Whoooeeeee. I’m selling my house and moving, which has sucked some of my time away from writing and everything else. Things I have learned:
1. It’s really, really hard to part with paper books, even books I didn’t really like all that much. At this stage, I’m just randomly wandering through the house, mentally evaluating what I must keep, what I must get rid of, and what I have no strong opinions about. Every single physical book I own falls under the ‘must keep’ category, even the three copies of my own first book that have typos and the original cover, and probably could be safely recycled.
2. No, I cannot pound out two thousand words on the same day that I clean the fridge, mop the floor, wash the windows, vacuum, have to leave for an hour for showings, and go through the kids’ clothes to trash stuff that’s borne the brunt of time. Realistic goals are important! So is prioritizing. Sometimes, I have trouble putting down the laptop to do things that need to get done. I may be a writer, but I’m not only a writer. I’m also a mom and a homeowner and a gardener and a cyclist. And a baker. Mustn’t forget the baking. I miss baking right about now. It’s too messy to do when you’re showing a house all the time.
3. Personal writing limit: 2 projects. I more or less already knew this, but the added work and stress of prepping a house for sale has really reinforced it, hardcore. I was floundering around with four or twelve different ideas, plus some nebulous plans and thoughts, and it all just barfed all over my brain when the other stuff got piled on, leaving me covered in sticky, stanky green goo. It forced me to buckle down and admit I can’t focus on ten things at once and do any of them well. I’ve got two (2) manuscripts in progress right now: the next installment of Bobby’s antics, and a novel to follow Damsel In Distress that’s shaping up to be a fantasy adventure romance (not erotica). I seriously have no idea what either will have for a title, but I do have deadlines for both, which I won’t reveal in case something bad happens and neither makes it (unlikely, but you never know). Sometimes I need to advertise my deadlines, sometimes I don’t.
4. While I’m cleaning things, my mind churns over a variety of thoughts. This isn’t the revelation. I’ve known that for years. The revelation is one of the things I discovered during these times when my brain cast Magic Missile on the darkness. It’s my brain, so it can do that. Bobby’s story, and that of the Maze Beset Trilogy, has a lot more to do with distrust of the government than I originally realized. Which isn’t a big deal, it’s just bizarre to have written something and talked about it to a lot of different people and written about it without realizing what one of the major themes turned out to be until nearly a year later. Who knows what else I’ve missed that my brain snuck into these things while I wasn’t looking.
5. It’s difficult to write about snow when I’m so fricking tired of it that the only reason I’m not primal screaming at the sky in my backyard is the sense that my neighbors would call the police because of it. Also because I don’t shovel my patio, so then I’d be standing in the accursed snow. Which would probably make things worse. Yay. (I’ve lived about 20 of my *mumble* years in places with significant snowfall, so I feel completely justified in becoming that tired of it in March, and continuing to be tired of it through April when it isn’t melting like it should.) It continues to be difficult to write about even after said snow is gone and the daffodils have bloomed. I can write about despair when I’m chipper and the reverse, but I sure as heckbiscuits can’t write about snow when I want to kill it.
6. Beanbag chairs are awesome. (Does this one need an explanation? I endorse Yogibo’s quality beanbag furniture, which is a Northeast-based company.)
7. Neighbors are like dragons: best when you either talk to them all the time, or never, ever to even so much as make eye contact. Also, they have the power to either protect or destroy everything, and you can’t control them.