progress by quarter inches; also a beta request

Back to working on the "Secrets" epilogue -- I've moved past the weird point with the unexpected developments (hopefully blending that episode in neatly to my general point), and have just worked Bill around to bringing up the conversational topic I have been aiming toward all along. Victory!

Of course, I'm still not done, but now I have actually hit a point where my "outline" for this section can come into play. That is good enough for tonight. :-)

(1,250 words, incidentally!)

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It occurs to me that my former betas for this story have either left HP or left online fandom altogether; I therefore need one or more new betas. I throw myself upon your collective mercy!

What beta-reading for "Secrets" means in practice is this: I send you two files -- chapter 15 (8,700 words, give or take) and the epilogue (probably 2,000 to 3,000 words) -- and ask you to check my grammar and spelling, my canon compliance (am I contradicting Rowling?), my general narrative flow (do things happen in a reasonable, believable fashion?), my characterization (do these people feel/sound like real people AND do they feel/sound like their canon iterations?), my phrasing (how clunky is my writing? no seriously, tell me so I can fix it), and tell me if I've created any plot holes or other lapses of logic. If you can only do some of those things -- say you are good at canon-checking Harry Potter but are iffy on grammar, or vice versa -- that's cool. Any help is helpful! (Also, obvious statement is obvious. *wry*)

Brit-picking would also be useful. I have learned to avoid a few obvious Americanism over the years, but that doubtless leaves innumerable subtler errors I still cannot see.

If you are willing to help me, please contact me via comment or private message and give me an email address. I will send the files once I finish the epilogue, hopefully by this coming Sunday. There is no real rush to return them, either -- one week from when I send them is fine by me.

wherein Liz pretends to garden

Back at the very end of April, my friend Susan visited me for the weekend, during which we participated in the Cayuga Wine Trail’s annual Wine & Herb event. This involves going to each winery in turn, where you get a small potted herb, a sample of a food that includes that herb, and some wine samples chosen to go with that food. We ended up with twelve plants, which we split evenly; I then gave three of mine to my mother since she cooks real food rather than living on frozen dinners and takeout. This left me with three tiny pepper plants: one generic bell pepper, one fancy Orange Blaze bell pepper, and one jalapeño.

I finally got around to potting them on June 9th and put them out on my back porch.



Only two survived the first week — the Orange Blaze got uprooted by something (or someone) and I was not able to save it. The jalapeño also got attacked twice, but the second time I tied it to a popsicle stick to keep it upright and it has since turned the corner and begun to grow. The bell pepper, meanwhile, had no problems whatsoever and is happy as a clam.





I have no idea what I’m going to do with the actual peppers, assuming either plant lives long enough to produce any. *ponders* Maybe I can make stir-fry? I used to make giant batches of chicken-and-vegetable stir-fry and freeze the leftovers for weeks…

(The peppers are on a table on my back deck, which I don't otherwise use; the table was left by a previous tenant. The cinderblock structure with the green roof is the house's attached garage, which belongs to Downstairs Neighbor S.)