I keep thinking it will eventually feel like fall. Halloween costumes and candy fill the aisles in every store. Sweaters, jackets and boots line the shelves in the clothing and department stores. Football is on nonstop for 24 hours each weekend. I’m wearing my college jerseys every Saturday. We are making plans for Thanksgiving and booked an Airbnb this week. My garden is taller with new soil, just waiting for seeds.

And yet …  108 degrees yesterday; 105 today. Will we ever see double digit temps again this year? I’m not certain. All I know is I came back from sunny, green, yet cool Minnesota weeks ago and I cannot adjust. I’m just too danged old. That’s what I tell myself, anyway.

I’m completing jigsaw puzzles, reading more novels, playing nonstop Spider Solitaire on my iPad. I’m getting up early to get outside or to the store before it hits 100. I am bored and cranky … along with the rest of Phoenix. Our tempers are short and our frustration levels low.

On a lighter note, my manuscript is in the hands of 9 beta readers. I’m pretty sure I’ve missed the mark on this one, but I have time to fix it. Not headed to a publisher any time soon. It’s discouraging to read the critiques, but it’s also a lesson in perseverance.

I just read The Paris Wife – a good book, by the way. Hemingway struggled every single hour of every single day with every single word and phrase. I guess I’m in good company.

I did read something this week that I didn’t learn in my Creative Writing course work though. I’ve struggled with 3^rd person POV. This current manuscript kept wanting to be 1^st person in order to get to her intense feelings and struggles. Come to find out, I need to be using what is now called Deep POV. Lots of leeway to be in the head of the protagonist, feeling her feelings, thinking her thoughts, watching her life unfold.

I’m excited now to give this a try. I’ve read enough to have a list of specific do’s and don’ts. I feel prepared to give this a try, and I hope it is the answer to making this a better novel. Time will tell.

SO—onward and upward toward October and hopefully cooler weather and fun holidays.