I finally finished chapter four and sent it off to the beta-readers. That gave me a brief sense of relief, but of course, chapter five is already underway.

Apparently having to wait at the tire repair place is good for me, or at least good for my characters, because I got the better part of a scene written there. Today was "Wild Wednesday", so Mom and I were hiking at Shades State Park and Pine Hills Nature Preserve. But I'm determined to get another scene written tonight before I sleep.

Last week I gave myself some gruesome first-hand experience to write from. I backed into the lawnmower muffler while doing yard work. I don't recommend this method to people, but now I know what a second-degree burn feels like and how it heals (or at least starts to heal, and then possibily gets infected...) I now understand why my main character, who was subjected to hot irons in the torture chamber, hates me so very, very much.

Tomorrow I'm having lunch with a friend, and then, if the burn isn't healing well enough, I'll be making a stop at urgent care, I'm afraid. Cross your fingers that the antibiotic ointment keeps doing its work!

I've been making a lot of those lately. "It's a three-day weekend, I don't want to work on the revision." "I have a migraine. I don't want to work on the revision." "I worked on plotting and world-building for a different project, I don't want to work on the revision too." "I spent all day doing housework, I don't have enough energy for a revision day."

Seems like I've been making a lot in my personal life too. "I'm sorry I suck so much at keeping in touch." "I just haven't felt like being online."

The truth is, I don't feel like I have enough energy for everything life throws at me as well as everything I want out of life. Since it's impossible to ignore the need to work & pay bills, impossible to ignore a migraine that feels like a spike through your left eye, and impossible to ignore kittens who are running roughshod over your head? I end up letting personal stuff fall to the wayside. I don't answer emails quickly enough. I forget to call my best friend. I stay up too late one night and drag around at half-energy the next.

I've been simplifying and cutting some things out of my life lately. I intentionally let go of a friendship that meant a lot to me, but simply became too emotionally vampiric for me to continue. Even the friends I do value have gotten short shrift lately, and I'm sorry about that.

Of course, I also have had some victories. I think I've done pretty well at raising two kittens at once, which wouldn't have seemed like such a victory this time last year, but definitely is. I've gotten a third of the way through my novel revision, despite the new migraines that started in June. I've read over fifty books this year.

We're slipping into autumn, which is always a reflective season for me. Something about the combines throwing up clouds of chaff in a bean field, the golden light, the breezy cooling of the weather, makes me take stock of my life and yearn to give in to my wanderlust. Knowing my birthday is a month away makes me wonder where I'll be and what I'll be doing on my birthday next year.

Just a little bit of lunch-time introspection...

In the interest of pure honesty, I have only managed 500 words once since making my new goals five days ago. Part of me feels like a failure and part of me has decided that I'm going on vacation in three days and bugger those goals.

I find myself frustrated. The common theme in my life is sitting at work wishing I was writing, then coming home and finding something like Warcraft or a well-written book or randomly linked studies about non-believers who are working in the pastoral field (while I was looking for a way to hide those Twitter posts on my LJ friends-list...you know how you do a Goggle search and click a likely result and then see someone talking about something non-related and then--ooooh, shiny!)

Anyway.

I suppose the good part is that I'm sitting down and hand-writing the words I do write. The bad part is that once I sit at the computer I seem to have trouble staying focused. I'm clearly going to have to start using Q10 more often, even though I'm stupidly in love with Calibri font ever since installing Office 2007. (Yes, I'm a typeface nerd, sue me.) I'll remind myself that I love the little clickety-clacking of the typewriter keys, and the satisfying ka-chinggggg when I hit the carriage return. Honestly at this point if I still had that old Royal Sahara electric typewriter, I would shut my computer off and make myself crank out a few pages on that.

Of course, what I've discovered is that as soon as I set a goal like that, Life Happens. I spent the weekend painting and cleaning at my grandmother's old house to try to get it ready to sell. My best friend's dad is in the hospital. Another friend is possibly facing hospitalization. Another friend needs me to give her cat insulin shots on a fairly regular basis because she's dating someone a couple of hours away.

And in the time I have left, I get selfish and whiny. I don't want to write. I want to relax! I want to read or play a game. I don't want to THINK.

I'm going to tell myself that a good vacation will help me out. Vacations always get me writing.

Check this space two weeks from now. *G*