Definition: a trial of machinery, software, or other products, in the final stages of its development, carried out by a party unconnected with its development.
In about a month, my tenth novel will be ready for what I call my beta-readers.
Anyone interested? No pay, just what I hope is a good read. It's like market testing. Send me an email through this website!
By the way, I'm coming back from my hiatus. For the last two weeks I'm been traveling, more or less, taking a total of six flights. This week my contract starts again, and life goes back to some type of non-summer normalcy. This will include more writing and more blogging here.
I've been thinking a lot about my fundamentalist background that I have often wanted to pretend like it didn't affect me psychologically, emotionally, or spiritually. That is nonsense, but I also would extend to a broader sense. Nothing that you have spent significant time in or with is going to have zero effect.
I felt that way a few days ago standing by a river where our father used to take us fishing, an estuary of the Chesapeake Bay. I spent the first seventeen years, or really more, of my life in suburban and Southern Maryland. Standing there, I had a strong feeling that this was who I was and couldn't leave it there. It is part of me. How could the place, the geography of one's first two decades not mold one's sense of belonging, identity, self.
Hi, Joy! Thanks for visiting. Yes, sense of place has a bigger hold on us than we realize. We need to explore it....My sister-in-law had a book about taking retreats and working on choices, time, identity, etc. This writer, Joan Anderson, recommended the beach---not possible for all of us, but my sister-in-law's cousin has a beach house there that is not really used (she has money, I guess, and can do that!), so I'm thinking about using it for a retreat place to write. It was so hot up there, worse than here, but that's not usually the case!
Congrats on your 10th novel getting close to completion. That's impressive. I'm still working on my first.
"Nothing that you have spent significant time in or with is going to have zero effect." What a good point. I just returned from visiting my roots. It's always nostalgic and comforting to return to my home town and to Lake Michigan where our family visited every summer. Our first 2, 5, 10, 18 years mold who we are as adults more than we could ever know. I'm glad you are getting back to your routine.