He settles the childless woman in her home as a happy mother of children. —Psalm 113:9

October 5, 2009

Last week, this week, and a month from now (yay NaNoWriMo!)

I know I said I'd start posting my goals again last Monday, but then I got slammed with work. So far this freelance biz is feast or famine, and my regular clients all seem to be on the same cycle as to when they have work for me. I'm not complaining. The busy times are great, as they mean we get to eat and pay the mortgage, and the stress of multiple deadlines isn't nearly as burdensome as the stress of wondering how to pay the bills.

My brain was pretty fried by Friday night, though, and I spent the weekend trying not to think about work and just recover so I could dig in again this week, which promises to be another busy one. I actually had planned to get a lot done on Saturday, including blogging and posting the next ep of This Old Haunt, but I got hit with a pretty bad headache, and all I managed to get done were some errands and a few scenes of Hero Factor marked up for revisions. Then I spent Sunday puttering around the house getting the cleaning and laundry done. Well, mostly done. I'm still waiting on the last load to dry so I can put it away before I get to work on client projects.

I also put out the Halloween decorations yesterday, which made me ridiculously happy. I love October and Halloween so hard. I wish I wish I wish that I had a group of local NaNoWriMo buddies who I could invite over for a Halloween pajama-costume party and then kick off 'WriMo at midnight with an overnight write-in. But I don't, so I guess I'll just have to settle for a virtual version. I really hoped that by going to the meetups and write-ins during last year's 'WriMo that I would make some local writing buddies, but I didn't really click with anybody. Frankly, nobody seemed that interested in clicking. I got the impression from most of the participants that they were there to put their heads down and write, not to be social. Which was fine, as that's my inclination too, but, y'know, you can do that on your own. That kind of defeats the whole purpose of group write-ins, doesn't it? Or maybe I'm just projecting my shy, introverted nature onto everybody else and it was really just me and my inability to make friends in general. I don't think it is just me, though. I'm far from the only person to make the observation that Tulsa is a hard town to meet and get to know people in. Folks here are generally friendly on the surface, but also generally keep to themselves when it comes to making any real connections. At any rate, I'm feeling a bit less inclined to bother with any of the meetups this year.

And how that paragraph went from "Yay, Halloween!" to NaNoWriMo and a lament about the somewhat aloof nature of native Tulsans is as much a mystery to me as it is to you.

Anyway, speaking of 'WriMo and Hero Factor, it's pretty clear that I'm not going to finish editing the latter in time for the former. But I should at least get all of the revisions marked up, so I can start typing the changes once my brain recovers from the November writing frenzy. Whenever my time frees up a little, I'll go ahead and start plotting out my 'WriMo project. I've got to be careful not to overplan - after all, the only time I've actually won NaNoWriMo was when I threw my hat in at the last minute with only a vague idea for a plot and pantsed the whole thing. That ended up becoming This Old Haunt, the next episode of which I'll edit and post once I'm done here, so watch the Twitter stream for an announcement that it's up if that interests you.

I know I said I'd start posting my goals again, but my goals this week are pretty simple and don't really merit a whole post: meet my clients' deadlines while remembering to still take care of my physical and spiritual health. And try not to let the house devolve into a chaotic mess that I'll have to spend hours cleaning up next weekend. I'd like to try to connect in person with a friend or two this week, but I don't know if my deadlines will allow for that. We'll see how it goes.

I will sign off now with a link to the Where the Wild Things Are movie soundtrack, composed and performed by Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, which is cool and mellow and happy-making all at once, and is also streaming free for the time being. Enjoy. And while you do, tell me how you've been, and what you hope to accomplish this week, in the comments.

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