creative.mother.thinking

Yesterday was a most pleasant day, and I’m chuffed that I managed the 8K of running and the 10K of biking without feeling bad at any point. At the end of my bike ride home I had the feeling that yes, my legs had done enough for the day but I’m not even sore today.

The new spinning meeting was great, very nice people, and it was warm and sunny so we could sit outside on the patio spinning. I even stayed longer than planned which I only rarely do. So I’ll definitely be back.

Today I’m hoping for a slow day, I want to knit, and read, and not do much. I can feel a cold coming, and I’d like to stave that off as much as possible.

The idea for the new novel is percolating in the back of my mind while I’m thinking about story structure, turning points and crises.

There are no cookies left today, the met with wild approval. Maybe I’ll make waffles this afternoon, we’ll see.

I’m really looking forward to a day off.

I just tried to turn my laptop on to write my daily post but it itsn't booting properly. I've been waiting for this computer to die on me for more than a year now. I hope it isn't quite time yet. I has been somewhat quirky but functional. Which is okay if you remember that this computer is more than seven years old. (And now that I'm typing this (on the tablet) I find that the laptop has decided to boot after all. Phew. I can do most things on the tablet but I can't record a podcast on it which is what I'll be doing this morning. At least if everything goes as planned.

Yesterday I was pretty good, the only thing I skipped was the strength training. I guess I have to find a different way of doing it because after running, teaching, and doing other work all day by 6.30 I'm rather reluctant to do something strenuous before getting dinner.

I did learn some things about how to market books, though, I did watch a video I had been wanting to watch for weeks, and I finally found all the lyrics to the songs I want to record for my mother's birthday and printed them out. Baby steps all the way. Same with the novel I want to write in November, I now have a document in Scrivener with parts that say “beginning”, “middle A”, “middle B”, and “ending”. Very important steps for sure.

And I managed to go to bed almost on time, and can now say that according to the last days' experiments every time I turn the lights out at 9.30 I will get enough sleep, every time I turn the lights out at 10 I don't. I have no idea why I wake up an hour earlier after turning the lights out half an hour later but that's what it is. It does remind me of the days when I still had a toddler who found it impossible to fall asleep. Often when we tucked him in a little earlier falling asleep would be much easier for him.

Though I have to say that I don't have any problems falling asleep. According to my sleep tracker it takes me 11 minutes every night without fail. Unless I'm seriously overtired, then it takes four.

I know, sleep is just so fascinating. Well, it is when you're not getting enough.

Today will be extra, extra busy but fun (I hope). I will attempt to finally record the next English episode of the podcast, go to the Asian place around the corner for lunch with my husband and son (which I've been looking forward to for days now), then teach a lot, in between do some cleaning (wish me luck), then listen to the podcast so I can publish it tomorrow, then watch something on TV with the boy while my husband goes to the city to see a free improvisation concert, and then bake cookies for tomorrow's spinning meeting.

And then go to bed on time.

Should be completely doable if I don't spend all my time on the internet.

We'll see how that goes.

So this marks the last day of my daily journaling experiment, and I must say it is a success. I did manage to blog every day (and yes, I still haven’t rewritten the lost day 6-post but I did write it, I swear), and I even liked it.

I hope you liked it too but I guess if you thought that reading something from me every day would be a little too much you’d not be reading this anyways.

I think I’m going to keep this up – within reason. So I won’t kill myself to post every day but I’ll try to. Posting daily works better than posting weekly because somehow I never quite get my act together on time, and so I kept procrastinating about that weekly post for weeks. Which doesn’t work.

Other than that I have been feeling both really excited and somewhat meh and overwhelmed at the same time. Excited because I had an idea yesterday for a new novel, and also I had the idea of writing it during November (for NaNoWriMo), and also live-blogging the novel on my author blog. The new blog is still a work in progress, and I’m not quite sure how to use it yet, so I’m trying things out.

Of course writing yet another novel is so not sensible, and in a different genre than the trilogy is even worse, and live-blogging it is rather insane. So I thought it would be a good idea, as one does.

The overwhelm comes from all the things I need to do. I still want to finish revision on the trilogy (and the best would be if I could do that before November. Chances are slim, though. I spent 40 hours on the revision of novel two which is much less than I would have thought. Now that novel is short (too short, unfortunately). Also those forty hours were spread out from the beginning of January until now. Ugh. I did do other things in between but not that many.

I also want to get the new blog going, of course, I’m still not happy with how it looks, and I need to set up a newsletter (and a sign-up for that newsletter) for people who want to know about when the trilogy comes out. And the big project for this month is to record some songs for my mother’s birthday. Which is on October 28th so I have a firm deadline for that.

I’m also having second thoughts on novel two (as one does). I wrote this one twice because I found the first version so bad that I thought writing it again would be the better choice. Now I’m sitting there with a 55,000 word, very short, novel that I’ve completely torn apart and rewritten and I’m afraid I made it worse instead of better. And yesterday I stumbled over a printout of the first version of that novel, and that is a juicy 89,000 words, and I really liked the opening scene. I think the writing is much fresher. Which wouldn’t be surprising.

Of course my next move should be to reread both versions, and then decide on what to do. But I’m seeing myself spending another year on revision for this thing, either revising the first version, or – even worse – tearing both versions apart and trying to make them into a new whole. Also I’ve lost track of what actually happens in each version of each novel. There is something to be said for writing and revising quickly because then you don’t forget everything.

Well, it is no use. I need to finish the trilogy (don’t think I haven’t toyed with the thought of giving up), and for that I need to reread both versions and decide what to do. I have a feeling right now that the first version is not as bad as I thought but if that’s the case I have wasted a year (well, not comepletely because I have learned loads and have written the rough draft of another novel), and I will still have to revise that one.

No, not fun.

But that’s the pro mindset, isn’t it? You do the work that’s necessary to make it as good as you can. No matter what. 

Yesterday was a rather full day, by the way, even without the novel-writing woes. I went to the orthodontist by bike, and it looks as if the boy will get rid of his braces soonish. We have to decide whether to pay for a wire to be glued behind his teeth permanently after finishing the whole course of braces. Right now it looks as if we won’t. It isn’t covered by insurance, and isn’t really necessary, just would make things easier.

Before, I ran a few errands and went to the health food store, then I taught quite a few students, did strength training (for all of 16 minutes, yeah me), had dinner, and flopped down at the kitchen table. Oh, and my husband’s new guitar came. He is happy with it, it doesn’t sound like anything he owns yet, and I could already hear him play differently with it. That’s one of the fun things about different instruments, you get to play in a different way with them too.

Then I didn’t do nothing, didn’t wash a single dish all day (be glad you’re not looking at our kitchen right now), and went to bed on time. Only to not sleep well, and wake up too early yet again. Yawn.

Today is a new day, though, and I will pick myself up again. There will be running, and lots of dishes, and I’ll go to the supermarket, and I will definitely practice those songs for the birthday present, and I will print out the revised version of novel two, and the unfinished raw draft of novel three (good thing I just ordered printer toner and paper), and then I’ll go to bed on time again tonight.

And I will tell you all about my really exciting life again tomorrow. Fun!

So yesterday was another pretty unproductive day. I still felt like I needed a day off but I’m not quite sure that was the best thing to do. I did spend most of the day reading, finishing an excellent novel, and knitting and crocheting.

I also managed to finally watch Nick Stephenson’s free training videos. I found the first one not all that interesting but then I’ve been reading about marketing for indie authors for quite some time now, and I listen to all the important podcasts in that area, so I do know a thing or two. (Not enough, for sure.) But the second video made me all happy about promotion for once, and so I decided to finally get my own website for my writing stuff, not a free wordpress blog.

And that is making me all happy and excited. Some time today or tomorrow susannewinter.com will go live.

Of course that means I just made myself even more work. I need to transfer content from the old blog, and make it look decent, and activate an email address or two.

Being unproductive last weekend also means that I didn’t manage to record the next podcast episode. I had planned to release it last weekend, and the next German one next weekend but now it looks as if there will be the English episode next weekend. I am committed to podcasting every other week but there’s no need to do it every week.

Of course I keep thinking about adding yet another podcast to the mix which is really insane.

I also have a long, long list of things I need to do for the teaching website, and I’d really like to make this blog here look better and update it. Somehow I never find the time.

I just made a list of things to do for this week, and it is pretty full already. If I went offline for the week I could easily do it but I guess I won’t.

Only two more days until the end of this daily journaling challenge.

I am starting a new challenge today, by the way. In an effort to get better sleep (and lose some of the weight I gained back) I will refrain from drinking alcohol for the next three weeks. Maybe four weeks, I’m not sure yet. And my husband is making noises about joining me. Which would be a very good thing. It is somewhat easier not to drink when no one is opening bottles of wine under your nose. Very good wine, usually. But I’m pretty sure that better sleep will be worth it.

So I hope you will all have a great week ahead, and I’ll let you know how it goes.