How It's Going, Work-wise

In a few days I'll be wrapping up my first novel for 2022, and while it needs a good edit I'm very happy with what I've managed to do on the page. I was a little worried about the holidays wrecking me, but I managed to shake off the Christmas blues fairly fast this year. It also feels good to continue my productive streak.

I have made a few more adjustments to my process as well as my work sessions. I felt a little overloaded by the ambitious daily goals I had for the last three months of 2021, and worried I'd end up with burnout again, so I eased back on those. I'm making a point to shut off my work computer as soon as I've finished a session so I'm not tempted to go back and fiddle with the day's writing. I'm also finishing earlier every evening so I have ample time to work on my quilting and relax before bed. All these things are helping me maintain my work schedule without feeling exhausted. On the contrary, I feel just as enthusiastic about this series as I was when I pitched it (maybe even a little more.)

It's a privilege to be able to do what I love for a living, but it's also important to do things that make me love working. After a wretched six months last year I think I'm finally getting back to that now.

Comments

nightsmusic said…

Whatever you're doing is working because you sound better in your posts as well :)

February 21, 2022 at 5:08 AM

Maria Zannini said…

Sometimes you just have to walk away for your own peace of mind.

February 21, 2022 at 5:50 AM

Downsizing

This was my fabric stash once I sorted everything -- 22 full bins. I spent a day taking out and boxing up what I could part with, with the goal of trying to reduce it by half, so I'd have 11 bins. I was very strict with myself, and removed everything that for one reason or another I was sure I wouldn't be able to use. This is what I ended up with -- 12 bins of fabric that I'm keeping. It's not quite half, but close enough. Half of what I took out went to a local quilter friend, a school and Goodwill. These four tightly-packed bins will be going to the local quilting guild once I make arrangements with them for a drop-off place. I am relieved and a little sad and now determined to control my impulses to thrift more fabric. I don't want to do this again, so until I use up six bins, I can't for any reason bring any new fabric into the house.

In Progress

I promised myself I would show you the good, bad and ugly of my cleaning this year. This is what it looks like when you dump thirty years' worth of stashed fabric on the floor -- and oy, what a pain in the butt to pick up again! This is what it looks like after it's been sorted, folded and placed in containers, which took me about a week. Now the hard part is to downsize my stash by at least half, I think (that's my goal, anyway.) I've already e-mailed the president of the local quilting guild, a local friend who is a quilter, and a public school art teacher I know to see if I can donate some of the excess to them. The rest will go to Goodwill. Already I've reduced my vintage textiles from two bins to one, and my scraps from three bins to one. It's probably the hardest clean-out I've done, which is why I saved it until last. I know I have too much fabric, more than I can use in my lifetime -- but at the same time, I love it. So I have to

Other Stashes

Along with clearing out the spare bedroom and tidying my office and our guest bedroom, I decided to reorganize some of my stashes. This is all the yarn I have on hand, sorted by color. It looks like a lot, but lately I've been using up a minimum of half a bin every month, so this is approximately a year's supply. All of my solid color cotton perle thread. I go through a lot of this every year, too. I need a container in which I can fit all of it together, but I haven't found the right one yet. I won't show you all of my fabric -- I'm still reorganizing this stash -- but I went through everything and donated two bins of fabric I won't need to the local quilter's guild.

Valerean

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