Looking ahead…

(aka a very overdue blog post I started last year)

Samhain is my spiritual New Year, but I celebrate the common New Year as well. Because, well, it’s my life and I’m-a gonna do what makes me happy. (See, e.g., not being Christian but celebrating Christmas as a time of joy and family and lights…wait, the pagan me celebrates light at this time, too! How convenient!)

At Samhain, the ritual among our loose local group is to write on a piece of paper something we want to give up, and then we burn that piece of paper. We also got together for a Solstice ritual this year, and we wrote something on a piece of paper that we wanted to bring into our lives, and burned that paper.

Also, a friend of mine annually chooses a word that’s her focus for the new year. Last year, I couldn’t decide between two, so I chose both (because I’m-a gonna do what makes me happy): Focus and Joy. I re-found my joy in writing this past year—the first story I simply had fun writing and giggled my way through was “The Sound of My Own Voice,” which just appeared in the Fiction River anthology Hex in the City.

I’d already been pondering a word for 2014: Present (or, really, the phrase Being Present). As in, being present in the world, in the moment. Not constantly falling down the rabbit hole of the Internet, not constantly trying to multitask. To stop and smell the roses, appreciate the view outside my window, to taste what I’m eating. To appreciate the right now.

For example, I usually spend the holidays, even though I’m enjoying them, complaining that I miss snow, and it doesn’t feel like the holidays without snow. I still feel that way, but this year I was with family and we had a bonfire on the beach while we watched a glorious sunset on Christmas Eve, and then on Christmas Day I walked in the surf on a stunning, bright day, and I flat-out appreciated those moments. The beauty of the world, the time with loved ones, the squishy feel of wet sand, the smell of smoke still caught in my Styx hoodie, the joyous wet dogs chasing balls, sitting on a rock cuddled with my love watching reds and golds streak the western horizon and Venus shining out of the darkening sky.

Just before the Solstice, I read an article about the Danish concept of hygge, and it truly resonated with me, tying right into what I was thinking and feeling about Being Present.

I just looked back at last year’s end-of-the-year/looking-into-the-new-year posts, pondering them with fresh eyes and another year of life behind me. I didn’t accomplish everything I wanted to. I accomplished some things I never expected to. I backslid, I fought some depression again, and I’m coming out the other side (yes, dammit, I am, she said stubbornly).

Of course, now I’m posting this nearly at the end of January, but that’s okay. It wasn’t a priority.  ;-)

So what else am I forwardly looking to? Well, I’m taking a workshop next month for which I have to write six short stories, and I looked at my production schedule at the other stories I’m either contracted to write or see nifty guidelines for or just want to write, and I decided that January and February were going to be all about short stories and novellas. Twelve short stories and three novellas, to be exact. Some were already in progress before I made the list, but most weren’t. So far, I’ve got three stories done (despite nearly two weeks of travel/taking care of family), two in progress, and others tumbling around half-formed in my brain, jostling for position.

March will be finishing up a nearly finished novel or two, and then in April, Teresa and I (as Sophie Mouette) are going to dive into our next novel, a sequel to Out of the Frying Pan (currently referred to as “Luanna’s Book” because we’re clueless about a title).

So I'm both being present and looking ahead. And it's glorious.

To do be do be do be

A bunch of stuff rolled over onto today's to-do list from yesterday's, and a few new things got added in.

So it's probably a good thing I couldn't get back to sleep at 8:30 am after a several-times interrupted sleep that started at 3 am. I suspect an afternoon nap may be in my agenda today, but until then, time to work!

Work

• Write 2K on anthology story (due Sunday)
• Write other story
• Make requested tweaks to erotica story and return to editor
• Start copyediting job
• Email. Holy moly, the email.
• Finish watching the videos for online workshop
• Finish designing cover for online workshop if needed
• OOTFP promo
• Make important phone call
• Mail story to BBE2015

Home

• Call doctor and chiropractor
• Go to gym
• Make quinoa salad for lunch
• Prep slow cooker chicken curry for tomorrow
• Make mac and cheese to freeze
• Enter last two week’s receipts into Quicken
• Pay bills
• Unpack all the things

Plans for Today

I’ve been out of town for two weeks—mostly family stuff, but I capped it off with a stellar Styx concert in Las Vegas, which helped me let go of the stress of the rest of the trip.

I did get some work done on the trip, which was essential, because I have a bunch of deadlines, both outside ones (anthologies, etc.) as well as my own. I think I wrote up a blog post about that, but haven’t had the chance to post it. I have a slew of half-finished blog posts, really.

But, the first few days home are always extra-stuffed full of Things to Do (do all the things!), so instead of finishing up those blog posts, which are not under deadline, I’m going to post today’s To Do list.

Which probably means you’ll all get bored and never read my blog again. But come back soon! because I swear there will be more content about things like the comp copies that just hit my desk, and my plans for the year, and all the random tweets I wrote down when I had no Internet access.

Work

• Write 2K or more on anthology story (due Sunday) Eked out only a few words, but did some research and notes, so I'll fire on it tomorrow
• Write on other story Ack, no
• Copyeding: short story job
• Copyediting: start new novel job tomorrow
• Email. Holy moly, the email Did the crucial first half
• Watch videos for online workshop Watched the first half
• Start designing cover for online workshop Ended up designing three covers in a series, hah!

Home

• Make creamy chicken pesto pasta for supper
• Make mac and cheese to freeze
• Prep slow cooker chicken curry for tomorrow (if needed)
• Make brown rice (I make a double batch and eat it throughout the week)
• Enter last two week’s receipts into Quicken
• Pay bills
• Unpack all the things

Already Done

• Walked to pharmacy and grocery with Ken
• Talked to my sister
• Made breakfast and lunch
• Made To Do list

Okay, so not my greatest showing, but not bad, either. Tomorrow is another day!

The universe scoffs at my attempts to do anything

So I was writing a happyhappy blog post about Elementary, the new anthology set in Mercedes Lackey’s Elemental Masters universe, which contains my story “Hearth & Family,” when Afalwen (my darling writing laptop) decided it was full. And could not go on. Of course, this was one of the very rare times that I was writing the post in Blogger rather than in a Word .doc and then copying it over.

It was a really funny post, too, because everytime I think about the fact that I now have stories in two Elemental Masters anthologies, I need someone to pass me smelling salts.

Thankfully, Ken the Computer Guru came to my rescue, found the enormous unecessary file that was clogging up Afalwen, and has taken it off to perform other update-y type miracles that will make it Bigger. Stronger. Faster.

He says this’ll take about an hour, which means two hours (he knows whenever he tells me how long something will take him, I automatically double it…because when I first told him that, he got miffed and then realized I was absolutely right). And even though I haven’t gotten to my copyediting for the day, you know what? Screw it, I’m’a gonna pour me a glass of wine and run a bath and read Seanan McGuire short stories on my Kindle (yes, I’m’a gonna take my Kindle into the bath with me because I LIVE ON THE EDGE).

I will re-create the happyhappy blog post later.

Updated to add: My life…I’d barely finished typing this when a friend called to say he’d been in a car accident and could we pick him up and take him home? Well, duh, of course, where are my shoes? (He’s bruised but fine; car is totaled. Egads.)

Why I haven't been blogging

I woke up today (well, yesterday as I finally get around to writing this) to an email from my mother: “Why haven’t you written a blog since July 12? I miss them.”

While it’s always nice to be loved and missed…here’s what I’ve been doing since then.

Ken was in a motorcycle accident late Thursday, July 11 (Pacific time). I blogged about that here, in a semi-conscious state because lovely people were calling me at all hours to find out how he was and how I was. I love those people. I also love sleep. I had to choose between the two, and I chose the people.

Saturday remains something of a blur. According to my notes, along with all the calls, I edited some stories to publish and tidied my dresser. I believe I also unpacked the bag I was to take to Oregon (I’d shipped the bulk of my stuff because the plan had been for Ken to ride there after the IBR and attend a goodly portion of the workshop, and then we’d ride home together).

Early Sunday morning, well before I’d intended to wake up, Ken called to tell me that no, I absolutely no-arguing-book-the-flight had to go to the workshop that I’d cancelled upon hearing of his accident. I repacked and we were both on a plane that afternoon.

We’re officially not allowed to blog about workshops, so that took up the rest of that week (through the following Saturday). Ken napped a lot and my brain exploded from an overload of business information. Sunday we headed to Portland, and Monday I worked like a fiend while Ken met with one of his customers. We had dinner with friends that night, and Tuesday we were on a plane home. Our luggage, however, was not. We stopped at our favorite Thai place near the airport and arrived home at about 9 pm. Our luggage was delivered at 3:20 am.

Since then I’ve been working full time, taking care of Ken and the cats and the house, running errands, and generally trying to keep my head above water. We’re sadly not up to cooking healthy meals each night, but Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods prepared meals are getting us through. Except for the night we ordered from Pizza Hut because I found a $9 any size any topping coupon online and at 9 pm, I was wilting from exhaustion and the concept of actual food preparation.

So that’s why I haven't been blogging. 

(I love you, Mom.)

It's been a weird day

It’s been a weird day.

Last night I went to bed a bit after 9 pm, because I was getting up at 3:45 am to catch a 4:45 am shuttle to LAX. I was supposed to be going to Oregon for a week-long workshop, at which Ken was to join me mid-week, riding back from Pittsburgh via a customer site in Illinois.

At about 11 pm, the phone rang—it was our friend Ernie, who was staying up to track Ken in to the IBR finish. He told me Ken had gone down, that the police had confirmed that he’d gone down but was “on his feet and talking” (or something to that effect), and that he might be going to the hospital.

It gets a little fuzzy after that. I know I was texting back and forth with Ernie, and eventually Ken got to the ER and I got to talk to him. He was a little groggy but actually sounded pretty good. The diagnosis so far: broken collarbone, cracked ribs, sore all over.

Although I wasn't sure whether I was going to fly to Virginia, I realized I sure as hell wasn’t going to Oregon. Sometime around 12:45 am I called the friend who’d insisted on taking me to the Oxnard Airport (where I’d get the shuttle) and let him know he could sleep in. I cancelled my flight (I love Southwest = no penalties).

Meanwhile, I’d been texting with the friend I was to be meeting in Portland and sharing a shuttle to Lincoln City. She was at the airport in Atlanta, debating whether she could even afford the trip (because she and I and another woman were to be sharing a room, and going from paying 1/3 to 1/4 of the room to paying 1/2 would put her in a bind). I told her I’d pay her my share, and we’d figure that out after I’d slept and could do math again.

I called the special insurance Ken had for the rally, which pays to get him and the bike home, and got the basic info we needed.

Then I tried to call Ken just before 1 am but his ER room phone just rang and rang (his cell phone is either still attached to the bike or is in pieces across I-95 north of Richmond). Finally someone picked up and said he was off getting x-rayed and would be back in about half an hour.

So every half hour I called and he still wasn’t there and about two hours later I finally got hold of him. I think by that time they’d transferred him into a regular room. We discussed the insurance info and goodness knows what else.

After that I had a glass of wine and stared mindlessly at the TV and put a note on the back door telling our tenant/cat sitter she didn’t need to come in and feed the cats. At 4 am I went to bed, setting the alarm for 11 am.

At 6 am, Ken called because he missed me.

Between 8 and 10 am, five different people called.

It’s a testament to the wonderful friends in our lives that I was fielding so many phone calls, texts, emails, Facebook messages, etc. (Plus other folks were keeping up via Ernie.) I don’t begrudge anyone’s attempts to contact me, even if every time the phone rang in those two hours, I wanted to weep from pure exhaustion. Thank you all for your love.

By 10 am, I gave up, and got up to feed the cats (Grimoire was going to waste away, don’t’cha know) and feed myself, because I was starving. Then started the next round of phone calls and texts and business, trying to sort out getting stuff off of Ken’s bike at the tow yard when the tow guy was about to go out of town for a day and a half, etc. We’re extremely fortunate that my eldest niece and goddaughter Megan lives in the DC area; she and her husband will head down to Fredericksburg tomorrow to see Ken and see to the bike. The tow guy said he needs a signed statement from Ken or I (although he doesn’t have a fax machine, so…?), and Megan and Josh are both JAG attorneys, so Ken and I laughed and laughed at what the signed statement might end up looking like (and how many pages it’ll be). If Ken is indeed released tomorrow, they’ll be able to help him out.

I made it through lunch before I passed out again for two hours, which made the cats happy. All of my sleep has been punctuated by weird dreams, which doesn’t surprise me.

I’ve spent most of the afternoon in a fog, poking around on Reddit and wandering around the house. There’s nothing I can do to help Ken, so I vaguely feel like I should be doing something useful, like finishing a short story (it was for the workshop, but even though I'm not going, I ought to finish it and submit it elsewhere) or designing some covers or…but no. The brain isn’t there.

It’s 7 pm, and I’ve ordered myself a pizza, and I'm going to pour myself a glass of wine and watch random stuff on Netflix until I crash. Tomorrow I’ll figure out what to do next.

Congratulations to Derek Dickson, the 2013 IronButt Rally winner. Well played, sir! And to all the riders, I raise my glass of wine to you. You all had a hell of a ride.

I’ve posted an update to Ken’s website as well.

Medical mystery

This past Wednesday night, my throat started to feel funny. Thursday, it hurt…by Thursday night, I was questioning whether I’d be able to go to California Dreamin’, the very first Southern California Romance Writers of America conference. Friday morning I ditched working out with my trainer (which would’ve been at 5:45 am), got up and 7 am, and started packing…still wondering whether I should go. In the end, I did.

My throat hurt like hell. I hoped I wasn’t infectious. I checked my temperature both Thursday night and Friday morning, and it was normal.

My friend and roomie Christine, whom I was carpooling to the conference with, said pffft, she wouldn’t miss the conference unless she was outright throwing up.

Alrighty then!

Despite feeling rather like poo, I had a wonderful time. Great workshops, great people. On the way there, Christine commented that she was craving Chinese, so I found a local place with good reviews on Yelp. It was 2.2 miles away. She said, that’s close enough, let’s walk.

Alrighty then.

Did I mention that the place was in a strip mall in the dodgy area of town?

The food turned out to be surprisingly decent – the chicken was all white meat, and the cabbage in the noodles was firm and tasted fresh. The orange sauce was tasty with a very slight kick. Two thumbs up for that.

Of course, then we had to walk back. And it was starting to get dark. And the cops had pulled someone over in our path – at least three cop cars…

I’d worn my Vibrams, but they were my everyday Vibrams, not the ones I have for working out. They’re older, and I don’t normally wear them for power walking. So I had blisters on the bottoms of my feet by the time we god back. We did stop in an AM/PM so I could by cough drops for my throat (they didn’t have lozenges, so I settled for cough drops) and Band-Aids. Christine bought cough medicine and Nyquil because she was getting over a cold. We were partying hard, I tell ya.

We drank maybe half a bottle of wine and went to bed early that night.

Saturday night she had dinner with her soon-to-be editor, so she was all abuzz. I’d picked up a burrito from Rubio’s across the street and eaten it in our room, since I felt like crap. My throat kept swelling so it was hard to swallow (no issues with breathing), and always felt like there was something caught in it. But then she came back from dinner and was all bouncy and we finished off the bottle of wine and opened the second bottle and finished that, and at 9:45 pm she said, “We need more wine.”

“We don’t have any more wine,” I pointed out. So I checked online when the bar closed.

That would be at 10 pm.

We were in our jammies.

So we threw on clothes and raced down and ordered a glass of wine each and some garlic parmesan fries (because with that much wine in us, we weren’t thinking “healthy,” we were thinking “sop up the booze”), and discovered people we knew were still there, including the gorgeous Kate Wood, so we moved over to that table, and we all talked and talked and we ordered a glass each more wine, and finally it was nearly 11 pm and the bar staff probably loathed us, so we paid and left. (Although they forgot to charge us for the second two glasses of wine, which we pointed out to them so they could fix the bill, so maybe they don’t loathe us completely.)

Funny thing: My throat didn’t hurt when I was drinking wine. WHY??? Both days, I had the misfortune to sneeze during a workshop, and it hurt so incredibly much that tears sprang to my eyes and it was all I could do not to cry our in pain.

Sunday was more workshops and lunch, and then a big book signing. I sold out of Waking the Witch, which had been ordered through Barnes & Noble, who admittedly didn’t order very many and I had people disappointed because they would have bought it, so phooey. I brought copies of three other books (two collections and a long short story), and they sold respectably. I still made way more on the others than Waking the Witch, so there was no benefit to going through B&N. Lesson learned.

Meanwhile, because I’d been walking funny due to the blisters on the bottom of my feet, my dressy shoes had rubbed a horrid blister on the back of one ankle. As in, a layer of skin had peeled off. (Sorry…)

And my throat hurt. And my ears hurt. Ugh.

Ken had come to the book signing (he’d been at an SCA event that weekend) and his mom came, too, which was fantastic! On the way home, though, I asked Ken to take me to an urgent care. Advil and cough drops and gargling with warm salt water weren’t helping; I needed bigger guns.

Apparently I was a medical mystery. If I had other symptoms (sniffles, coughing), it would be a virus. Nope, otherwise I felt great. If I had a fever, then it was probably strep. Nope – plus the in-house culture came back negative. So they took a culture to send out, and the doctor said to get proper lozenges and Aleve, and to gargle with salt water. Thanks. I have since learned that Aleve does nothing for me, and that spray stuff for sore throats? I can never seem to hit the back of my throat where it hurts. The lozenges help, but mostly just make my tongue numb.

Monday, I skipped my workout, and had a complete and utter stressy meltdown in the evening. Tuesday, I realized I was feeling better. Wednesday, I felt fantastic: I worked out, got a ton of stuff done. I still took Nyquil, though, because now I was coughing and feeling a wee tiny bit sniffly.

Today the doctor called. I have strep. Hellloooo, antibiotics. I’m contagious until 24 hours after I started taking them (which was 3:30 pm or so today), which means I was Patient Zero at the conference, and have potentially infected everyone else I’ve come into contact with. If you are one of those people, and you get sick, I am deeply, deeply sorry.

I’m taking tomorrow off from working out, too, so I don't infect my trainer (if I haven’t already, eep), but I should be fine after that.

Okay, back to work. I have some brain left….

Note: For the most part I'm staying off Facebook/Twitter/G+ due to deadlines and such, so if you need me, email or call or text, and apologies if it still takes forever to get back to you. Thanks.