Ryan F. Love

Thinking of you. All my best.

The green pen laid across a marked up printed draft with a cream-colored coffee mug. Waiting one corner on a glass table. The brown patio fence and leakless trees in the background with some blue sky

Fifty degrees with sun means my days of writing and editing on the patio table are back.

My laptop, French press, coffee mug, and a plate with strawberries and two breakfast burritos sit on a rather scuffed up wooden table in front of a window.

It has been too long since I started a morning with breakfast, my French press, and some writing.
Good morning, all..

Ahab's leg really tied the ship together.

Six salted soft pretzels on a cookie tray. For the record, at least one of them is for my daughter but I intend no leftovers.

Baking the entire box because I'm an adult, dammit.

Spending this President's Day afternoon in a local theater, watching OG Jurassic Park on the big screen with my kids.

More busy days, but Wednesdays mean a cup of coffee and novel editing during my child's fencing class. It's a pleasant hour.

The box of the game, featuring a painting of Neuschswanstein, which spelling I did not look up and probably butchered.

After a very busy couple of weeks, my kid suggested a board game today. They even chose my favorite, Castles of Mad King Ludwig :)
Tea poured. About to settle in with the fam.

#boardgame

Oh my.
All my best to you both.

Another essay scored. One set of research papers to go and then my semester grades are complete.
Time for a break. Gonna give myself an hour to relax by revising the novel draft: I have some exposition to cut.

#teacher #writer

Congrats!

My ekphrastic tanshi sequence based on Van Gogh’s The Potato Eaters

(McQueen’s Quinterly)

#poetry #haiku #senryu

The curtained, huge stage framed in wood, with several levels of seating to the right as seen from the balcony. In lower right, my program turned to the page for Carmen.

My wife to left, wearing a pretty pink floral dress and cream scarf. I sit beside her wearing a dark suit. Red seats in background.

Crossed one off the bucket list this weekend by attending the Metropolitan Opera.

Beagle Norton, whose head is brown, exposes his white belly while laying on a knitted blanket. Grey Morkie Toby lays across his head, his tail draped across The Norton's flank. My hand rubs the belly.

Sure, Toby is laying on his head, but Norton is getting belly rubs.
#dogsofbluesky

My wife is a big Chess fan. She said most of the songs were the best she'd heard them sung by anyone.

We also caught up with some friends over a delicious brunch.
Yesterday was a very good day.

Sanyuu West menu listing a la carte items. We went omakase style and had 15 courses. Medium fatty tuna was my fav.

"CHESS" in lights, purple text, with the Imperial Theatre sign above showing the poster with the three stars.

Friday: sushi, Broadway.

The green cover with collage, heart of a camera and other objects, " the archive is all in present tense" by Elizabeth Hoover.

Went to a poetry reading tonight, bought a book.
Elizabeth Hoover's work is phenomenal and moving.

It's been a Monday.
Glad I can have 20 minutes of coffee and editing to try to relax.

A football field dusted with snow beneath dark clouds. A leafless treat hillside brightened by Sun in the background.

Monday sunrise against the hill.
Good morning, all.

It was. While our kids are older, I also really appreciate that the instructions offer a young player suggestion to let them pick any color on the board to give clues, rather than making a kid work off narrow options on a card.

Food clues kept us focused, I think :)

Hues and Cues. Player markers in a grid of color gradient, with a scoring box frame around a few - my green marker in the center was the correct response to the clue "eggplant" (with "grape slushie" as the secondary clue).

Gaming with the fam. Grandparents and teens alike having fun with this one.
#boardgame

Cleaning the kitchen and listening to Dark Side of the Moon, like an old guy.

Back to it :) Time to see how much editing I can do in the course of my kid's tap lesson.
Happy Monday, all.

All about what works :)
My completed draft was 85,500 before I started this round of editing. Think I've knocked off around 500 words so far.

Percentages... interesting.
I also edit some while drafting - I need to make sure I'm not leaving a wreck behind me, and then sometimes I feel a need to revisit some chapter before drafting another. Less systematic than yours sounds, though.

A white coffee mug next to my laptop with a cafe in a background. It's Starbucks. The locally owned place has hours that pair poorly with my kid's tap lesson times. But the baristas are really nice people whom I tip well.

I don't know how other writers edit, but on each pass of a chapter, I read aloud twice, spending longer if there's paragraph level changes rather than sentence or word.
Five chapters to go in my current set, and then each of the 37 will have had 3+ passes. Then, to the beginning, in a new font.

Morkie Toby with tan face and gray body laying on a blue blanket above a white sheet, brown curtain in background against white wall.

Happy New Year from tired Toby.

#dogsofbluesky

A paper cup with William & Sons Coffee Co. printed on it beside my laptop on a table. Various houses visible through the window in the snowy street beyond.

Editing in a coffee shop on a winter's afternoon.