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

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.

Love Means This

Invested in a couple of hand-dyed bundles from one of my favorite fabric artists. This one said "Make me into something for Valentine's Day." So I went for a quilted and embellished tote. I kept thinking about what love means to me as I worked on it. Here's the finished tote. Although I was tempted to embellish with beads and pins, I got sick and only felt well enough to do a little stitching every night. As I worked I thought about how often love seems disappointing to us, especially when it fails to live up to our expectations. But now that I've experienced love in many forms, I can say that it's made me a better person than I might have been without it. Love is a precious thing, and should be appreciated in all its forms. I am very grateful for the love of my guy, my child and my friends who have stuck with me all these years. That's you two, in case you're wondering. :) Also finally found something to do with a ve...

Store Closing Haul

The mega Books-A-Million store over in Sanford is closing, and offered an extra 20% off on their current stock -- all sales final -- so I went over to do some shopping. Safely but sadly there was no one in the store but me the entire time I was there. The Holly Jackson novel is for Katherine, the Halloween board book is for Oliver, and the copy of Garden Spells is to keep on hand because I give that book to everyone. The rest of the books are for me. I love Anne Cleeves, and the Galbraith novel sounded interesting (the first couple weren't, but I'm willing to take another chance.) The Escape Room is by a new-to-me author, plus it was cheap. The GreenCraft mag is just a guilty pleasure. Hopefully the smaller BAM nearer to me won't close. I don't buy many books from brick-and-mortar stores these days, but that's really the last one within reasonable driving distance.

Valerean

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