The Plot Bunny Farm

Autumnal equinox is tomorrow. I’ve always loved fall, crunching leaves under foot, sipping cider… not so much the growing dark, but we can’t have everything.

Wrote 262 words today, in addition to freelance works and having the kids home from school. Not much, but it’s progress.

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Slight hitch at the beginning of the day, as we ran out of milk. Had to make eggs for the girl’s breakfast. So I ran off to the store after getting her on the bus to school. First time in 13 years of living here that I had to stop for a train at the train tracks.

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Last week went even better than I’d thought, with several days over 1,000 words. This week is being more of a struggle — not sleeping as well, trouble focusing, barely eking out a hundred words or so each day (119 today, for those keeping score). As I said in my newsletter — which went out today, a couple days late — I’m considering tracking my time to see how much I’m spending in the different areas of my life. If you’ve got experience or anecdotes about your own time tracking methods, drop them in the comments. I’m interested!

Meanwhile, I’ll be working on enjoying fall and watching the changing seasons around me. Here, one of our holly bushes is covered with berries, but they haven’t begun to redden yet.

And here we have the sedum, the flowers just starting to open.

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Big joy: The OPPM was released to SFWA’s membership today. Yes, it had the caveat that it’s always a work in progress, and will be updated in the future, but it’s out!

Another big joy: I got good words today. Well, I’ll know if they’re actually good later, but it’s certainly a good amount.

Words written today: 1,071
Words written this month: 2,041
Words written 2017: 157,352
Average words/day 2017: 634
Books completed 2017: 2 (plus 1 novella)
Pages read today: nothing yet
Books read 2017: ? (Yes, I still need to figure that out.)

But look at that — twice the number of words I set as my goal! *happy dance*

Small joy: Season 7 of My Little Pony is out on Netflix, finally, so my daughter did her own little happy dance. (The Internet was reporting it was supposed to be out last month, but no such luck.)

Small sadness: It’s pouring rain, which means I won’t be going to the weekly meet-up of the NaNo group writers. But I miss more often than I go, so it’s only a small sadness.

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In this case, I have doubled from 112 words yesterday to 226 words today, all written while my daughter was doing soccer practice. I must have looked a little odd sitting there in my camp chair, left hand wrapped around both the umbrella handle and the iPad, as I pecked away with my right hand. Very happy with the words.

Also was pleased with daughter, who was not the fastest nor most graceful on her team, but who did happily participate. And when they switched from practice to play, she did her best, first on defense and then as goalie. Next week, though, we’ll definitely bring a hair tie for her.

The rest of the weekend was split between puttery house and family stuff (organizing under the kitchen sink, baking chocolate chip cookies, supervising daughter very laxly as she did laundry) and SFWA stuff (hit a milestone on the OPPM). Oh, and watching my husband play Arkham Knight.

I’ve got a lot on the agenda for work and SFWA and home this coming week, too, but I want to ramp up the writing to at least 500 words per day this week. I won’t lie — I want more. I’d love to be doing ten times that and have the next book drafted in a couple of weeks. But I know I can’t jump from here to there without burning out — and probably dropping other things I’m responsible for getting done as well. So I’m setting the bar at 500 this week, and we’ll see how that goes.

(Oh, yeah — and it’s occurred to me that Inktober is in less than a month! I can’t wait!)

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Although I did write yesterday, I got to it so late, I didn’t bother posting. For the record, I got 101 words yesterday and 160 today.

So many things to juggle — SFWA work on the OPPM, invoicing for copyediting, finishing up an application for the Sustainable Arts Foundation’s award for writers who are also parents, taking the kids shopping for shoes (and pants for the girl, as she outgrew last year’s), back to school night to meet teachers, school paperwork — and that’s just today and yesterday. As I said, lots of loose ends, and this week is just about tying some of them off.

One of the girl’s homework assignments is to bring leaves to school so they can classify them. Maybe I should send a hosta leaf with her.

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Last day of summer vacation (not counting the weekend). I didn’t spend as much time as I could have this week with the kids, though I did make sure to spend some.

Still writing, too. 451 words today, after SFWA stuff and freelance work. More next week!

The big adventure for the week, though, was going to Genrepalooza in Manhattan. Organized by MWA’s NY chapter and HWA, it had writers from RWA (NY chapter there, too, I believe), SFWA, the Author’s Guild, and maybe others — I didn’t talk to everyone, and the pictures I took are blurry. I enjoyed the trip, though, and took pics in New York. Had to take pictures of the Chrysler Building, as anyone who’s read my short story “Blood and Gold” will understand.

Pictures from the trip:

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(Which is probably at least the three hundredth eclipse pun headline you’ve seen today, I know.)

I have to confess that I haven’t been writing much. The last week was focused on getting Siren Circle up for sale. Today, while waiting in line for eclipse viewing glasses, I started outlining another novella — this one to be a prequel novella, before Ghost Garages, and thus hopefully a good hook for people to start the series. I will get back to work on the third Boston Technowitch book, though.

So pictures today:

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In our yard. Which is not fantastic, but not exactly surprising, either. And gives an indication of just how much rain we’ve been getting.

Anyway, not a lot on the new word front today, and what there was, I didn’t count, as I was working through edits on Siren Circle and hence, both adding and deleting as I went. I may add some words later on book 3, Troll Tunnels.

Meanwhile, enjoy these pictures.

Originally published at Erin M. Hartshorn. You can comment here or there.

… and one more, and one more, and …

Is it just me? I keep taking on little things at random intervals, and that works great for a week or two, but then these other little things land, and suddenly I’m needing more sleep so I’m clear-headed enough for everything, but I’m not sure how to get more in my schedule. Yeah, maybe that’s just me. And it’s a recent thing, too — used to be I’d skip sleep to try to get everything done,forgetting about diminishing returns.

Anyway, only 152 words today, but also some thoughts for further down the series, so that’s good.

Random things from today:

Saw the new building that my husband’s department got moved to.

Made a simple strawberry ice cream with the girl. (Whip 2 cups heavy cream with 1 can sweetened condensed milk. Fold in 2 cups mashed strawberries and some pink food coloring. Stick it in the freezer.)

Made the okonomiyaki again. Pickled ginger is a good addition. As is bacon.

Originally published at Erin M. Hartshorn. You can comment here or there.