Well, duh!

It's snowing again and sound checks were cancelled. It worked out nicely because I was already up and dressed, so I fired up the laptop to work on the Dreaded Book 2 for a while. In doing so, I realized two things:

1. Insane schedules squelch my writing. I wrote on Sunday and today. That's not five days this week, so I really blew that. However, if I write every day for the rest of the month I'll still average five days per week. That's not what I wanted but it's a step in the right direction. I need a set time each day to bond with the keyboard, which I've known for a while. I just don't know when that would be. My days are so varied that I can't really pick 'a time each day'. Perhaps it's time to reconsider my schedule. It will be easier next year when I don't have to teach, but I need to start treating the writing like a job now.

2. I think I'm having trouble with Book 2 because it's very cumbersome. We have a lot of different plot lines, and they all weave together in the end. It's cool to see how they all come together, but it's like trying to comb a knot out of a child's hair. It's painful, and it would be easier to just take scissors to it, but you know if you do you'll have a hair disaster waiting for you at the end. We decided at Thanksgiving that the best approach would be to write the whole thing, put it in order, and then cut out the fluff and decide if it needed to be one book or two. Originally this was going to be a trilogy anyway. Of course, that was when we were clueless young writers and the world was our plot bunny! It will come together, but not fast enough for me. I just realized I've been living with Robyn and Nyakas in my head for almost ten years. No wonder I just want to get this done.

Whoops!

Sorry, y'all, for the eight days away. I hate it when other people do that! It's been one of those paradoxical weeks when it's flown right by but it seems like a month since Monday. I can't even claim that my internet was down because of the massive snowstorm. We got three or four inches, but it was windy so we had drifts eight or nine inches deep. It's been very exciting, and the kids got Valentine's Day off school, but somehow I was expecting this to be routine here. It's the Midwest, after all, and when I was in Rantoul, IL (a few hours from here) in 1986 this would have been nothing. I could say that the snowfall only seemed deeper when I was a kid because I was shorter, but I've been 5 1/2 feet tall since I was 13.

I digress.

It's been a jam-packed week, the high-point of which so far has been the field trip yesterday to the St Louis City Museum with a bunch of screaming kids. It might have been a little better if I hadn't had to leave the house at 8:00 a.m., after having worked a double shift on Wednesday* and not getting to bed until 11:00 or so. I must have my beauty sleep, and I must arise early in order to ensure proper caffeination. It was a tricky bit of scheduling, let me assure you. I will say, though, that if you're in the St Louis area with kids, the City Museum is very cool. It's more like a 3-story indoor jungle gym. The teens had as much fun as the little kids. Shoot, some of the parents had as much fun as the little kids! Did I have a camera with me? Surely you jest!

I got the loft painted on Saturday. You know you've picked the right color when you get three square feet painted on the first wall and it makes you smile. Pictures to follow.

We start Lyceum again today, and I'm teaching the writing class again. The plan is to publish our story week-by-week on Dragonsroost.net. Hopefully I'll have better luck with that this session than I did with Vengeance of Pachacuti. I may not get back in here again until next week. Tomorrow I have an early sound check with Dudley's Rush and work a double shift, and Sunday we have an afternoon sound check and a fundraising gig. It will be fun, and I will probably splat into a puddle of exhaustion Sunday night.


*We did the Valentine's Dinner again, and it was positively serene compared to last year. We did 37 dinners and only had 2 cancellations due to the crummy roads.