Sunday, January 18, 2009

Beach Kansas

Footsteps in. . .sand? In Kansas?
Even the tumbleweed is struck dumb with surprise.
It's Sand Dune Park outside of Syracuse near the Colorado line.

You guys know how I like to surprise you with photos of Kansas that you don't expect? Well, this time, I was surprised! Sand in Kansas, who knew? I even have sand clinging to my shoes to prove it.

15 comments:

Nancy P said...

There's interesting stuff in the comments of the last post, and I completely intend to pay attention to it! Soon! Ish.

I drove spectacularly beautiful roads today.

boran2 said...

Sand in Kansas? Pass the suntan lotion!

Of course, here in the Hudson Valley, it is once again snowing. With some accumulation already, I wonder how my day off with the b2 boy will be. Perhaps sledding?

AndiF said...

Love the photos. Love the feel of sand between my toes.

Happy MLK Day which is perfectly timed because we are going to be "Free At Last" of Bush and his cronies.

Time for the Monday Picture Post which, in honor of the upcoming changeover and the hope for change, is all about the more things stay the same, the more they change.

Same place [LINK]

same sesason [LINK]

same time of day [LINK]

AndiF said...

ARGGHHH. Can't spell.

Errata: Same season.

And I forgot to say: Good morning all.

Maria Lima said...

Morning, all and a very happy MLK day to everyone!

As Andi said, this one is special, for tomorrow, the wait is OVER.

I'm writing again today, hope to beat yesterday's 2700. My "short break" turned out to be longer than anticipated. I'm aiming for 10K for the weekend. I think it's doable.

Nancy, sand in Kansas - who'd'a thunk? Nifty, though.

Cheers to all!

Anonymous said...

Morning all. Wish we had sand here in NC - they're calling for snow - which happens once a year. And today appears to be the day.

I'm thinking the weather gods are trying to tell me to get myself back to Florida.

Visiting my mom's twin - my second mom - for a few days. Hoping to get some writing done, but it's hard to visit and write at the same time. Heading back to Warm Country on Thursday.

Enjoy your day off, those of you who have it. And celebrate dreams...

Anonymous said...

What I'm loving about your trip Nancy is that you are introducing us to all of Kansas. Not just the cornfields in my mind or the depression era farms of The Wizard of Oz.
Sand is Fun.

I was rereading some notes from my first day at WRW.
They included--
Nancy Pickard. So kind, soft-spoken. Encouraging.
But on the other hand I am reading Nancy's The Whole Truth and woke up in the night with nightmares, heart drumming as I thought about the creepy Raymond.
The duality of Nancy awes me. The real person vs. the wow mystery I gotta keep turning the pages writing.

It is a treat for me to see such various facets of our blog leader.

Nancy, maybe some time you can address the ways you've tried to balance/handle the less than kind critics in your career.

Andi--love the pictures. Expecially the last frozen landscape. Not much of that down this way.

Waves to all. Off to the dentist and a little work. Bah, back with the kids tomorrow.

Marvelous MLK monday to all.

Nancy P said...

boran2, sledding, whee! I loved sledding soooo much.

Andi, that's a wonderful series of photos. Which I'll be using.

Maria, you are on such a roll!

Beth, I think it's hard to visit and write at the same time, too. It's really two different sides of our personalities, I suspect, and maybe even different sides of our brains. On this trip, it's been impossible to be Gregarious Public Speaking Meeting Strangers Nancy and then go back and be Withdrawn Introverted Lost in Writing Nancy. I get too revved up, I think.

Nancy P said...

Wow, Lisa, we just had us a coincidence. I read your post about the two sides of NP after I wrote my post about a similar thing.

Thank you for those kind words.

How have I dealt with critics who said mean things? I've been lucky. There have been more of the nice kind than the un-nice kind, but of course I've been slammed. At first I feel embarrassed and deflated, but as long as the majority of reviews are positive I truly don't let a minority bother me. Heck, some times I think the good reviews overdo it, and that makes me nervous, because I fear readers won't think my book will live up to all that. Most of my books have been reviewed by the NYT and I think I've only had three good reviews there, but there's absolutely nothing I can do about the reviewers taste, which is completely different from mine (judging from her other reviews), so I have just shrugged and gone on my way. I'm happy when she doesn't review me, though the last one was a nice one.

As for fielding criticism from non-reviewers. . .I never show my manuscripts to people I can't trust to critique honestly but with a decent regard for my feelings. As for fans, if I get a criticism from one of them, I listen to see if there's anything in the criticism that I need to know. Honestly, most often there isn't and it's just one of those differences in taste, but sometimes there is, and if there is, I work on it.

Kelly McCullough said...

Hey all,

Bizy today. Lurking.

Anonymous said...

Beach Blanket Bingo! What's the barbed wire doing there? Trying to keep out the partiers?

Interesting pix, Andif. Thanks for sharing. The landscape here is much more like the last one. The snow here just keeps on accumulating - running out of room to put it. :-p I'm looking forward to a change in temperature. If only it would reach above freezing! Where's the January thaw????

Happy Monday! Yahoo, no work!

dina said...

Happy MLKD to you all. I can't wait for tomorrow when the shrub is finally gone!

dina said...

And I forgot to say, thank you, Nancy for introducing us to your Kansas. It is a place I want to visit some day.

Nancy P said...

Bono, a couple of days ago you asked about writers changing editors. . .

Most of us don't get to keep our same editor forever. Most of us go through a number of editors for many different reasons. We may change publishers. They may change jobs. They may get fired. They may get pregnant and leave. They may die. (It happens.) A writer and an editor may have a bad relationship and they both take the chance to get rid of each other. Etc., etc.

In my 18-book career, not even counting anthologies, I've had my Perfect Editor for, I think, 10 of those books. For the other 8 books, I had six editors. First one got fired. Second one, I don't remember. Third one I left when I changed publishers. Next one was lovely, but I changed publishers again (to get my Perfect Editor). Fourth and fifth were substitutes when Perfect Editor left for another pub. house.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the clarification, Nancy. I'm glad you like your current one.

Still waiting for a warm up here. Farf, is it Spring again down there yet?