Tag: The Underground Railroad

Cry Like a Baby

Well, I finished my essay for Sisters in Crime finally yesterday and got it all turned in. Woo-hoo! That’s something–the first thing I’ve really finished this year since turning in the last manuscript, and I am going to ride that particular triumph all week, and hopefully get the other things I want to get written finished this week as well.

I can hope, at any rate.

I’m not really sure why I struggled so much with that essay; I’m not really sure why I am struggling so much to write in general since I turned in my last manuscript. Even this blog sometimes seems like a slog; although I do suspect in some ways it has everything to do with my usual inability to focus on what I am working on; deadlines can certainly make focus much much easier to deal with. But I really want to get these stories finished this week, and I am also wanting to get some editing done and some work on the book as well. Maybe I am overestimating what I can get done reasonably in a week, I don’t know. But it will be enormously satisfying, for example, just to get one of these stories finished. I actually was rereading one yesterday, also incomplete (“The Scent of Lilacs in the Rain”, for the record) and it’s actually quite good. It’ll probably need to be edited down some, but not bad–there’s about three thousand words or so already, and that’ll probably need to be sliced in half at the very least since there are at least several thousand new words needed to finish. I also have no idea where I would publish the story–I don’t know where I would publish any of the stories I’ve written/am writing. But I am enjoying working on them, so there’s that.

One of the things I am trying very hard to do is remember that I actually do ENJOY writing. It’s so easy to hate doing it, really–and that often has to do with the pressure of deadlines, or the frustration of it not going well, or it not going at all. I don’t miss the pressure of deadlines, in all honesty, but I am starting to get concerned about not getting enough done.

Heavy heaving sigh.

But we finished watching Big Little Lies last night, and got deeper into this final season of Bates Motel–which is so deranged it’s amazing! I am going to miss this show, and seriously, if Freddy Highmore is NOT recognized by the Emmys this year…I don’t know what is wrong with the Emmy voters. PAY ATTENTION.

I am still digesting The Underground Railroad (and the show Big Little Lies), but I hope to blog about both relatively soon.

And on that note, back to the spice mines!

Here’s a Twofer Tuesday hunk fest!


Honky Tonk Women

I made a little progress on the book yesterday; only another couple of hundred words or so, but progress is progress. I also started reading Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad yesterday (I am going to see him speak tomorrow night); the book is extraordinary, and I have a lot of thoughts about it already–despite only being half-finished. I may have to wait a few days after I finish reading it before I write about it, because it’s something I am going to have to mull over and think about; not a blog entry I’ll be able to just dash off the top of my head while I drink my morning coffee and try to wake up.

I did make it to the gym this morning for the first time in weeks (stupid Carnival) and I am very tired. I always feel better after I work out–until the endorphins wear off, anyway–and I really need to get back into a regular routine; I also need to start eating better and in a more healthy way. I realized during Carnival–as my feet, back, legs, knees, ankles, and hips all ached–that I DO need to get into better physical condition, and the longer I wait to get started on that the harder it will be and the worse things will get. My schedule is crazy, of course, but I do need to make time for self-care and doing things for me. I also realized, with a stunning shock of self-awareness, that I used to always think that I worked out and ate healthy in order to be healthy; looking better physically was just a lovely side-effect.

Obviously, the fact that I can’t motivate myself to get to the gym regularly on my own and eat right proves that I was deluding myself all those years; and without the motivation of wanting to look good when I went out and to look good for Carnival and Halloween and Southern Decadence, as well as no longer doing the wrestling–in other words, as soon as it was no longer important for me to look good the motivation to go to the gym vanished.

It’s a bit sobering to realize you were deluding yourself for a really long time, but I prefer being honest with myself, and it’s better to figure these things out sooner rather than later–although I will say this was pretty late to figure this out!

So, this weekend I am going to commit to getting to the gym at least twice more a week. I’ve already started eating better–or trying to, at any rate–and while I don’t think I’ll ever get down to the lean 180 pounds I was ten or eleven years ago…I can probably lose twenty pounds.

Here’s a shot of me eleven years ago.