And it’s Wednesday, my last day in the office before Christmas holidays. We have the next two days off for the holiday, so we all have a lovely four day weekend. Huzzah? At least I don’t have to make condom packs, which will be kind of nice, but I do have things to do. The book is proceeding apace, if a trifle slowly, but I am happy with the work I am doing on it but the question is, as always, will I get it done in time? Heavy heaving sigh. It is definitely going to be a lot of work to get done in a very short period of time, but it will get done eventually. I will most likely take Christmas day itself off from doing anything; a recharging day, if you will, but that and New Year’s Day should be enough of a recharge to keep me going. I’ve been sleeping much better lately–the cold snap (such as it is) has been an enormous help in that regard–and so am feeling more rested than I have in quite some time. I am also trying really hard to not let my stress levels go up; stress, not fear, is the mindkiller, thank you very much, Frank Herbert.
It’s also Pay-the-Bills Day; huzzah? At least I don’t have to worry about being able to pay the bills, which lessens the sting somewhat. It doesn’t make paying them any more enjoyable, mind you; it just makes it hurt a little less.
I don’t think I will ever stop resenting paying the bills–but you can certainly see that the heat has broken; the power bill this month is less than half of the last one.
Silver linings, you know.
The manuscript is coming along nicely, sort of; I write about 2500-3000 really shitty words per day (a chapter a day, really) and keep going, and then I spend a day trying to clean up the mess I’ve created. It’s working so far, and at the pace I am going I should pass the midway point this weekend–if I stay focused–and might actually get it all finished by the deadline. Huzzah, indeed!
It’s cold again in New Orleans today–well, cold for New Orleans; as always, I assume everyone north of I-10 will snicker behind their hands as they do whenever I complain about it being cold here–but I am actually going to wear a sweatshirt beneath my Crescent Care T-shirt today, and the floor here in the Lost Apartment absolutely felt cold to my stockinged feet this morning so I had to put on my slippers–but I would like to remind everyone it’s not a dry cold down here but rather a damp one. Cold and damp is miserable.
It’s going to be lovely having four days off, which should–laziness, cold, and procrastination aside–enable me to get a lot of work done, as well as organizing and cleaning of the Lost Apartment. I am going to have to start taking boxes out of the attic and determining what is to be done with them; most likely I will be donating a lot of books to the library sale in the future, and I figure if I target one box per weekend minimum it won’t take more than a few months to clean out a lot of what is up there and make room for other things I need to put up there. I really do need to stop buying books for a while; the apartment is quickly becoming overtaken with them yet again, and the TBR stack was already well out of control. Tonight I am going to spend some more time with Vivien Chien’s Death by Dumpling–I want to finish it so I can read Donna Andrews’ The Twelve Jays of Christmas on Christmas itself (after getting my writing done for the day–yes, I am not going to be able to take any holidays off until the book is completed, and all the other things I am writing are done.
Progress. I must always make progress.
And I really need to make that to-do list, which means I need to see what I’ve agreed to write and when it is actually due. I know I have some tighter deadlines than perhaps I would prefer; but that’s the writer’s life and it certainly always has been mine; months with nothing really due for a really long time, then a flurry of requests and deadlines all within a ridiculously short period of time.
And I had wanted to start talking about #shedeservedit every day on here, but I am not sure I have anything to say about it today? Really, it could and should probably wait until the lead-up to the actual release date (1/12/22) but preorders are shipped early–as early as 1/1/22, in fact–and I’ve even gotten my author copies already. So, is it too early to start talking more about this book? My experiences in Kansas? Will people be heartily sick of me talking about it before the book is even released?
Tis a fine line one must walk when doing blatant self-promotion. Although my stand methodology of blog posts is no one else reads this besides you so write about what you want to write about.
It has always, after all, served me well.
And on that note, tis time to head into the spice mines and hope to not freeze to death. 😉 Have a lovely Christmas Eve Eve Eve, everyone!
Queer and Loathing in America 