A Nice Soaking Rain

After weeks, maybe as long as two months, with very little rainfall, this morning we are in the midst of a nice, soaking rain. Last night the forecast was for 30 percent chance of rain today. Normally when it's 30 percent chance we don't get rain. When it's 40 percent chance we probably do. So I went to bed last night figuring we wouldn't get any.

This morning, after showering I turned on the weather as normal, and the radar showed a line of strong storms coming on us from the northwest, a little over one county away, and moving quickly in our direction. The radar loop showed the storms weren't dissipating or splitting. It couldn't miss. Sure enough, around 7:30 a.m. it began raining at our office, and still is. Radar shows it might rain for another hour or so.

What's that expression? "When it rains, it pours." Not so today. The first ten to twenty minutes was heavy (at the busiest part of Bentonville's rush hour, though I was already inside at my computer), but since then it's been nice and steady. The ground is so dry lots of this must be soaking in. Perhaps the County will be able to take the burn ban off—not that I have anything to burn.

Right now it's raining in my writing life. I'm working on four or five projects, all moving toward publication close together. I submitted an engineering article to Buildipedia.com, and it will be published tomorrow. The next one isn't due for a month, as they are cutting back from a bi-monthly column to a monthly. I'm in the waiting process on In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People. Today is the 23rd day since I submitted it to the editor. I'm resigned to self-publishing it, but we'll see.

I'm editing The Candy Store Generation for clarity and consistency. I think I have some repetition in it, and want to eliminate that. I'm two-thirds of the way through preparing the home school edition of Documenting America. That's not taking much time. I do a chapter a day.

These three book-length projects are all coming together at about the same time. Is it pouring? Not really, because I set my own schedule on them. I can determine the priorities, putting them in the order I choose. If things get too hectic, I can just delay any of them I want to. The short stories that are on tap for after these book projects will happen, but if I need a break, so be it.

I'm at least glad that the words are raining. My mind has been active enough that any time I've sat down to edit or write I've been able to. The quiet house while I'm in my temporary bachelorhood (coming to an end in a few days) has allowed me to not be distracted. I wouldn't say my production has been as much as it needs to be, but at least it's been steady. Kind of like today's rain.

And of course, during this time I've been on the wild ride with Doctor Luke's Assistant. That's pretty much ended now, as sales have slowed to a trickle. A number of writing friends have posted that they are reading and enjoying it, and that they will post reviews on Amazon when done. At least one has said she is going to promote it. I hope sales continue to trickle. One or two a day is actually a decent number for a self-published book. Soon I'll look at producing a print version.

So, on with writing. On with multiple projects. On with words raining. I can still hear the rain on the office roof, and still sense the words inside me trying to get out.