Thursday, September 09, 2021

The exhaustion of the first week back to school...

This week is the back to school week. Back to "normal" week. House guest(s) gone. Back to work. Exhaustion week. Man, getting up before 7 AM sucks rocks. Little dude and I are both not morning people. At all. I never have been, to be fair, but the older I get, the harder it is. The tired goes bone deep, man.

It's been a bit since I really blogged anything other than updating drama posts. So I feel like I need to do a little catch up post even though I should be working. But it's weighing on me, so gonna do it anyway.

I took the summer off, mostly, to spend time with little dude and my niece who came to visit from Florida. She stayed with her sister in London part of the time and some of it with us. We did get out and about a lot, which was good -- a bit in London, but more wandering manor houses and English countryside towns. It was nice, though pandemic is still not over. Little dude can't get vaccinated yet, so he's still a bit stressed going out.  So we didn't go far, but at least we did get out a bit. It was nice.

Now for the kvetching and  annoyances -- one of the doors to the conservatory shattered (but didn't fall out of the frame) randomly a couple of weeks ago. Maybe 3? Heck, nearly a month now. I called and emailed all around. Couldn't get anyone to come out (we also want to put in a dog flap) or even call back. Finally got a guy who came right away and, honestly, he felt slightly dodgy but seemed okay and I did find some stuff about him online. So he says he'll do it. Orders the glass and we give him a bit of the money up front for that...he asks if he can do it one day, but hubster wants to be out that day so I schedule him for another day (yesterday). He says noon. Doesn't show. Call, text, etc. One message that he'll be over after he finishes another job and then nothing. So, now, I'm, like is he just a scammer? But if he were, why did he bother responding at all after he took the money for the glass? Do I need to try to find someone again (argh, so much luck with that the first time around...)? So it's annoying. I guess I'm going to leave it until tomorrow and see if I hear from him. If nothing by the end of the day, will start calling around again and just accept that I lost a bit of money. But, also, the door looks ready to shatter everywhere at any moment and it's the one we have to use to get outside.

In personal-ish...I've gained almost all the weight I lost back. Quite a bit over summer, actually, though I'd been slowly increasing this whole year. We were eating out a lot with the niece and also drinking a lot more than normal (especially me, as I'm normally a once a week kind of drinker). So I need to get back to eating less and exercising more. I went to the gym today and did the elliptical there (harder than the one I have at home, at least based on sweat levels!) and a round on all the arm weight machines. And I've just cut out drinking at all since the niece left. :-) That'll help. Alcohol is just empty calories. Maybe I should cut out my coffee a day too. I dunno. I feel like a slug. A plump slug. 

Though all I wanna do is sleep.

BUT! After months of stagnation with my writing, things are finally popping again. A bit. I guess I can't call it popping. Percolating? 

I picked up a new freelance D&D project for the same people I did the last one for. It's interesting, though less structured than the last one, so a little bit up in the air and confusing. That'll be work through October, maybe into November. Not loads of money, but probably another $3K or so. I'd partly said yes as I was still waiting on book 2 revisions for my middle grade series.

Though now, of course, I've finally (after 14 months) heard back & have the editorial letter for the book and a date (February -- much better than September 2022, which was the last date I'd heard as a possible). The edits seem doable and I don't disagree with any of it. After all, I wrote that book mostly right after my mom died. I figured it would need even more help than what they want to change. So that's good. Though I've gotta figure out exactly when they need my revision back. They had to get a new illustrator too (third time is the charm, I hope). I'd preferably like to wrap up the freelance thing first, so I can just do one thing at a time. Which means that after basically a year of going er, what should I work on? it's now yikes, I need to get moving! Which is very hard the week school starts back up. My brain feels like it is in second gear. I've had lots of ideas, but am having trouble getting stuff down.

In other exciting news...the kind of news that doesn't really feel real and may come to nothing, the agent has wrapped up the negotiations with the people who want to option one of my books for a movie. So I'll at least get the option fee (which isn't a lot, but every bit counts). IF a movie is actually made, it can be a bit game changing. Maybe or maybe not life changing. Certainly more money than I've made from all of my books together so far. But I know that a lot of options are purchased and very few movies actually get made. So I'm trying to not be excited about it. I feel like if I dream big, it'll get nipped in the bud and nothing will happen. That seems to be what usually happens. But, I can at least be excited that someone was interested at all. There was some early interest in my first book, but it didn't really go anywhere (probably also because I didn't have an agent then and had no idea what I was doing). 

There's other stuff. But that's more or less the big things. I'm even behind on my Kdrama blogging. 

I need to wake up.

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