So, a brief life recap and looking forward:
At the end of September I went to Georgia for eight days for family stuff. My sister was supposed to go, but she and her husband went to Europe for a month instead (her oldest daughter, my niece, lives in Germany and has two wee children, so I understand. Mostly. Although have I gotten so much as a postcard? Noooo…). Because it wasn’t a planned-well-ahead trip for me, I had to do day job work there as well as write. And every time I go, I expect to get more writing done than I ever do, because it’s more tiring than I remember. This time I wrote one story and started another, which is better than no words at all, right?!
When I got home, our Internet/cable crapped out, and was out for about two and a half weeks. This slowed down all of my work, because I’d have to do a bunch of work, make a list of what to do at the library on their wireless, pack up and go across to the library, end up with more work because new emails have arrived, pack up, come home, lather, rinse, repeat.
Plus I was dealing with some minor health problems. The fatigue I battled over the summer came back to a lesser degree (probably a backlash from the trip), along with a few other small annoyances. So I just wasn’t as productive/focused as I needed to be.
Plus Ken’s birthday weekend was just after I returned home, and we went out for dinner with different friends on three successive nights and did other stuff, which I have recounted in an almost-finished blog post.
Next up, I have 15 days on the Oregon Coast: one week of a writing retreat and one week of the Master Class, a publishing/business summit of pro writers from all over.
I leave at 1 pm Saturday, driving a friend and stopping at a housewarming/house-blessing party on the way. Here is a sampling of what I need to do before then:
- put away all the clean laundry, which is a lot
- probably do another load of laundry
- Costco run for eggs, string cheese, and gas
- make two soups and two breakfast meals to freeze and take with me (I’ll eat salads for lunches)
- finish the current novel so I can write a good chunk of the next book in the series at the retreat (I’d hoped to have the second book underway so I could finish it at the retreat, but oh well)
- so much publishing/admin work that I kind of have to look at it out of the corner of my eye so I don’t dissolve into utter panic
- answer about 40 work emails (that’s what I have to do right now. But you know what happens when you answer an email…hydra heads popping up everywhere.)
- do a slew of day job work, including designing a magazine, a novel, and a cover, and proofreading an anthology design, and a bunch of other small tasks
- get a flu shot
- pick up pills at the pharmacy
- pack (at least the packing list is pretty much done)
What I have accomplished over the past few days include
- got a haircut. Photos to come when it stops being so damn fluffy because the hairdresser used an unfamiliar product and a blow dryer on me, which creates frizz rather than curls
- walked a friends’ dogs because her back is effed up and she has a team of people helping out
- made the meal plan and shopping list, and did a big grocery shopping (for the above-mentioned meal prep plus food for this week)
- made two extra salads for today’s and tomorrow’s lunches while I made yesterday’s lunch salad
- made one soup
- copyedited a book and proofread a magazine
- answered a slew of email
- published a short story
- played way too many games of Ticket to Ride on the iPad while snuggled next to Ken and covered with purring cats
I should feel way more guilty about that last item than I do, but at one point last night I looked at Ken and said, “I am so fucking happy right now.”
Added note: I wrote this on Thursday morning, and now it’s Friday night, so I’ve accomplished a few of the things I needed to. Not as many as I’d like, but a reasonable chunk. After I sent my monthly newsletter, I said to Ken that it was a good reminder of how much I have done, when I think I haven’t.
More when I return home, just in time for the Most Wonderful Holiday of the Year, Halloween!
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