Life, Interrupted

Life this week has included coming home from the west, reaching a light, and watching a three car slide-up collision that I missed by five seconds. This was a game play by the universe that is hard to stack up to coincidence. My sister, coming from the north, missed it by about a minute. And a good friend saw the accident. Too weird for words.

Although I am still trapped in the north lands due to Life, Interrupted (see private posts for what I will reveal of that) I can only stay another week or so--then I expect I must drive back south (where it's Too D&^* Cold(tm)) due to this house being overhauled. As in, intermittent power, no fridge, no stove. Other sibling's home can't work for me right now, so. . . Adventure awaits.

The Muse stirs. Maybe she thinks things have calmed down enough to start working on the book again? She gave me a couple of cultural tips on the story, and also a short speech by Quinn that feels hugely important. I just have to figure out where it goes in the puzzle.

Someone has done an article on the Alfreda books for Women's History Month. AFAIK it will appear on an AU blog in March. I learned something about my work from it, which is always nice! Will let you know closer to release if it comes out. I did an 1800 word essay for the series, too. On the subversive message of love, sex, and creativity in the works of Jennifer Stevenson. That, too, will be mentioned when it goes up.

All day rain, steady, misty, driving...

In an apartment in a large Texas city, you never hear the rain unless it's nuts outside.   Complexes have sliding doors, not windows.  Here I can open the windows and hear the rain dripping off the trees, sliding off the roof, overflowing the gutters, hammering the lawn furniture with a queer splat.

It's like a rainy day up by the great lakes.  I can't dwell on it too long, or I will cry.  If I can just figure out how to make a living off the Internet, I will go find a little place up there.  Too far from home.  Sometimes you carry home with you, and sometimes home is a place.  I have always carried home with me, with my cats.  But behind that is a place.  And it's calling me.  Problem is, the odds of making a living up there with my skills are unknown.  So...back to work.

Well, I spent many hours yesterday doing the first pass on proofing a manuscript for Book View Cafe ebook conversion.  I start reading tonight, confirming what I've done and watching for errors a spellchecker doesn't pick up.  (I was reading one of my favorite indulgences last night, Clean Sweep by Ilona Andrews, and the errors jump out at me this time around.  Mostly missing words.  I don't think I would have missed them, but you never know.  No editor can catch everything, it's impossible.  We each have things our eye will correct.)

This am it's been another chapter of Spiral Path, the third Alfreda book.  Of course I don't know if I will keep the same places for chapter breaks, as I have been pruning with vigor, and inserting a couple of tiny but very useful scenes into the novel.  I have a major scene to write, at the end, and a minor but significant change to make closer to the end.  And the last few pages of falling action will change, because I suspect Allie gets to use Shaw's gift after all.  I hope to get this all done this week, but I start a class Thursday with rampant paranoia, and have no idea how much time it will demand.  Plus, unpacking/packing.

Later a client down south.  Maybe a second client, and some work for me.

No, self-employed people have to carve out their own vacation days.  And for me, it's been a long time since I've gotten any.  Memorial Day tends to be just another day, except for remembering those who serve and served.