Lost Weeks

The last several weeks have flown by in a blur of day job, stress, and appointments, appointments, appointments. Perhaps I shouldn’t have made my “get out of the house more often” resolution on top of a renewed commitment to routine health maintenance. Two cavities, one crown, several X-rays, an MRI, and a colonoscopy later, and I’m pretty much doctored out. (I could throw in our recent vet visits for Finley, who had a suspicious bump removed from his back.) The upshot (so far, knock on wood) is that I’m generally healthy (and so is Finn!). So it’s all time well spent, but it sure is time-consuming and stressful. Such are the perils of aging responsibly.

With all this going on, and forty-plus hours a week of editorial salt mines and commuting, it’s been all I can do to keep up with the day-to-day, let alone writing. I’m still struggling to get my rhythm back, both with blogging and the current novel-in-progress. With March nearly over, all I’ve managed on Rogue Souls is to revamp the plot outline — no small feat, in fact it was like pulling teeth — and import the existing pages into Scrivener. (High time I master this program if I’m going to be doing the Novel Thing regularly.) I still think I’ll finish the draft this year, but I definitely need to kick it into another gear.

Meanwhile, we’ve had some low-key, enjoyable visits from friends and family lately. Tim Pratt took up residence in our spare room for a week for another writing retreat, and my parents stopped by for a couple of days on their way back from Mexico. Delicious meals and great company, and Tim got us hooked on the bizarro cartoon show Adventure Time. (Oh. My. Glob.) Jenn and I also got down to Mysterious Galaxy again, where we chatted with Tim and Serena Powers and picked up hot-off-the-press copies of Hide Me Among the Graves, now enthusiastically added to my increasingly unwieldy to-read shelf.

Anyway, hopefully I can get back on track as the pace of stressful doctor visits slows. I’ve been in a bit of an emotional funk recently, and if experience is any guide, writing is generally the best way out. Now if I could just start…