it, with lots of run-off draining into the dam, which we’ve desperately been needing. Although we’ve had reasonable rainfall the past few months, there’s been little heavy enough for run-off, and our dams were starting to get quite low.

So, there was a lot of moisture in the air overnight, and with cooler overnight temperatures, there was a mist this morning:

Morning mist

The bush is not the place for arachnaphobes – and misty mornings like these, with the sun breaking through the moist air, highlight all the spider webs, strung between bushes, trees, and grasses. There are large ones:

Spider web

… and small ones:

Spider webs

I was a little late photographing these, so they’re not quite as dew-speckled as they were earlier; they can be quite magical, with lacy lines of dew drops.

The book still isn’t finished yet – but it’s getting closer. Another busy day today, but I have to squeeze some house-cleaning and tidying in amongst the writing, as my wonderful sister is arriving this evening with her husband and son to spend the night, on their way home from Queensland.

So, I have an appointment now with a broom and a dusting cloth!

I’m still in over my head trying to finish The Book, so please excuse the quietness around here. I’ll be human again next week. I hope.

The current challenge is writing the final scenes and drawing together the various plot and character threads – if not into a nice pretty bow, at least into some sort of neat, sea-worthy knot. (These characters aren’t really the pretty bow types   )

So while I’m busy doing that, you might want to hop on over and read Barbara Samuel’s recent post on Romancing the Blog, about not apologising for reading romance, and ways of dealing with the snide comments about the genre – and the frustrations they cause us.

Barbara is both a  wonderful writer and wonderful person. I first met her in Dallas a couple of years ago, when I had the privilege of moderating her workshop at the RWAmerica conference. Then she was one of the guests at last year’s RWAustralia conference, where I attended another of her workshops, and chatted with her a few times. Her blog, A Writer Afoot, is one of my regular blog reads – writing, food, travelling, and all in Barbara’s beautiful writing. I highly recommend it!

We’ve had a few grey days lately, so not much in the way of photos from my late afternoon walks with the dogs. But here’s one from a week or so back – taken from the north-west corner of our property, looking ‘over the fence’ where our place joins two other, much larger properties. I’m not sure if the grass is greener over there, but I always get an itch to climb through the fence, and explore what’s in the bush beyond the immediate view…

(The dogs would love to go through the fence, too, to chase the critters on the other side. There’s often sheep in one paddock, sometimes cattle in another, and twice we’ve seen an emu – not very common around here – just over the fence on the right there. They don’t know if the grass is greener over there, but it’s definitely smellier, as far as they’re concerned!)

Just a reminder that there’s only a few days left to register for the inaugural Australian Romance Readers Convention, before the late registration rate kicks in.

For those who haven’t heard of this, it’s on at the Jasper Hotel in Melbourne, from 20-22nd February, and there’s a stellar line-up of authors attending – Sherrilyn Kenyon, Mary Janice Davidson, Stephanie Lawrence, Liz Maverick, Keri Arthur, Anna Campbell  – to name just a few. Oh, and I’ll be there, too

It should be a great fun weekend – there will be plenary sessions, a great range of author panels on an array of topics to do with the romance genre, the welcome reception and the formal dinner, and book signing sessions.

This is me, hiding from my manuscript, so it can’t find me….

Yesterday wasn’t the best writing day. I ended up scrapping most of what I’d written the previous day, and agonising over how to bring various threads and plot points together into the final act. I still haven’t got all the answers, but I think I finally made some progress – in my head, anyway. I’ve still got to get it down on paper screen.

This morning, I’m going to take a bit of a break and go into town – I haven’t left our place, so haven’t seen anyone but Gordon, since Monday. The grocery shopping needs doing, so I volunteered – yes, the exciting life of a writer, when the grocery shopping becomes a break from routine! Although I’ll probably have morning tea in my regular cafe, as well.

Oh, and the photo is of an echidna. We have a few on our place – Gordon has seen three at the same time – so we see them reasonably often. This one is hiding from me and the dogs. I did leave the dogs some distance away, so I could wait quietly nearby to get a better photo – but just as it decided it might be safe to move, my camera battery died.

And to finish this on a positive note, I have walked in the treadmill EVERY morning for 16 days in a row now. (So, I’d better go now and get on it and make it 17 days in a row…)

From this afternoon’s walk:

Australian blackthorn in blossom (Bursaria spinosa)

The native blackthorn is not a particularly pretty bush, particularly with it’s sharp spines, but it’s an important part of the ecology of this area, and we’re pleased we have a fair amount of it on our block. It’s the time of year when the sprays of tiny, star-shaped blossoms are coming out – and it is quite pretty in flower.

The writing continues – although I just cut out 200 of the words I wrote this afternoon. I may be able to put them somewhere else later, I’m not sure yet. Now it’s time to cook a quick dinner (fettucine and greens – broccoli, asparagus, green beans and spinach, with a touch of garlic, anchovies and chilli – yum!) and then I’ll be back to the computer for the evening session.