Month: June 2021

Not a bad week, though it was full of stressors in its own right! Thing 1 had his first in-person field day on Wednesday, which meant coordinating drop-off, packing lunches, and making sure he had everything he needed (Crap, where IS his mask?!) for the day. But it went really well, and I didn’t forget anything, and he had a wonderful time hanging out with his remote-only classmates for the first time.

Then it was also me and Andy’s 13th anniversary, which we both nearly forgot, but we’d decided early on to count the new bed as our anniversary gift to each other, so that was easy enough. We ordered take-out Thai which was…okay? Let’s just say we’re still on the look out for a fantastic Thai place.

And today is my bestie FIRST HUG SINCE THE PANDEMIC day! Can’t wait. I’m rocking some comfy hugging clothes, so I should be good to go. XD

Accomplished this week…

Finally managed to have what feels like a productive week. I hit my required word count for the novel thanks to a psychotic 3k day (WHA-?!), and wrapped up the edit on the first 5k I’ll need to submit for my novel writing course in a couple weeks. I also managed a first pass at a short story that I may try to get back out again, so we’ll see how that goes.

Inspiring me this week…

Oh, Sims, how you drag me back in. Okay, partly this is my fault because I happened to look on the Origin’s site and saw that a few of the expansion packs I’ve craved in the past were having a 50% off sale, so how could I not? Also, I haven’t played in weeks, so don’t judge me. XD It always strikes me as interesting how important connecting to a Sim ends up being in wanting to play. Like, you can create a houseful of people who are all moderately interesting, but it really takes that one specific Sim to connect to your heart and make you want to check in on them over and over and over again.

In unrelated media, I just want to give a shout-out to Zootopia, which Thing 2 just discovered this week, and which has become his go-to pre-nap viewing, as it usually holds his attention just enough to knock him out after about 20 minutes. THANK YOU Zootopia! Also,having rewatched it several times this week, I gotta say, it’s just a fantastic movie. That, and Wall-E, holy crap: masterclasses in plot and character development. And SO rewatchable, even after having seen them dozens (literally DOZENS) of times. XD

For next week…

I need to finish up a proofreading project this weekened/early next week, and keep chipping away at the novel (now, thankfully, back to 3k/week). Beyond that, probably just prepping this short story for submission in July, and hopefully not a lot else. School just got out, so I anticipate next week being a bit of a cluster as we all reorient to the new summer schedule. I need a vacation! XD

Phew, well, started to form a new routine for the summer over here at Chez Slater. Thing 2 has decided AM naps are totally lame and for babies, which he is SO NOT, now that he’s around eighteen months, which means a total schedule shake up. We still haven’t quite settled into the new iteration, but it’s looking like morning walks, as usual, but no nap, and mid-afternoon 2/3-ish naps for a couple hours. But at least he’ll take them on the couch next to me instead of on top of me, so I’ve actually still managed to get some writing done. Woohoo!

Now, I’m just waiting for some out of town friends to arrive, and can I just say how flipping stressed out about this I am? Like, just as of this morning, like WOOSH. Anxiety. I mean, I am 100% looking forward to seeing them, but I did not anticipate the pseudo-post-not-really pandemic stress of meeting up with folks again. *breathes in, breathes out* But it’ll be ok!

Accomplished this week:

Chipped away at the novel and rewrote the opening to better capture what I think I want it to do. Now just doing a clean sweep pass to get it in grammatical shape and cut some unneeded words.

Inspiring me this week:

Been watching entirely too much Married at First Sight on Hulu. Otherwise, just chipping away at the books on my nightstand and playing Minecraft with Thing 1 when the opportunity arises.

For next week:

Looking to keep adding words to the novel and finish polishing the first 5k submission for the class, which is due at the beginning of July.

It’s been a busy start to June, and I’m just now catching up on my Poly-Reader notes! I started a number of new books last month/beginning of this month, but there are still some trusty standbys still kicking around.

Notes:

The Power Broker – While I do have the audiobook for this bad boy, I really haven’t been listening to audiobooks before bed these days. I suspect this may just be one I have to chip away at for a while, in various formats, though reading it in print would be easier.

The White Spider – Haven’t chipped much out of this one yet (still in opening chapters). I like the style, but I just haven’t been all that motivated to read it just now. That may change, though, as the weather gets hot and reading about ice on mountains starts sounding fabulous.

How to Write Funnier – Haven’t picked this one up in a while, either, in part because I really wanted to establish the habits recommended in How to Write Funny, but that’s been out of my reach lately. May pick this one up again in a few weeks, when I have time, but I’m not in a rush.

Harriet the Spy – Swapped The City of Lead and Gold for this one after the former just draaaaaaged. The pacing was just too slow for an almost seven year old, so we dumped it for this one. This seems to be much more in his range, and he seems very curious about the story and the sneaking around.

The Dark – Love, love, love this collection so far. I mean, I’m always a sucker for ghost stories, but these are just awesome. Haven’t picked it up recently, because I’ve been plowing through some other things, but looking forward to jumping back into it!

The Luminous Dead – Charging through this one, and am almost halfway done. I suspect this will be one of the ones I finish this month. I’m enjoying it so far, though it’s taken a little while to get itself off the ground. At times it *almost* feels like a short story/novelette that outgrew itself, but I do like the caving. I think the challenge is that the main character is wearing an all-encompassing suit, which dramatically limits descriptive detail of the caves, and therefore can make generating a sense of place difficult. I might have liked it if the author had included more interspersed scenes of the before-times, so we could get to know Gyre a little more in-depth. But it is picking up, and I’m looking forward to seeing where it goes. The spookier the better!

Before and After the Book Deal – Making progress through this one, and its snarky tone is a wonderful balm. It definitely answers a lot of questions about the publishing process that I’m learning I’m quite ignorant about, despite perhaps knowing a bit more about small press and its processes. Hoping this will be a finisher this month, too.

Writing in the Dark – Haven’t picked this up since finishing the last short story, but I need to, because it’s fantastic, and I really want to ingest–I mean, finish–this one. And major congrats to author Tim Waggoner for his Stoker win for this one! I knew it’d win. I’m so smart. XD

Notes from a Small Island – Haven’t picked this up for a few weeks, just haven’t totally clicked with Bryson’s style. It’s fine, and soothing compared to some of what I’ve been reading, but it’s not yet a book that I’m dying to read. So we’ll see how it goes.

UPDATE:

Freezing People is (Not) Easy – I forgot to add this one to my current reading list on Goodreads, and forgot to post it yesterday. This is the first of a huge pile of books related to cryonics and lunar colonies I’m reading to gird my loins (ew) for a novella rewrite that may become a novel. So look forward to looking for more cryonics books in the future!

(And I’ve already learned it’s “cryonics” when referring to freezing people, not “cryogenics” which has some slightly different meaning. Curious!)

This week has been…abnormal, to say the least, but not the worst. Mostly, it was a combination of things all hitting at the same time that just made planning to be at all productive almost impossible. For one thing, the long weekend meant writing off getting any work done on Monday with all my peeps home. Then Wednesday, I got my second Covid shot, and had figured I’d feel pretty crummy after it (Andy was knocked flat for a day after his; neither of my folks had any negative reactions at all, so I wasn’t sure what to expect), but I actually got 500 words done that day, and only had a few minor periods of shivers and then some significant (but short-lived) body aches the next day that ibuprofen took care of well enough. I’m back to feeling good again today, so that’s a relief.

I only had a little panic yesterday about how I should probably replot the entire second half of the book, but came to my senses when I started to realize that the plot already in place is surprisingly functional, and that changing it dramatically (at least at this point) might make it more complicated than it needs to be. We’ll revisit it on the next rewrite (sob).

Accomplished This Week:

I got back on the horse, novel-writing wise, and chipped away a little over 2500 new words on it. Really, I need to probably focus on writing 1k/day for the next couple weeks to get where I need to be by the end of June, but I’ll worry about that next week. I also need to rewrite the opening sequences to make sure it’s captured some of the things I need it to do/people it needs to introduce before I need to submit it at the start of July. But-! That’s word “to do,” not work done. I got back on the horse. That’s the main thing.

Oooo! And I’ve got the contract, so I can announce that my dark/weird story about the pros and cons of living your best life on social media, “Candyland,” will be appearing in a forthcoming issue of Apex Magazine! Woohoo! Can’t wait to be in Apex’s pages again, and thrilled to have another pro-sale under my belt! ^_^

Eh, it’s been a rough week. I’ve been mainlining Married at First Sight which is bizarrely interesting in terms of personality study and what makes a good relationship. Usually when I start mainlining TV, though, it’s a sign the depressive slip is starting to kick in, so I need to be a little more cognizant of that moving forward.

I did watch an amazing documentary on CuriousityStream (we finally cracked and got a subscription, because Thing 1 and I are suckers for documentaries about volcanos and extreme weather) about fungi, which was incredibly fascinating and made me realize how little I actually know about mushrooms and that whole category of life. Very interesting.

Also got to listen to my own music when I drove in and back from my vaccine appointment on Wednesday, which made me realize how rare it is that I get to listen to that sort of thing anymore. Driving to and from work used to be my major “writing think” time, largely driven by music to suit a mood or a theme or a story, and I miss that a lot. I’ll have to try to find a way to fit that back in.

I also started my research reading about cryonics! I’ve got a novella that needs some love and attention, and I’ve realized that to write it the way I want to, I need to know a lot more about both cryonics itself, but also about the stories that have already been written about cryonics and life on the moon (tip: there are a LOT of books about these things, so I’ve got a STUPID amount of reading to do, but I’m excited about it). I also have a stack of space opera classics I need to chug through, so we’ll see when THAT happens.

Also been enjoying playing Minecraft in Survivor Mode with Thing 1, which often involves a lot of reminding him not to be too bossy about what everybody’s doing at any given time, and also reminding him that if someone’s spent a lot of time building something, and he goes in and changes it a bunch without telling them, it *might* make them annoyed and not want to play. Minecraft life lessons, folks.

For Next Week:

This weekend is a madhouse because it’s Thing 1’s birthday (at long, long, long last–he says), so we’ll be pretty busy. But starting Monday, I’m going to aim for 1k/day for a week, and possibly look at reworking that opening scene. I need to read what I’ve already got, and make some notes about what I need to change about it.