Friday, October 16, 2015

Indian Council Caves, Barkhamsted, Connecticut

Luna moth larva
In August, while hiking to the Indian Council Caves in Barkhamsted, my brother found this plump green caterpillar. I did a little bit of research and discovered it was a luna moth larva. The hike was up and down, which wasn't so bad, but hot and humid conditions made it seem enduring.

It was one mighty big larva.

Hornets were buzzing around this huge nest.
This past week, I reviewed three edited articles. Two are expected to be published in MUSE in January. The other one, for Highlights, has a target publication date of May 2016. I'm really happy with both of them. The edits were small, but they've enhanced the text.
It seemed like everything we encountered was immense.

Recently, I restructured a middle grade manuscript and turned chapters 1 and 2 into chapters 4 and 5. The end result was that my manuscript, that was ready to send out, had become far from ready--the first chapters were gone. So, I've been real busy writing the front end (chapters 1 and 2). My goal was to have at least five pages ready for a retreat I'm going to in November. I wound up chopping chapter 1 in half and was delighted that I once again had two chapters! They still need some work, but the story is there.