What am I working on this week: Honestly, I have NO IDEA. This is the week we’ve been waiting for, folks. This is the week preschool (part time) begins, opening up a whole world of possible goals, plans, and writing schedules. But also, being the first week, I know it’s a transition week, which is always weird, full of under-utilized time and strange new schedules. So this week, I think I’m just going to spend a lot of time thinking. Thinking about what this new schedule will enable, what it won’t, what some reasonable goals might be, what way-beyond-holy-crap-wil-E-coyote-plans are just that, way beyond, and then just getting myself excited about (and honestly, used to) having time to write more regularly.
What’s inspiring me this week: I just finished reading Dread Nation by Justina Ireland, and it was a lot of fun. I don’t read a huge amount of YA, but I loved the premise of the Civil War sparking a sudden zombie plague and how that alters the history (and Jane McKeene is just fun as heck). Next up, I’ve plunged into Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami. I’m really enjoying it. It’s the story of a growing acquaintance-ship between a 37yo woman and her old high school teacher, who’s now in his seventies. They accidentally meet up at a bar once, which becomes an informal meet up every so often, and blossoms into friendship (and possibly more? I dunno, I haven’t gotten there–but it’s charming so far). It fits squarely in the kind of fiction I find myself especially drawn to these days which isn’t heavily plot-driven or fast paced, but isn’t boring. It’s just…calm. Characters drift, lounge, think, wander. They make themselves dinner. They do ordinary things. But it’s refreshing, like stepping out of your own life’s chaos and forward motion, and just getting to sit in someone else’s apartment and drink a beer and reminisce about their past. I’m finding it deeply relaxing.
What’s challenging me this week: Just getting myself familiar with the new schedule. For all that preschool days give me more time to write (yay!!), the afternoons on certain days is going to get chaotic with the boys’ various classes. (We have a family rule of no more than 2 activities, and right now one of those has to be swim classes, because that’s for safety. It keeps things from spinning totally out of control and messing up too many dinners at home.) So this week is Adjustment Week.