Monday, September 28, 2009

Poking My Head Up

It has been a busy month for me, hence my lingering absence on the blog. I keep waiting for things to calm down but I think I'm beginning to realize calm is a relative term. So I am attempting to find a balance between all the things that need to get done, and all the things I want to do. Oddly these are often two very separate lists with little overlap.

The past year has been one fraught with ups and downs. Between illnesses (mine and others), family issues, sick children, getting a dog, giving the dog away, forgoing my single life and living in sin, uncertainty at work, writing, rejection, placing in contests, and still feeling as if I'm slogging away and making little progress, and realizing there really are never enough hours in the day, I am one exhausted (albeit resilient) individual.

I would love to take a week and get away from it all but unfortunately with one of the issues being an ill child, any trips have been put off until next year.

But slowly things are improving. The child is doing well. Big sigh of relief. I was
thankfully given the diagnosis that I do not have MS, another big sigh of relief that was seven months coming. And though we had to give up the pup, we now have another one on the way, scheduled to be born September 30th, which means a bring home date of around end of November. And I don't care what catastrophe befalls us this time, that dog isn't going anywhere!

The writing is coming along. I had awesome comments from the Toronto judges, which was very satisfying. The Indiana contest was not too helpful. I had two judges but their comments were almost diametrically opposite. What one liked the other didn't and vice versa. I have one more contest entry out there, so we'll see how that one does.

I have also decided not to enter the GH this year. I was planning on it, but now that going to Nashville is probably just a pipedream due to finances, I am going to hold off and not rush my revisions to get the manuscript ready for the deadline. I'll work on them in October and December, taking November off to do NaNoWriMo and hammer out a first draft of something new.

What that new thing will be, I have no idea. I suppose I could do Book 2 in one of my two series but I would really like to venture out into somewhere different. A different time period, a different setting, even a different genre maybe, I don't know. But I better hurry up. I like to have my outline ready by November 1st and I'm still stumped on an idea. Hopefully our writers' retreat Oct 16-18 will help loosen the creative muscle and pump out a new idea.

I also realized that Christmas is only three months away, which naturally, like every year before it, means my knitting projects are far from being finished and I need to get my proverbial butt in gear.

The cake decorating course is going good. Unfortunately, due to a day surgery procedure I need to have done, I am going to missing the last class of Course I. So unless I can slip into another class that isn't fully booked to make up that last class, I won't get my certificate. So I'll have to figure something out because I'm starting Course II the following week.

And there you have it, the latest update of what's going on in my little world.

3 comments:

Tess said...

Wow! Life sure is busy for you too.

1) so relieved you don't have MS. What an awful thing to worry about for months on end.

2) yay on the child doing well and yay on the impending pup!!

3) Nashville is likely a pipedream for me too, so I hear you re the GH. Hope you have a great NaNo again this year :)

Unknown said...

Love the new digs, Kelly.

Hope all the health issues resolve themselves in a quick and positive way.

Here's hoping you can pin a nice "First Sale" pin on and use some of that big advance to make it to Nashville.

Lexi said...

Yay on no MS!!!

Yay on the child doing well!

Yay on you doing NaNo! I'll know somebody, seeing as this is my first try. I'm getting excited already!