Drunken Owls and Other Delights

For someone who pretty much had five days off in a row, I'm feeling a bit exhausted. I'm pretty sure it's because we had something going on all of those days! Shopping, walking, gardening, cleaning, playing with the cats, driving, visiting the in-laws (twice!), and actually going outside on warm days! It's been a full schedule these last couple of days.

I made the slight mistake of not following up on a very minor mistake in uploading the remastered edition of A Division of Souls so the drop date WAS MISSED AND EVERYTHING IS RUINED FOREVER no, I just fixed it late yesterday and properly it's up and running now. I've also pulled the old edition from the Smashwords site so the new one will take its place. Here's the link of you're so interested!

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1838502

And yes, I do plan on 'remastering' my older books (at least the trilogy and probably Meet the Lidwells and In My Blue World) over the course of the next couple of years, because they're my books and why the hell not? :)

Anyhoo, I'll be doing my usual Friday-Saturday stupid-early shifts the next couple of days (and wondering what drama unfolded in my absence) and everything will be back to normal. Back to the grind!

My hours are a bit wonky this week, but not necessarily in a bad way. The main bookkeeper is on vacation, which means I'll be covering his 5:30a - 2p shift aside from today. I'll be a bit tired and cranky from waking up so dang early, but as always, getting out at 2 is a neat thing indeed.

I didn't exactly do any writing-related work during our vacation, and I'm fine with that these days. It's good to just chill out and do not much other than reading and listening to tunes in a small water tower base that's been converted into a cabin in a very small coastal town that's known for having been where they shot many exterior shots for Cabot Cove on the show Murder She Wrote.  [The exteriors of fishing piers and docks were shot a bit up the road in Fort Bragg.] 

What I did do however was something I'd done a few years previous, actually in the same cabin: open up document copies of some of my older 750Words entries. Why did I do so, you ask? Well, partly because it's fun to see what I was writing then, and to see what's changed, but also to see how my post-trilogy standalone novels evolved! Meet the Lidwells, In My Blue World and Diwa & Kaffi were all written as daily entries on that site, as were several MU-related outtakes. There are also other ideas in there that I think are worth investigating further, including several short stories within the D&K universe. [One thing I realized was that I'd misremembered D&K's origins; that novel was written in tandem with those short stories rather than growing out of them.]

Still -- the vacations are over, I don't have any other major events coming up any time soon, so I'm ready to get back to the grind and get this writing thing back up to speed again. That means daily work on Theadia and prep work on possible projects to be started. I may even go against my better judgement and try Inktober again this year, now that I have the time and the brainspace! Heh.

Anyway, going to go and enjoy the rest of the day! Hope everyone has a good week ahead!

Last week's assignment of filling in for the liquor manager was uneventful, other than Those Bros coming in asking for the same five limited edition whiskies every single flipping day. [Dude, I know you're buying them so you can resell them online for a profit. You fit the type perfectly. And oh by the way, GO AWAY WHAT PART OF WE DO NOT HAVE THEM DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND.] I managed to avoid working the front end for the most part, working instead on upstocking the liquor and dairy aisles instead. Apparently I do a really good job with those so they have me doing them at least once a week now? Can't complain...

Oh -- by the by, The Teens are back in school, which means that they're once again heading over to our store at approximately 9:10am and 12:10pm to spread fifteen minutes of chaos all over the place. Some of them behave just fine and some even pay for their food instead of doing the five finger discount, but OH MY FLIPPING GOB INSIDE VOICE PLEASE. I did not miss that during the summer at all.

Anyway, this coming week is going to be a bit odd as it starts with the one midshift in which I fill in for the Front End Manager (also known as the babysitting shift). Sometimes that one goes smoothly, sometimes it's just chaos, and I never know until that day. The rest of the week is all opens, which I of course prefer.

Wednesday we'll be heading north across The Bridge to Mill Valley to see...The Verve Pipe! Yes, they're still around, touring and occasionally dropping a new album every now and again. I've been a fan since the Villains album (yes, the one with the famous version of "The Freshmen") and Brian Vander Ark is a phenomenal songwriter and a hella funny guy. I follow his Patreon and he always posts really fun things, from rare demos and embarrassing early-era live songs. Looking forward to it!

Also looking forward to the week after, which is my vacation!! We're heading up to Cabot Cove Mendocino again this year for a few days, just to relax and spend far too much money on books, yarn and eating out. I'm thinking I should make sure my camera batteries are charged, as I haven't used my fancy camera for quite some time and I really should break it out again and use it more often. And the Mendocino/Fort Bragg area lends itself for some really great picture taking.

So yeah, even though it's an odd schedule, I'm pretty much going to see through this week with little worry or stress regardless of what it throws at me.

I have to say this was one of the most relaxing vacations I've had in a while, and I think it worked out well that we'd planned out a trip that wasn't completely filled with Must Do/See/Experience things. We did have things planned out for each day for the most part, but they were essentially 'go out to eat' or 'see this movie' or 'do some shopping' and that was pretty much it. (Not including a few minor errands like laundry and so on.)

It got me thinking about a few things, really. The first one is that come Monday I'll be returning back to the Day Job...and not dreading it. I'm still appreciating the fact that I work at a place where I'm not dreading dealing with an email inbox that's been through the wars. I stopped by the store today to get next week's schedule and while they say it's been a bit busy especially with a few call-outs, it hasn't exactly been terrible.

The second one is that I'm reminded of those school and college vacations of yore, where I'd look forward to Not Doing Anything to essentially get my head back in working order. I'm kind of glad that I'm not in that situation any longer, considering my head is in a MUCH better working order than those days of yore. It's not often that I come back from vacation feeling rested and looking forward to another cycle of work and socializing.

Anyhoo, I have two and a half more days of this vacation so I'm going to enjoy them while I can!

In preparation for our mini-vacation starting tomorrow, we've spent most of today so far (after a tasty brunch at Joe's Coffee Shop) cleaning the apartment. This would include: using the Uproot Clean rake on the two rugs in the living room, a major scrub-down of the shower, washing of bedsheets and blankets, floor mopping, and vacuuming. [I will be starting in on that final one once I catch my breath.] 

And who, you ask, will be watching over our cats in our absence? One of my coworkers will be cat-sitting! They have experience and have confirmed their work schedule fits perfectly on the days we need. They'll be staying here so we're just making sure everything is clean and in working order.

And in between all that, I am of course also doing my weekly PC cleaning, of which I am about two weeks behind on. I'm not too worried considering I've had this new computer for about a month now, but it doesn't hurt to chase out those pesky bugs and fix those weak spots. Thankfully I have not had any PC issues so far other than the occasional internet drop-out (which I've mentioned here before), so it's always good to ensure it doesn't happen anyway!

Am now all sweaty and a bit tired, but it's worth it.

In which I come back from a four-day respite up north (Mendocino) to work four days in a row doing evening shifts. I don't mind them, except for the fact that I walk in experiencing the tail end of the lunch rush, followed by maybe an hour of downtime, then around three hours of the post-work-commute rush, so by the time 8pm rolls around I am wiped. Thankfully next week's schedule is up and it's all mornings, which I prefer!! Those are usually dead quiet from 6-8am and I'm done just about the end of the lunch rush. Then I get to go home and write!

Speaking of the respite, it was quite a relaxing visit up north, even though the drive there itself (around 150 miles) is quite the slog with no really easy way to get there. Most of it is up 101 and that's fine, but I can either turn onto 128 which will take me through narrow-road wine country and redwood forest which is nice but offers few pit stops, or I can turn at 20 further north and take the twisty-turny-up-and-over-the-mountain-road which is also nice but exhausting. Despite all that, we only experienced about 10 minutes of fireworks, had breakfast delivered to us each morning, and even got to visit the bookstore cat (whose name is of course the Great Catsby). The weather was cooler and there was a distinct lack of allergens and pollen in the air, much to our relief. Plenty of pictures were taken!

Up and coming: we will be seeing Motion City Soundtrack again in Berkeley -- the same band we saw just before the pandemic started -- on Sunday, and next Saturday we'll be seeing the Airborne Toxic Event with the SF Symphony! Looking forward to both shows!

Our extended weekend vacation up in Mendocino was quite enjoyable! And by that, I mean that we hardly did a dang thing except go out to eat here and there, visit a few bookstores (including one with a cat, yay!), have a couple of good long nature walks, and sit around in our ridiculous rented room (which was once a water tower, with a lovely seating area with many windows and an open bedroom area with a weirdly high ceiling), doing little but reading and listening to music. 

(Our vacations are usually planned by way of doing all the exciting things early in the day so by afternoon and evening we can just have dinner and relax. It works out quite well.)

It took me a few days to get back to some semblance of order with my daily schedule, as I had some daytime errands to do when we returned, and some local pollen decided to burst forth and get me all stuffed up for a day and a half. By midweek I did manage to get somewhat back on track with my writing, including a stellar day on Thursday. Hopefully I'll be back on track come tomorrow.

Surprisingly, we've been to the movies three times in the last month or so as part of our post-vaccine celebrations. Two music documentaries (The Sparks Brothers and Summer of Soul) and one silly action film (F9: The Fast Saga). Looks like one of the upsides of the theaters being open again is that we can finally see all the movies that have been on TBA status for the past year! Still wearing our masks in public, though, not that it bothers us any.

And today while A remained indoors to deal with her own allergies, I headed to Green Apple to pick up the latest Susan Dennard (Witchshadow), whose books I'm currently rereading, then spent a bit of time and money at the farmers market up the street. We are now awash in fruits and veg! Which is good, because we were running desperately low. 

So! Any plans for this coming week? Not really, other than to get back into my daily schedule and maybe kickstart a few more submissions. I'm hoping the weather will comply, as we are really getting tired of the high humidity prodding our heads!


Hope everyone has a lovely week!

I feel kind of annoyed that I'm not getting nearly as much work done as I really should. I know for a fact that I'm still spending a bit too much time dawdling and delaying when I should be writing. Before I started on these two projects, I was still extremely unsure as to where I was going with them (and from past experience, writing without at least some destination in mind tends to produce a lot of pointless drivel in my experience). That's definitely not the situation with both of these projects now. I'm getting maybe about 600 words a day done for each, when I know I could get at least a few hundred more if I put my mind to it. I definitely need to accelerate here. I'm not asking for 2k each per day (though I could probably do that every now and again if I prepped myself?), I'm just looking to bring it up to maybe 1k each for now. Pretty sure I can still hit that in the time I have.

I've been thinking more about self-publishing Diwa & Kaffi lately. As much as I would love to see a much wider audience for it, I think it's probably still a bit too unique to be a good First Novel, unless I pour a hell of a lot more Salesperson Power into it, which I really do not have. More to the point, that particular novel is one that I think needs a specific outlet and a specific brand (ugh hate that word) and I think I can deliver it (ugh hate that phrase). Which means I need to commission a cover. I have a few online artists in mind that I think could nail the mood and the image of what I'd like to use. I'd need to reach out to them and ask for rates. 

I'm also thinking of looking into using Barnes & Nobel this time out for self-publishing...I need to do more research and pro/con for it, but I've never had all that much luck with Createspace for the physical copies. We shall see.

Meanwhile, A is taking a few days off this coming week so we'll be doing some local fun stuff: heading to the deYoung to see a few art exhibits and have a walk around (which we haven't done in ages), and head to the SF Zoo as well. It's our own local vacation considering we don't have too much else to do at the moment. Some stores and restaurants are opening up again, but we're not going to be in line for indoor dining just yet, not from past experience. I do kind of miss our vacations, though!

A reminded me that it's been a year since our last trip, which happened to be our visit to MA. I just remember it was COLD AF a few of those days, and all I had was a lightish coat and a scarf, hat and mitts. I do miss our yearly visits to the UK and the occasional one to Hawaii! We're not planning on heading anywhere soon (again -- obvious reasons), but it'll be nice once we can do so again.


Hope everyone has a good week!

Note to future self: It's probably for the best that I don't plan traveling vacations to coincide with weekend conventions, as it's becoming commonplace for me to miss the last day due to exhaustion. It's better if I just use those vacations for a full week somewhere, and instead grab single days for those cons. [I don't feel too guilty as I only had one panel today, but it was at 9:30 am and I just didn't have the energy for it.]

The vacation itself was uneventful but relaxing, as we spent most of it just hanging out in Cambridge MA and later hanging with my family. The only real downside was that it was extremely chilly the first few days and we delicate Californians couldn't handle it. Heh.

Checked the work PC just for any updates and to clean out the personal inbox (around 150 items), and thankfully there weren't any broken systems (that I know of) and nothing caught on fire. I'm expecting the boxes I usually work in to be a bit of a mess as they usually are when I go away, but the backup I trained the other day was really good at e-cleaning up after himself, so hopefully it'll be relatively orgranized.

So. Did I get any writing done? Nope. Nada. Zip. Zilch. I did start yet another quick read of Diwa & Kaffi, mainly to prep myself for the con reading (and I'm happy to say I am yet to get sick of my own book, so that's a good sign). I'm hoping to get back on the horse and bring everything back up to speed today, starting with the blog entries and other things. I'm still worried about my current Possible New Projects, as I'm sort of dithering between being interested in them and not being able to find a story anywhere (read: being too damn lazy to look for them in the first place), but I'm not too worried. As long as I'm working on it to some degree, that's what really matters.


Hope everyone is having a good weekend!

 'So far this month hasn't been all that bad. I've been semi-lazy in a few areas but quite productive in others, so it evens out. The long weekend promises some fun at Disney and meeting up with queenoftheskies but other than that, we'll be kicking around just having fun and relaxing. [There's also a chance we may go see the new Makoto Shinkai flick, Weathering with You, on Monday; I've been looking forward to it because he's one of my favorite anime directors at the moment.]

As for the writing? Well, I still need to get my butt in gear and do some submission prep work -- writing up a synopsis for Diwa & Kaffi and gathering the first few chapters together, mainly -- so I can get that out and away ASAP. That shouldn't take too long, however.  And semi-related, after faffing about and growling a bit more about being stuck in a rut, I returned to the College Campus story, which of course is in the D & K universe. I don't have a set main story just yet, but I've been writing flash fiction lately with some of the characters to be featured, and I think they're coming out pretty well. It occurred to me that what I should do is keep running with the flash until I have a goodly amount gathered, and see if I can make a novel or an anthology out of it. So as per usual, sometimes I just have to kvetch about it a bit, get that out of my system, and then I can move ahead again.

Hope everyone has a lovely long weekend!