Happy Sunday! Sunday Salon is hosted by Deb at ReaderBuzz. Check out her post and the links to see what other bloggers have been up to in the last week.

How’s the weather?

When I left for Saturday’s morning meeting at 9:15am it was 56°. By the time we were done with our outdoor Black Lives Matter vigil at 12:30pm, it was 74°. My wardrobe didn’t have a great solution for that temperature variation, so I started cold and ended hot.

We’re enjoying the yellow and orange leaves in our backyard from maples and oaks. Neighborhood walks also include some bright reds on cultivated maples and sweetgum trees.

What are you reading?

My reading fell by the wayside along with sleep (see below). I did manage to finish the audiobook of Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age by Katherine May. I’ll plan to get that review up in November because I think people might like thinking about how to engage with enchantment during the holiday season.

My book group discussed Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe. That was easy for me since I read it last year. Although, it’s written in graphic novel format, so it wasn’t difficult for anyone to fit into their schedules. We had a terrific discussion. I’m on the young side of our group at age 61. We all felt like we had a lot of catch-up to do in the area of gender identity and sexuality. Gender Queer was a great foundation of learning.

What are you watching?

Rick subscribed to the streaming service for Formula 1 races, so we have been watching those in the evening, starting at the beginning of the 2023 season.

We stopped watching Drive to Survive on Netflix a couple of years ago because we lost access to the handful of races that we had been watching over the air. Also, Rick got tired of the drama. That’s the part that I like!

Drive to Survive is a documentary with a backstage view of Formula 1, telling stories about drivers and team principals with interviews and lots of footage of the races and the reactions in the garages to the race events.

I watched Seasons 4 and 5 back-to-back. Watching so many episodes in a row, it came to me that a better description of Drive to Survive is ‘reality show.’ The only difference between Drive to Survive and other programs that we call reality shows is that the rules of the game were written before the Drive to Survive crew showed up. That makes it feel more real than a reality show, but the writers and editors are just as careful to find dramatic stories to tell.

As a writer, one thing I’m learning from Drive to Survive is how to stretch tension. In Formula 1, the race is started by a system of five lights. According to this article, each light turns on, one at a time a second apart. When the lights go out (a random few seconds after the fifth light turns on), the race begins.

The trailer of the first season stretches that five-light sequence out for a full minute. They use the same technique in many episodes.

What are you doing?

I attended three in-person indoor meetings this week. That doubles my number since 2020. I’ve attended numerous Zoom meetings and a few outdoor in-person meetings. The St. Louis area has gravitated back to in-person–I think my groups were late in making the switch. What’s happening in your community?

Evening meetings, I’m now aware, aren’t going to work for me. They are way too disruptive of the routines that we got going during the pandemic, including my sleep process. The one evening in-person meeting that I’m committed to is the book group. Other than that, I will have to figure out how to contribute in ways that don’t involve going out at night.

What are you writing?

I’m a full two weeks into a new attempt to make a workable outline for my novel. It’s going well in the broad strokes, but I’m aware of a lot of details that are missing. Some can wait until the writing, but others would benefit from some more research and thought.

How are you this fine Sunday?