My New Town

In spite of my best efforts, you can see it's been a month since I last blogged. And my writing has taken a different turn as well. I've been busy reviewing two books; one a contemporary crime noir, and one a series PI detective novel. I'll post both of them once they're finished. I loved both books.

I'm also entering a mystery writing contest, which is not only turning out to be fascinating in it's research, but is giving me a deadline of May 31st to have it written and mailed off. Getting back into serious writing has been tough with the rest of our life settling down into a routine.

I love our new town. I love it's smallness - you can drive from north to south in about ten minutes. It's stores are all Canadian owned and proud of it. While things tend to be more expensive here, for eg. they don't do blue box recycling so you pay an extra "enviro deposit" on pop cans and milk containers, I've learned to just grin and bear the extra cost. If only I could ship my favourite cat clumping litter here from back east! :)

The weather can't be beat. It's been 30 degrees here and you don't even notice it because it's a "dry" heat. It reminds me of Costa Rica. Back east we'd be sweating like pigs and taking the children inside by 11 a.m. from the humidity. You wouldn't be able to get into the local swimming pools because people would be seeking solace from the heat. Here, people are walking around downtown, shopping, chatting on street corners and not even wearing hats. The long weekend promises to be sunny for the next three days.

The downtown is home to businesses that have been in families for several generations; jewellery stores, restaurants like the Jade Garden, Al's Cafe, and the usual banks and craft stores. You can find anything on the Main St. if you follow it north far enough. Lovely tourist shops mixed in with Rogers Video and Tim Horton's, that most Canadian of institutions.

My goal for the long weekend is to get my mystery contest outlined and bang off these two book reviews. They're due for May 25th for the FMAM ezine. I'll post a link next week to FMAM. If you love mystery, crime, horror stories, you'll love FMAM. It's full name is FUTURES Mysterious Mystery Anthology. You can read the ezine which is a pale comparison to the print version which carries over 40 stories from big name mystery writers.

Have a great long weekend everyone. I think my US friends have this weekend as Memorial weekend, right? Have a safe and happy one.