Yep, that's the right word to describe my schedule these days. It seems there's always something going on. Over the past few weeks we've visited with family, visited with friends, did work on our committees at church, and cleaned house. Work is chaos with license renewals for our biggest program and the legislature making the final push to get things running before regulations time out this month and next month. This has been a brutal session because they're questioning everything with fees down to the jot and tittle and guess what? There are fees in one of my regulations.The June 7 close of the session will be a huge relief - for better or for worse. So that's meant a lot of meetings, on top of meetings I've already had.
Add to that the fact that I didn't feel 100% well with my sinuses 2 days this week but couldn't take off because I had meetings (big surprise), that our big "Share Our Stuff" spring event is tomorrow morning at the church, and I started writing my new book (Move), this week and - yea, insanity.
Incidentally, it's not really out of place for me to start writing a book when things are crazy. It seems the inspiration always hits when I don't have a minute to spare and it seems I have to sledgehammer time into my schedule to peck some research here and a chapter there. I can't explain it. Things will be calm and I'll have writer's block, but let my schedule fill up with dots on every day of my calendar in my iPhone, and the muse is firing off left and right. Maybe the high level of activity feeds inspiration, or gives me more to draw off of. I have to admit that I pounded out a chapter today durning my lunch hour with no problem. In fact, sometimes I find it easier to write scenes there that are in a work related setting. Maybe it's because I'm already in a work-mindset and I can draw inspiration from what I've been dealing with recently. Yes, it's easiest to write in the quiet with free time, but sometimes those short slices of free time feed my muse, I guess by allowing me to draw inspiration from recent experience.
Or maybe I'm just weird and have a busy lifestyle where I've adapted to being able to write anytime I can find a minute. I learned in college that there's no such thing as dead time. They taught me to be a master at handling my schedule and I learned I can squeeze things into every minute of every day. In fact, sometimes I have to plan to take time off. I guess I'm driven. It seems I always have some personal project going on top of everything else. No sooner do I finish the birdhouse village than I'm off and running on my next novel. This one should keep me occupied for a while - and there's no telling what's next.
That's all for today. Happy Friday to you. I hope you have a great weekend.
Bye!
Hi everybody! I am happy to report that Anywhere But Here is now in pre-production. I'm sure you noticed that the book cover came last week, and I changed the home page of the site to show a teaser for the upcoming release. The editor also sent me edits on the manuscript, which I'm working on now. Wow, I didn't realize it, but it seems a lot got by me on this one. I got tendinitis while I was working on this manuscript and I don't think I edited it as extensively as I should have. In fact, I set it aside and believe I forgot to do a round of edits on it before I submitted it. Oops! I'm lucky they accepted this manuscript, and that they assigned me a patient editor that was willing to help.
I've also managed to snag an author interview and guest blog spot for April, so all is progressing well with this one. I hope to find more publicity opportunities soon. I'm keeping my eyes open!
Unfortunately, it seems that everything has taken off this month. February is typically a busy month, and I'm not sure why. But this time, the month has really taken off! In fact, I had to put my schedule on lock down Thursday when I found I had been signed up for 2 things I didn't volunteer for, and had to cancel them. It's just that crazy. And really, it was completely disrespectful for those people to do that. You don't sign people up for things when they aren't there, and especially when they told you twice not to do it (which was the case in one instance). I don't feel one bit bad about cancelling on them, either. In fact, I feel I was more than gracious to even let them know. I could have done what most people do and just not show up.
Anyway, I will manage as I always do. I hope you are all doing well. Take care and have a good weekend.
Bye!
Hi folks; I hope you're doing well and having a great week. It's been busy!
On top of trying to catch up with the work I didn't get done last weekend,
the galley came back for Blurry, so I have to go through that to check for typos
and formatting errors. Dull, dry work, but necessary. But Blurry is in book
format now, and will be released soon. I'm excited!
So yes, I'm still alive and no, I'm not missing. I haven't been
abducted by aliens. I haven't been held hostage by angry parrots (although that
could happen if I run out of peanuts!). I haven't fallen off the edge of the
earth. Just working, and cleaning house, and updating the website, and now
reviewing my book one last time before publication.
I hope you're doing well. God willing, I'll return to the land of the living
this weekend.
Happy Friday to you tomorrow and I hope you have a great start to the
weekend.
Bye!
Well, this is unusual for my busy lifestyle. For the first time in a long time, I'm caught up! The house is clean, the chores and errands are done, everything is in motion with both books, and things with the church committees and work are where they're supposed to be. Both families are ok. Sweet!
I do believe this calls for a much needed break. Yes, a lazy Saturday is in order indeed.
Happy Friday to you all and I hope you have a great weekend.
Bye!