Category: working out

Devil Woman

Oddly enough, I wound up not working on the book yesterday.

I did reread Chapter Eight, and it’s actually not bad at all. But it’s good enough for me to have to think about how to revise it and make it stronger; this is one of those situations when writing that I am afraid trying to improve something will actually ruin it–and even the fact that it’s only dreadful possibility–after all, the possibility that I actually will improve it is much more likely, and statistically more probable– is still paralyzingly terrifying. So it bears more thought than simply diving right in–and then, of course, I question that judgment–is this simply a stall tactic?–and yes, here is yet another example of why writers drink.

At least this one, anyway.

I had intended to get up early this morning, rather than allowing myself to wallow in bed until I finally got tired of lying there the way I usually do every Wednesday. The alarm went off, I hit snooze a couple of times, and finally turned it off….and yes, wallowed in bed for longer than I should have simply because I was so relaxed and comfortable. I’m not sorry that I did this, now that I am awake–this no regrets thing I am trying out; part of which is listening to myself and listening to my body; my body needed the rest else I would have been wide awake and willing to hop out of bed at the first sounding of the alarm this morning. My body must have needed to rest, so I rested it. When I was a personal trainer I used to advocate this all the time; listen to your body. The problem of course, for me, is that I’ve been told so often throughout my life that I’m lazy that whenever I’ve taken time to rest (my body or my brain) I’m so conditioned and so convinced that I am lazy that it’s my default: you’re just being lazy and making excuses for yourself to be lazy. This is so ingrained into my subconscious that it’s my immediate default; but be told “you’re lazy” enough times…well, you start to believe it. And then have to spend far too many years trying to unlearn that.

But, as I said above, Chapter Eight was in much better shape than I thought it was, and so I am going to reread it again today (along with Chapter Nine) and start working on it again. I don’t regret not working on the book yesterday–not at all. It wasn’t one of those what’s the point days, or I just don’t feel like it; it was more along the lines of I don’t really know what to do, and the chapter wasn’t terrible, so there was no urgency to fix it, if that makes sense? Had the chapter been horrible from start to finish, it would have triggered me to want to fix it, the need to fix it would have been overwhelming. But it was actually kind of good and complete and creepy and the mood and feeling were exactly what I was going for, and trying to force the revision/rewrite was…as I said above, I was more worried about messing it up more than anything else. But perhaps today–as the caffeine from my first cup of coffee begins to flow through my system and my body comes awake, I am beginning to see a way to revise this chapter…and in fact, at the moment I feel as though I will actually have the energy to not only do it but the next chapter as well.

We shall see how that goes, shan’t we?

But I am now on my second cup of coffee, and I also have to recognize that the weather is also changing again; which always has something to do with my energy levels and how I feel. The heat and humidity are coming back–we’re supposedly getting our first major heat wave next week (it’s only MAY)–and of course, the termites are swarming again. May brings the termite swarms; a plague of Egypt that descends on the city every year  around Mother’s Day.

I continue to read Jamie Mason’s wonderful The Hidden Things, and I am marveling at the way she plays her cards; the slow reveal of information that adds to the story. It opens wonderfully; a young girl coming home from school is victim of a home invasion, defends herself, and the attacker runs away, all captured on security cameras within the house. The police post the video on their social media page, hoping to get community help to identify the attacker; the video goes viral. But there’s an issue here–why did the husband/stepfather not tell his wife and stepdaughter there were security cameras inside the house? Why was the alarm pad not connected to the security company in order for help to come? And why is the father so nervous about the footage going viral? It’s fascinating, as a reader, to become so intrigued and curious, wanting to keep reading; as a fellow writer it’s even more interesting to see how she is constructing her story and creating her characters. Her debut novel, Three Graves Full, was quite marvelous, and this one is quite good as well. We have so many amazing women crime writers these days…

I also need to get to work on that article. Heavy heaving sigh.

So, I suppose it’s time to get back to the spice mines.

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A Little Bit More

Thursday morning and I have errands to run before I head into the office. Prescription pick-ups and the mail, which means a voyage uptown and then taking Highway 90 all the way back across town until I can get on I-10. I’ve started taking I-10 to and from work, which has dramatically cut back on my travel time. My office is literally a block from the on/off ramps, and I only live six or seven blocks or so from the highway. It only recently occurred to me to take the highway, and was stunned when I got from the office parking lot to my house in about six or seven minutes; if I hit the lights correctly on St. Charles I can do it in almost under five.

Driving through the city instead? Anywhere from fifteen minutes to half an hour. #madness

I woke up tired and a bit out of it this morning; not so much tired as more not rested enough. I’m not sure what that’s all about or why, but it’s annoying and it needs to stop happening. It was that way yesterday as well; I couldn’t really focus because I felt like I was still drowsy all day. Tomorrow I have to get up ridiculously early again (sigh) but I am also going to Costco tomorrow after work, which means girding my loins and sucking it up. The tiredness yesterday also precluded me from actually doing any writing–I did reread Chapter Six, and that was part of it; the chapter as written is a mess and is going to require brain power and work to sort and I just kind of sighed and surrendered in defeat to  it yesterday–and I also reread my story “And The Walls Came Down,” which I want to rewrite and revise and possibly send out to some markets over the course of the weekend. (There’s also more than a slight fear that the early part of the week will render me useless on the weekend, but I do think a good night’s sleep on Friday night will resolve that problem.)

And, of course I am really looking forward to seeing this weekend’s episode of Game of Thrones, to see how the show is going to move through these last three episodes now that the threat of the dead from the north is over. I just have some errands to run and some house to clean–since I get off from work early tomorrow that should do the trick; I am hoping to go to Costco and then come home and perhaps go to the gym (!!!!) before coming back home and cleaning the Lost Apartment. If I can manage to get it cleaned up on Friday, I shall have the weekend to write.

And continue reading Jamie Mason’s The Hidden Things, which I started reading this week and am really enjoying thus far.

And that’s kind of the goal for now, at least.

And now back to the spice mines.

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Dream Weaver

It’s Wednesday and the week is partially over; Paul departed for New York this morning and I am alone in the Lost Apartment with what I assumed would be a very needy kitty, but I haven’t see him anywhere yet since I got out of bed twenty minutes ago; he’s either sulking (he starts sulking/being needy once he sees the suitcases) or he’s completely forgotten about everything and is sleeping, thinking it’s just another normal middle of the week day.

The real test, of course, will be tonight.

I was terribly tired all day yesterday–another long day at the office–and as such was unable to get more than 700 words or so done. I am highly annoyed at how far behind on this manuscript I’ve fallen; but it’s fine, I suppose. I was so tired yesterday there were things I couldn’t remember if I had actually written and added to the manuscript already, or if I had just thought about writing them.

Ah, Scooter just howled at me, so he’s around–he must have just gone back to sleep after Paul left (I didn’t even hear his alarm, that’s how deeply I was asleep) and didn’t hear me get up. Scooter was supposedly two years old when we rescued him, which would make him round eleven now; sometimes I wonder about his hearing, but then he’s a cat and they have had millenia of experience ignoring humans calling them, so there’s that. How would one tell if a cat is losing its hearing?

So, while Paul is in New York getting the Leadership Award from the Publishing Triangle tomorrow night, I’ll be here in New Orleans trying to get caught up on my WIP, and trying to cross off all the other things on my to-do lists. He’s coming home Saturday afternoon, so it’s not like he’s going to be gone for a long time, but that gives me some quiet downtime–although, to be honest, other than watching our shows together in the evening, he’s spending a lot of his home time upstairs working on his own writing projects on his computer, which pleases me.

I am feeling more ambitious about my work these days, which is part of the reason being too tired to work much the last two days has been so aggravating. I am getting good work done, but I guess I also need to remember as I get older that the days of cranking out anywhere from three to five thousand words in a day, several days in a row, are probably not as likely as they used to be and I need to stop holding myself to that standard..which is self-defeating. Any work done is a step forward–perhaps not as big a step as I might prefer, but it’s still a step and a step ahead is better than not taking a step–just like with working out: three times a week optimal; two times better than one; and one is better than none. I need to get back to the gym; perhaps this weekend I can just go ahead and carve out the time. I think my writing work comes easier when I am working on my body as well; the two are so intertwined that perhaps part of the lost feeling I’ve had with my writing and my career over the last two years has had something to do with the fact that I don’t go to the gym anymore. I fret about the loss of time, but also need to realize that it’s not a loss of time; getting my body into better condition and shape is an improvement on my health, will probably help me sleep better, and increase my energy so I don’t tire as easily.

And I really do want to feel better.

And on that note, I need to dive back into the spice mines so I can get some writing done before I head to work this morning. Happy Wednesday, Constant Reader!

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You’ll Never Find Another Love Like Mine

It’s Thursday. The last day of my work week.

Huzzah!

Alas, this afternoon we are supposed to have horrible weather–rains, possible street flooding, high winds, and tornadoes!

AIEEEEEEEE!

But it’s also my half-day, and tomorrow is Good Friday (thank you, Catholic New Orleans, yet again), so I am slipping into this day like it’s the last day of my work week before a three day weekend because it is.

I have gotten, somehow, absolutely nothing done this week. I wrote maybe two or three hundred words on the WIP, answered some emails, and finished reading a book, but outside of that I’ve really done not a whole hell of a lot. Oh, I also paid the bills Wednesday morning. So, this whole week has been pretty much written off as a loss. I suppose it’s okay, but I kind of have a little bit of regret for not working a lot harder this week on my writing. I did some brainstorming on another couple of projects as well, but you know, that’s not quite the same as actually making serious progress and moving forward on projects.

I am up early this morning because i am meeting a friend for breakfast at District Donuts at eight; again, something that rarely happens. Maybe this week has been off because I’ve been doing things I don’t normally do? I had dinner with friends on Monday night; I am having breakfast with another friend this morning–that’s two social engagements in a week whereas I usually have absolutely none. And of course last Saturday Jean and I spoke at the library–so my routine has been a little off.

I can always find a reasonable excuse as to why I am not working.

But I am hopeful that today after work I can get some writing in–perhaps even finish the revision of Chapter Three that’s kind of stuck in place for the last two weeks–and do some more work on the other projects, in addition to getting some cleaning done. I also think I am going to try to  make it back to the gym this weekend, get my workouts started over again and try to keep making progress on those goals so by Decadence I can be in reasonably good shape again; not that I will be participating in any Decadence activities, but I always used Decadence and Mardi Gras as my exercise goal endpoints, and it always worked, so why get away from what worked before? After all, going back to how I used to do things with my writing has significantly paid off–other than the lack of getting anything done over the last two weeks. I had hoped to get this draft finished by the end of the month and I am still going to try to get there. You never know.

I also need to review and reread some of my short stories this weekend so I can get back on the submissions treadmill again.

Yay!

And now back to the spice mines.

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Love Hangover

Tuesday morning and I am up before dark. Today I return to the day job after the Weekend o’Festivals and TERMITE ARMAGEDDON. I didn’t get nearly as much done yesterday as I would have liked; but I retrieved Scooter from the spa, made groceries, picked up prescriptions and the mail. I continued putting the house back together–didn’t get nearly as much done as I would have liked, but there is now stuff for me to do this weekend as far as that is concerned.

Digging back into the WIP is my top priority for this month (well, that and getting my taxes filed by the 15th, if possible), and I see no reason why I shouldn’t have a strong first draft finished by the end of the month. I also need to start my return to the gym this month. At my check-up on Friday I’d lost another three-to-four pounds to weigh 208; which is another milestone for me. I’ve broken the 210 barrier–although the last time I weighed myself it was 211, and three pounds is probably a fairly accurate weight fluctuation–but I like the idea that 208 is now the low end of the fluctuation. The lower the low end goes, the better I like it–the more progress it shows. But going back to the gym is a vital part of this struggle–because, you see, the Tennessee Williams Suite we stayed in at the Monteleone has a massive, gorgeous, wonderful bathroom….that is almist entirely mirrored. So, every time I showered or shaved or anything, I could see my entire body reflected back at me in the mirrors, from every side and every angle.

And no, I do not see the appeal of a room full of mirrors.

In other exciting news, the three books I’d thought I’d lost turned up! Yes, I must have been really tired, because they were in the front pocket of my backpack, which is absolutely delightful news. I am also going to try to finish my library book this week–it’s due on Friday–and it’s part of the Diversity Project. Now that my TWFest homework is over, I can get back to the Diversity Project and the Short Story Project. Which is good, because I have my own short story collection dropping officially on April 10th this month. I also have to figure out Paul’s birthday present–his birthday is at the tail end of the month–and hopefully, now that the festivals are over, our lives can get back to what passes for a semblance of normal around here.

And Scooter–who is always a sweet cat–was so loving and affectionate after I got him home yesterday. It took him a few hours to forgive me for taking him to the spa, but once he was over it, he just kept crawling into my lap (no matter where I was sitting), curling up and going to sleep while purring his head off.  And yes, it is completely adorable.

So glad we got lucky and found Scooter eight (!) years ago.

And now, I have to get ready for work. It’s only been four days, but it feels like I haven’t been there in forever. There’s also basic stuff I have to get done as well–paying bills, the checkbook, etc.

Heavy heaving sigh.

Guess it’s time to dive back into the spice mines.

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Disco Lady

Sunday morning, and the final day of the Weekend o’Festivals. I am up early because I went to bed early (day drinking may have been involved). I have a reading at one and a panel at two-thirty, and after that I am heading home. Terminix gave us the all clear yesterday, so the TERMITE ARMAGEDDON is over. I think I am going to go ahead and pack up everything and head home in a little bit, just so I can get started cleaning and washing and laundering, to get a jump on it for later….four-thirty/fivish is a bit late to get started for that, really, and it will be lovely to actually be back home.

My panel went very well yesterday–I am such a nervous fool when it comes to moderating panels; and I am always terrified that I’m doing a shitty job of it and disappointing the audience. But it did go well–it always helps when you have smart, intelligent witty panelists–so thank you, Samantha Downing (My Lovely Wife, more on that later), Alafair Burke (The Wife, The Better Sister), and Kristien Hemmerechts (The Woman Who Fed the Dogs, more on that later as well). I strongly encourage you, Constant Reader, to read and enjoy and savor their books. Entertaining yet disturbing, which, of course, I absolutely love.

I actually think I am going to pack up some things and head home this morning; I don’t have to take everything with me now–I can finish taking everything home after my panel is over. I am going to have to skip the closing reception, alas; too much to do at home, I am afraid, in order to make the Lost Apartment livable again so I can bring Scooter home from the kitty spa in the morning. Tomorrow I also have to finish a writing project, get the mail, pick up prescriptions, and get groceries for the week.

The Weekend o’Festivals is always a good time, I always enjoy myself tremendously, but it’s also nice to get back on the right footing and get back into my normal routine again. I’d already decided that since it was the Weekend o’Festivals that derailed my workouts last year (and I never recovered from it) that it was silly to get started before Carnival and the Weekend o’Festivals again. So, tomorrow afternoon I am going to head over to the gym and start working out again…trying to stick to a Wednesday morning, Friday afternoon, and Sunday morning schedule, while also slipping in to try cardio on other days as well. Three days a week is the ultimate goal, going back to my mantra of three times optimal, twice better than once, once better than nothing.

At my check-up on Friday I had apparently lost another three pounds since the last time I weighed myself, so I was down to 208, with only another eight to go to reach goal weight of 200. (Once I get to 200, I will reassess; from there I think I primarily want to simply focus on losing fat while replacing it with muscle; but I also have to see how that is going and reassess. I tend to carry all my extra weight around the waist, and my rib cage is enormous, which means my torso is always going to be enormous; so what I really need to focus on is building my legs up. Sigh–I am going to become obsessed with my body again, aren’t I? But it’s not about aesthetics this time, it really is about improving overall health, getting my blood pressure down, and so forth.)

And so now I am going to go pack up my stuff and get ready to cab home.

Later all!

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Tusk

As Constant Reader is aware, I’ve always had issues with my weight and, by extension, my body. I am trying–the goal is, anyway–to get down to 200 pounds. I am currently hovering at a plateau of 212, with fluctuations running from 210-215. Tuesday I tried on a pair of pants I’ve not been able to wear for several years and they fit comfortably; yesterday was the true acid test of my black Levi’s–which I haven’t gotten on in almost four years.

Not only did they fit, they fit fairly comfortably…and as the day progressed so began the ever-green struggle to keep pulling them up constantly as they slid down. I don’t know what that means–other than the reality that jeans do stretch when you wear them–but I’d like to think my body shape has changed. That fifteen or so pounds I lost has made a difference.

Huzzah! Now, of course, I should use that as motivation to improve my bad eating habits and start going to the gym with some degree of frequency…and also need to keep reminding myself that no matter how sore I may get, or how tired, or how little I want to lift the weights–I always feel better afterwards.

I worked a little on the WIP yesterday–not as much as I would have like or preferred, but so it goes, you know? I am still reconstructing that first chapter, which, now that I’ve started pulling it apart and trying to put it back together to try to make it more compulsively readable, isn’t quite as good as I may have thought it was when I originally conceptualized, and wrote, it. A lot of that probably has to do with originally conceiving the book as first person/past tense; and now I am shifting it to first person-present tense, so the reflective tone of the opening paragraphs no longer works.

The opening sentence, which I’d loved, has to go: My mother ruined my life the summer before my senior year of high school.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a good opening sentence, but it doesn’t really work anymore. Choosing to write in the present tense–which most y/a fiction I’ve read recently seems to be in–changes that dynamic; plus I always seem, at least in the early draft stages, to have a tendency to create a reflective, looking-back framing device for the story, like my character is remembering how it all happened from the vantage point of the adult he now is–and that’s just reflexive and lazy writing on my part. (It’s not a bad device, I’m not saying that by any means; but I use it too frequently, or try to, at any rate. I blame reading Herman Raucher’s Summer of ’42, which used this device beautifully; as did Pat Conroy’s The Prince of Tides. Perhaps someday I will use it when it is appropriate and will work. I need to reread the Raucher; I bet it doesn’t hold up–primarily since it’s theme is about a teenaged boy who has sex with a woman in her twenties and he basically stalks her; hmmm, there could be a really interesting essay in there…)

I hope to get that first chapter revised, restructured, and rewritten this evening, since it’s one of my two short days this week; and tomorrow I can move on to the next chapters. I  started reading The Woman Who Fed The Dogs, part of my TWFest homework, and I also need to get that finished so I can read the last bit of my homework, Samantha Downing’s My Lovely Wife. 

Always, always, always so much to do!

And on that note, tis back to the spice mines with me!

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Should’ve Never Let You Go

And my first morning of vacation looms bright, with a stunningly blue sky and the sun blinding me through my windows. The clouds will roll in later this afternoon, per the weather forecast, and the thunderstorms aren’t supposed to arrive until around eleven; well after the second parade has passed. Tonight’s parades are Druids and (Stevie) Nyx; so only two, to prep us for the madness of Thursday, which includes Muses.

So much to get done today, should I choose to do any of it; I need to get caught back up on Scotty revising, and there’s always cleaning to do around the Lost Apartment. I also have to make groceries and collect the mail, and I’d like to go to the gym at some point this afternoon as well to begin my reconnection with taking better care of my body. There’s also reading to do; I need to read the next story in the Murder-a-Go-Go’s anthology, and I need to finish the ghost story I’m reading in Norah Lofts’ Hauntings, and of course, the delicious pleasure that is Lori Roy’s Gone Too Long also awaits on the end table next to my reclining chair. I need to set aside some time to finish that because I need to read my homework for the panel I’m moderating at the Tennessee Williams Festival–Alafair Burke’s The Better Sister, Samantha Downing’s My Lovely Wife, and Kristien Hemmerechts’ The Woman Who Fed the Dogs. I am also falling very far behind on the Diversity Project, which is enormously disappointing to me.

I’m sort of in a malaise in which I keep putting things off because I don’t want to do them, which isn’t really like me–or at least, the me I’ve been for the last half of my life. The first half of my life was when I just avoided things I didn’t want to deal with, which never ended well. I’m not entirely sure what’s causing it, and the Great Data Disaster of 2018 was so long ago now (three months, almost four!) that I can’t keep blaming things on it; but I can really trace this back to losing that weekend’s worth of work and getting derailed…because I was also on a roll at that point, and I’ve never quite gotten that momentum back.

Something innocuous I posted on social media blew up in a way I certainly never intended, and no, I don’t mean the post that someone needs to do a noir reboot of The Partridge Family, which I still think is a brilliant idea–after all, we never really know what happened to Shirley’s husband, who is rarely, if ever mentioned; and let’s face it, none of those kids looked even remotely related to each other. I envision Shirley as a not only a black widow going through numerous husbands and baby-daddies, but also being a horrific stage mother, forcing her children into musical careers, while having an affair with their sleazy manager, Reuben.

No, I idly posted that someone needs to do one of those music-inspired crime anthologies based on the music of Pat Benatar…and then came up with the title, Crimes of Passion: Crimes Stories Inspired by the Music of Pat Benatar.

Well, it kind of took off, with people replying to my tweet that they’d write to it, or responding on Facebook that they wanted to, even going so far as to pick the songs they wanted. At first–I was at work–I wanted to say, yo, everyone, it was just a thought, I’m not actually doing this but as the day went on I began to think, more and more, that hey, maybe you should think about doing this. More than enough people have offered to write for it, so many so that if anyone drops out there would still be more than enough stories to fill out a volume and for it to be really good.

So…I’m considering it, and considering publishers to approach. So maybe, just maybe, that will be my next anthology.

MAYBE.

And now, back to the spice mines.

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How Do I Make You

My last day of work before my Carnival vacation. It’s a long day; roughly eight am to eight pm, one of the notorious twelve hour days. But I slept really well last night, and while it’s gloomy and rainy and gray and a bit chilly out there, I am in a good mood and feel rested. Thunderstorms are forecast for the entire weekend of Carnival. I’m not sure what that’s going to do to the parade schedule, but adaptation is always necessary when it comes to the weather here. I just pray Endymion doesn’t rain out, so they wind up rescheduling to follow Bacchus on Sunday down St. Charles. That’s happened before, and it’s always a nightmare. The parade never finishes before three in the morning, and seriously–Sunday is already non-stop parades all day.

I did no revising yesterday. Shameful, I know, I was in a fairly good mood but completely unmotivated. I didn’t even read anything yesterday. Horrific, I know. I did start doing some laundry last night but didn’t finish, either. I am going to stop at the grocery store tonight on my way home from work and get some things; at some point over the next few days I am probably going to make a Costco run as well. As always, I have a sink full of dishes and at least two loads of laundry to finish…

Ah, the excitement! I can only hope I won’t be too overstimulated to sleep.

I also think I am going to use this vacation time–I am out of the office from tomorrow until Ash Wednesday–to head back to the gym. I stretched a little yesterday morning, and it felt fantastic; at the very least, even if I can’t drag my enormous and ever-growing ass to the gym to do weights every day, I should at least stretch because it feels good and I love doing it. Seriously. I actually LIKE lifting weights and working out; I don’t know why I have so many issues with actually DOING it.

But that’s everything in my life, isn’t it? I love writing. I love revising. I love cleaning. I love cooking. I love working out. So why do I never want to do any of those things, and when I do them it’s always grudgingly?

So, my goals over the vacation are these: finish revising Scotty and get it to my editor; get back to writing the WIP; finish reading Lori Roy’s brilliant Gone Too Long; clean and organize the entire house; get my car washed (I parked it under a tree; you can guess the rest); get my brake tag; go to Costco and eat at Five Guys; and start working out again. I think I can make all these things happen, and hopefully once I am working out again I will continue working out. I don’t really need to lower my BMI all that much to trim off the excess fatty tissue; the problem with the size gains I’ve made over the last seven years or so is any excess fat makes it ALL look like fat. Heavy sigh.

I CAN DO IT.

And on that note, tis back to the spice mines with me.

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Fire Lake

Carnival is not a sprint, it’s a marathon, and as such, one has to plan accordingly. The closer I get to sixty the harder it is for me to stand for long periods of time; my retirement plan to be a Wal-mart greeter so as not to have to exist on cat food is clearly out of the question.

Purina it is!

So, I’ve started taking breaks between parades; when I can see the flashing red lights of a fire truck, signaling the end of a parade, I come home and have a seat while I wait for the next one, trying to get rested so I won’t be completely exhausted at the end of the day.

Sigh. I rather miss the days when I could stand out there all night, work all weekend, walking back and forth between the Quarter and home, stay out every night until dawn…if I tried that now I’d probably need to a rest cure of some sort.

Sad, but all too true.

The good news is a co-worker last year convinced me to buy one of those self-message rolling things, and after the parades yesterday I used it on my back, shoulders, and legs. This morning I felt rested, not tired, and my muscles feel much more relaxed than usual. I think when my vacation starts this Wednesday I might try to get back to the gym, for a light round of weights, stretching, and some cardio. I also might make it to Costco on Wednesday, and of course, there’s lots of cleaning that needs to be done. I am hoping that the staycation will be much more effective this time than it usually is…for anything other than reading and resting.

I did managed to get another chapter done yesterday morning before the parades started rolling, and prepared the final five for their revision. I also need to revise the prologue and write the epilogue, but I don’t think that will be too difficult, frankly. It doesn’t need to be much more than fifteen hundred words, at the most, and the book is already coming in pretty long.

I finished watching Versailles last night, and yes, all and any attempts by the show to be historically accurate went out the window with Season Three. While I do admire them for digging deeply enough into the mythology of the Sun King to come up with storylines including the Louise Marie Therese, the Black Nun of Moret, and it would be hard to do a show about Louis XIV and resist the temptation to unravel the riddle of the Man in the Iron Mask (Dumas also tried…and his explanation, also a-historical, at least made a sort of sense)…the  very idea (no spoiler) they came up with very wrong and unlikely; it made no sense, if one has even the slightest knowledge of primogeniture and the rules of succession. They also messed up with Louis losing his claim to Spain with the death of his wife, Marie-Therese; the claim simply passed from her to their son, and the result was the War of the Spanish Succession (which, coincidentally, is the war being fought in The Favourite).

And on that note, tis back to the spice mines.

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