Monday, September 7, 2015

Mostly non writerly things

/waves hand/

Yup, still alive.

Life has been a little crazy, but things have been going well. Since I last posted, I was in Chilliwack readying stuff to ship to Montreal for the next PAC Convention. There was a bunch of drama around taking possession of my new place (the sellers lawyer "lost" some paperwork, only discovered the day everything was supposed to get legalized, so there was a mad scramble and some delays). I also house-sat for that family friend who just lost his wife to cancer.

...and survived a crazy windstorm that had power out for 3 full days and internet out for 5.

I've been packing/organizing to move (planning for endish of September), and painting the new place. Some interesting discoveries & slightly unpleasant surprises as I've been removing hardware and fixing some things. Nothing huge, but it annoys me how often something is not installed correctly in the first place, and fixing it generally means breaking other things before you can fix the one, stupid thing that was done wrong in the first place. Seriously people... drywall anchors are not rocket science... and patching drywall is an enormous pain.

But I do enjoy the fun of renovating (taking things apart and putting them back together in a better, more efficient way always gives me great satisfaction -> which is why I enjoy editing so much) and it's been fun to turn this townhouse into a space that feels more like "me".

And I haven't even touched the garden yet.

The rest of September is pretty busy as well... more housesitting starting in about 10 days (which is also going to involve dropping off/picking up my nephew from school & babysitting), plus my plans to actually move (so the whole townhouse needs to be ready), but also within the next 10 days I've promised to spend a couple days with my cousin down in Birch Bay (WA state, about a 20 min drive after crossing the USA/Canadian border), a few more days in Chilliwack making ikebana vases (yes, from porcelain clay/slip + glazing + maybe painting, depending how my arm is holding up), my birthday is this coming weekend, and I might be helping someone pack/move (small stuff) on the 15th. I've also made several other plans with friends and family to the point where I'm not entirely sure what moments I will have free...

And there's an unopened MS file sitting on my desktop that I've been asked to read/comment on, and I just finished another one which is certainly going to involve follow-up (always fun).


Through the summer, I have managed to schedule in a weekly writing session with a local writing buddy of mine and other sporadic writing dates with another buddy. Surprisingly, with all the recent insanity, I've gotten some writing in too :) Nothing crazy, but a respectable amount, and (as a pantser) amazingly I have a clearer view of what the next portion of the story might look like, which is awesome because a few weeks ago I didn't even have a vague direction of where to go next. Essentially, I'm at the mid-point (ish) of the Northern Fairytale MS and recently surprised myself at the unexpected turn a scene took... like taking a single step and finding yourself at a vantage point, I feel like now I can sprint downhill, and am salivating to get more writing done.

Well, I hope everyone's summer has been good, and I hope to squeeze in a few extra hours to catch-up on all the people's blogs I haven't had the time to read and find out what amazing things have been going on for you all.

Which, I hope, involves writing ;)

It's now 1pm, and I'm heading over to do more painting... extra exciting because it's my office/studio.

2 comments:

  1. Moves are always interestingly crazy. Makes me want to do a short story about a move that goes so well it freaks the people out :)

    Awesome that said story is reaching that 'I know where this is going!' point :)

    As for writing, I *have* been trying to take a break, but ended up writing a 10K creepy novella during said 'break' among the usual short story stuff. Other things will be in email :)

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    1. Sometimes it's easier to send an email :) Less public, and less cursing if Blogger suddenly decides to eat the words you've just spent 15 minutes typing :p

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