I’m skimming a few minutes off the tail end of this week to post a brief update. The Little Man has been keeping me on my toes this week–not napping, most notably–and boy, does that get old fast! Thankfully, today he went down like a dream, so here’s hoping that the routine sticks, even if it’s shifted a little.
We finally got our first official paycheck, which is terribly exciting, and terribly disappointing, when one realizes how much one isn’t going to be breathing all that much easier, after all. That said, it’s enough to settle us, and enough–with some clever (and painful) budgeting–to maybe (maybe!) get us on the road to paying down some lingering debt and getting more sturdy on our own two feet. Tough choices will be made, things that seem like necessities but could be–with gritted teeth–lived without will be cut, and finagling for every nickel and dime will be done. It won’t be easy, but it’ll be possible, and that’s more than we’ve been able to say for a while, so that’s something!
In Writerland, things continue on their steady and not terribly exciting track. I finally wrapped up a rough novella draft I’ve been picking at on and off for the past two years, and must say, I don’t hate it. Given time and a bit of cooling, I might even be able to do something with it. Maybe. And since we’re still thirteen days off from the start of the Chekhov 6 Month Plan (a short story a week from August 1st to January 31st), that gives me some wiggle time to play with something new. So I’ve decided to write a weird mystery novelette, because, why not? If I write 1k a day from tomorrow to the 31st, I’ll have 12k, and that’s the cap I’m shooting for if I want to be able to submit it anywhere useful (if, and when, it appears decent enough to submit somewhere). I think I can manage 1k a day. If the Little Man—he’s awake! Got to go!
Edit: Whoa…he just went back to sleep. On his own. He sat up, looked around, then flopped back down and is…out. O_O It’s a parenting miracle! So, to finish–
If the Little Man gets back into napping for at least an hour regularly (as he used to), and if he continues to go to bed at night pretty well and stay asleep (which he usually does), then I should be able to eek out 1k a day without too much suffering. Even if he misses his nap, or takes short naps, or doesn’t sleep well, I may still be able to–in combination with everything else–manage to squeak enough minutes here and there to add up to 1k. 1k is the goal, though, so we’ll see. I’ve got the story plotted and sketched, and even word-count estimated per scene. I’m not sure I’ll stick to those estimates, but we’ll give it a try, because it’s worked for me before. (I’ve been playing with index cards for plotting, but honestly, I’m not sure they work for me. Part of the usefulness of index cards is the ability to rearrange them as needed, but I rarely rearrange scenes unless I’m rewriting, and spend most of my rough draft time trying to keep them in the order I wrote them in, so…not so useful as a list of scenes for me at this point. Who knows–perhaps that will change with time.)
Otherwise, trying to read a lot, and set small, manageable goals. Like my mother says, “Just take the next obvious step.” Worry about all those invisible steps when they become a bit less foggy.
Over and out, but not down and out!
Maggie Slater 