Life, Writing and Scattered Ruminations

It’s been rather busy the last few weeks with lots of different activities and events to distract and occupy my mind. Last weekend, I attended a writer’s conference where I picked up a few good tips and networked with some other writers. Along the way, I aggravated my neck and shoulder so that I had trouble sleeping several nights after the conference due to pain. I finally cleared that all up so I could think to work on writing.

Since I lost my job back in February, I’ve been looking for replacement income and working to ramp up a variety of projects. Unfortunately, I’ve stumbled with consistently working on The White Arrow so that I’m up against some deadlines on a couple of peripheral projects.

These projects have a bit of back-story to them; ideas I had shelved until I could complete The Bow of Hart Saga this year. However, an opportunity to work with a literary agent came my way back in December. I had to provide her some content about these two projects several months ago and she liked them well enough that I now have representation. So I’m juggling three projects at the moment with the possibility that one or all three of them might end up under contract with a publisher later in the year.

As such, this week I switched to these projects and have made a lot more progress. I guess the proposals weighed heavier on my mind than I thought. I probably should have worked on them first since they are shorter (for the moment) and needed my attention well ahead of The White Arrow’s ultimate timeline requirements.

But now that I’ve concentrated on the side projects, I’m moving them out of my way so I can get back to The White Arrow with some renewed creativity. I’ll continue pushing forward with the rough draft next week with a bit clearer focus than the past several weeks and hope to finish it by the end of the month if not before that date.

It’s been a little busy around the house too. One of the dogs needed a minor surgery. We’ve taken in a stray kitten who’s a playful ball of fur. We’ve been careful to socialize the dogs and the kitten but they are getting along well with each other. However, there’s still a bit of curiosity on the part of the dogs.

My riding mower is quite old and the deck was far more rusted than I had thought when the mowing season started. Having a good swath of grass to mow and living in central Alabama, a good riding mower is very handy to have lest I spend most of a day exhausting myself with a push mower. It’s good exercise but I’m good for nothing else the rest of the day after three hours work in the heat. However, there is no replacement deck available for my old mower so a friend offered to repair it by cutting out the rusted spots and welding in replacement metal. Hopefully, repair will be completed soon and I can get back to work on the yard.

Along the way, I began repairing a couple of chairs around the house too. One, being a simple re-glue after cleaning off the old glue, is completed. The second one is a bit more complex since the dowel is broken. I’ll fiddle with it and make the repair so it should be in one piece soon.

Until then, I’ll keep working on my various writing projects and looking for a new job. Otherwise, I’ll keep expanding my writing career the best I can. With three projects, I certainly don’t have time to fret since there’s plenty of writing opportunity regardless of my job status.

Thanks for reading today and please leave any thoughts you may have in the comments section.

Keeping my fingers dancing on the keyboard for now,

PHS