Numbers

This has been a week filled with numbers. Some of them good (6 innings of softball) and some not so good (557 "justs"). But let me explain.

I've started editing Seeing the Light after getting it critiqued by a wonderful bunch of people (thanks everybody!) and one of the big things I had to do was pull flabby words from the work. Ryan was pretty straightforward. "Get rid of all the justs! They drive me crazy!" (Or something. Paraphrasing, due to horror induced by the suggestion that any of my wonderful words could drive anybody crazy.) Bille was kinder. She gave me a list, and suggested I get rid of most of them because they are "tentative words that neither Farley nor Marie would use."

Here's the list:
quite,
nearly,
almost,
just about,
mostly,
very close to,
usually,
even,
try to


I thought they were both being a little delicate. I don't use tentative flabby words much. I KNOW I don't. I would have noticed them. And then I used the seek and destroy button. Holy crap! Maybe Farley and Marie wouldn't use them, but I would. And do. A lot.

"Just" was the big winner, but "even, nearly and almost" were right up there. I may have to add a chapter, just to get my word count back up! (Kidding about that, but it was a real eye opener.)

So now mostly all of those words are very close to almost being gone. If I try to do just one more go through, even though it feels almost right and nearly all flabby words are nearly gone, it should be just about ready to go. (I LOVE those words! Help!)

When this big clean up is done, I can get to the other nits. And they are, generally, nits. This thing is almost complete. Again. One more time into the breech. But I still don't know the market. I thought I had it, but I was told (again by my wonderful critiquers) that I don't. I will keep trying to figure this out.

But I really LIKE calling it my paranormal chick lit murder mystery sort of a thing! At least I get people to look at me and say "What?" Then I can explain... Sigh. I'll keep working at it.

The other number, the six innings of softball -- that was a bit of fun, and I didn't get hurt which makes it even better.

Went to watch my daughter's softball games on Wednesday night, and I could see that they didn't have enough players. I looked at my husband and said "Let's just stay in the car until game time." I didn't want to be pulled on to the field -- well that's a bit of a lie. No-one actually pulls you onto the field. You don't get shanghaied -- not really. I have a little difficulty saying "no" when someone needs some help. Like filling a spot on the field so my daughter's team didn't have to forfeit not one, but two games.

The manager/coach/pitcher stormed by our truck, and I looked steadfastly at the floor in order not to make eye contact. They were down 3 players, not just 1, so I wasn't going to be enough help, anyhow. And two games -- that's nearly 5 hours of softball. I didn't feel up to it. (I was better prepared than the year I was asked to play and didn't have a bra or running shoes OR a glove, but that's another story.) I wanted to WATCH softball, not play. (Or hold a place. That's really all I do, because I've never actually played the game for real.)

The coach/manager/pitcher stormed back a short time later, three players in tow, and they started the game. I breathed a sigh of relief and creeped out to the bleachers to watch. I felt like a whimp, but I really didn't want to hold a place.

It was a pretty good game, all things considered. My daughter pitched that game, and only gave up a couple of runs, but an error filled fourth inning (which started off with her left fielder being tripped by a rabbit as she ran for a fly ball, I kid you not) lost her the game. The interesting thing was, at the end of that inning, the opposing pitcher went out, threw one pitch, grabbed the pitching rubber, and picked it up, in pieces. It had literally fallen apart during my daughter's inning. They fixed it, and when Jess went out to pitch the next inning, she struck out three in a row. Made me wonder.

Anyhow, the game was over, and the three players trundled back to THEIR games (the coach/manager/pitcher had talked them into leaving their own games and coming to play ours. She has excellent skills in that area, which should explain my grovelling under my seat when she went by before the game. I can't say no to her!) and a couple more players from Jess's team showed up. (They were coming from Calgary. To play two games of softball. Wow.) But that put her team one person under.

That's when I was called up.

"I don't have a glove," I muttered. This hasn't actually ever gotten me out of filling a spot, but it felt like a good gambit, none the less. Like pulling the goalie in the frantic dying seconds of a hockey game already lost. "And I'm left handed."

The coach/manager/pitcher gave me a look, stormed over to the other team's dugout and came out with a glove. "It's Jim's" she said. "You have it for the whole game."

Jim is the coach for the other team. Jess has played for him off and on through her career. I thought he liked me.

I had a quick warm up smoke before the game started -- could see no real point in actually throwing a ball or anything, because I hadn't picked up a ball in two years. Then I took off all my jewelry and handed it to my husband, who was trying to give me last second advice on how to play the game, put on the glove, and went and stood out in right field.

The ball diamonds look pristine when a person is sitting in the bleachers, but out there in right field, I could see how a rabbit could hide. There were divots and ruts, and I was suddenly afraid that I'd take two steps, fall flat on my face, and embarrass my daughter. (I was way past embarrassing myself. I'd already done that by stepping out on the field in my CSI hoodie.) But, as I watched the other team try to hit it out to me, and watched our pitcher try to stop them from doing that, and tried desperately to remember what the heck a right fielder is actually supposed to do (watch for overthrows at first base, and get the ball back in as quick as you can, if the ball makes it out to you) I felt all right. No hyperventilation, none of that stuff. It was a quick half inning, and it was our turn to bat.

I batted last. Didn't surprise me or anyone else there. The coach/manager/pitcher's only advice to me for my first at bat was -- "Maybe try to take a walk."

Good advice. But the pitcher had to throw balls for that to happen, and she KNEW I wasn't the heavy hitter on the team. She knew I was the mother of a heavy hitter, and not worth fooling around with. So she threw 2 quick strikes. Then I surprised her (and me) by fouling off the next pitch. There was no way I was sitting down after only three pitches. No way.

I sat down after 4 pitches. And then we were back out in the field, and I watched them try to hit it out to me some more.

By the end of the game, even the opposing team's back catcher was trying to help me out. "Just put your bat right in the middle of the plate," she whispered. I think she was planning on getting the pitcher to hit the bat with the ball for me, which would have been a wonderful thing. However, the pitcher wasn't having any of that, and after I fouled off another ball, and managed to get the count up to 2 balls 2 strikes, she threw an inside pitch (really inside) then one down the middle for the out. Pretty basic stuff -- but man! I'd cut up watermelon for that kid when Jess played on her team! She shouldn't be throwing the ball at me like that!

As I went to sit down, I realized all I needed to have done was lean in, just a teeny bit, and she would have hit me, and I would've been on base. (This is the same thinking that comes over young men after they watch a testosterone filled action movie. They are convinced they can do everything they just watched, if they could find someone to fight.) I hung on to that thought for about a minute and a half, then let it go. I didn't need the pain.

We lost the game -- but they did get to play it, and I didn't make one error. In fact, I didn't touch the ball at all. Well, except for the two I fouled off. So, I survived, and Jess is taking me out for lunch today, to thank me for helping out. Cool.