Things I’d rather do instead of “killing my darlings”

I was a word lumberjack all day, hacking and slashing and cutting down chapters of my dissertation to squeeze my carefully sculpted ideas into a too-small space for a conference submission. As a result of my twitter complaining, a friend shared Stephen King’s editing advice: “Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler’s heart, kill your darlings.”

Ugh. And so I did. I killed about 12,000 darlings today, and I still have another 5,000 to go before tomorrow’s deadline. And it really hurts a girl! I always forget what an emotional process editing can be.

Consequently, I’ve been daydreaming about things I’d rather be doing. Like flying! Visiting friends in the desert. Cooking. Gardening. Hell, even grading. 

Since I must get back to the hacking soon, here are a few snaps of things I’d rather be up to right now:

Snapped during an aerial tour of the desert near China Lake and Ridgecrest, California. Incredible!

Ran into a friend while getting fuel at University Airport in Davis, California. Kim flies the Bonanza and is one of my flying inspirations!

Sunday at the Reno Air Races, me hedging with a Rare Bear hat and Strega tee. Unfortunately, none of my guys won this year.

Our Back-40 landscape design, in progress!

Rosemary antipasto skewers, the easiest, most impressive appetizer.

Flying the Boeing Stearman bi-plane over Sacramento. Kind of magical!

#Avgeek gifts from my hubby’s flight bag… “foggles” which only allow pilots to see the instrument panel and a E6-B flying “computer.” More on what that stuff means soon.

Browned butter vanilla bean rice krispie monsters. That’s how this chick rolls for Halloween. (With pumpkins and bats, too, naturally.)

Smitten Kitchen’s salted caramel brownies. Yes, I will share the recipe. No, I won’t share the actual brownies. They are mines, all mines!

xoxo,
shawna

National Blog Posting Month:
Day 1- National Blog Posting Month on BlogHer: I’m in
Day 2- Project Green Thumbs Season 5, winter edition!