Hey guys, welcome back! Hope everyone has been hanging in there with the heat, wherever you are. Here in the Northeast, we are gearing up for a long stretch of brutally high temps and I’m already counting down the days to my first pumpkin spice latte.

If you know me at all, or have been following along, you may know that I am not a summer person. Ok, so that is putting it lightly. I hate this time of the year. Having said that however, the last few years, I’ve been learning to embrace it a bit more. I think I even remember enjoying the last few summers! (Go figure.)

This year though, I’m just trying to get through it. Not being someone for hot weather, it is already gearing up for a long season. I’ve been escaping into books as usual and have a line of holiday themed ones ready for Chrismas in July escapism. I’ve already seen back to school ads on tv and I will be looking for the first fall catalogs to come in the mail after the 4th of July, which always gets me through.

Now I know a lot of you out there are rolling your eyes and that’s fine. I do the same when I hear the complaints about cold weather and the holiday ads coming way too soon. So I get it. What many don’t understand though isn’t just that I’m not a fan of the summertime, it’s a difficult season when you live with chronic illnesses.

When I was younger, I had a lot of fun in the summer. Vacations or cookouts with friends, it was all good. When I got sick just under 10 years ago, the hot weather started to wreak havoc with the pain that I deal with on a 24/7 basis. You see, I have what some call ‘invisible disabilities.’ Meaning, you wouldn’t know to look at me that I have a whole lot going on.

Between pain and breathing issues, it has taken a toll on me. If you’ve been following along here, you know that I started my latest setback last August. I missed out on my favorite time of the year because of it. (September-New Year) So here we are in summer once again and I was JUST starting to pull out of this setback. I’ve been a little more active. I’ve been able to help out more, doing such trivial tasks as taking the garbage to the other side of our complex and grocery shopping. Yes, I’ve even had fun at the grocery store. I mean come on, they play good music there now!

With the heat though, comes a little backslide. The pain increases, sleep is hit and miss. I’m either completely passed out or up for a day or two. Add humidity to the mix and my breathing is shot to hell. And to add insult to injury? My bedroom AC died and I’m dealing with a room that got up to 97 during the last time the temps rose. This time I’m trying a few different things to get the room cooler, just call me MacGuyver!

I’ll get off of this subject in a second, just wanted to say, if you know someone who deals with illness of any kind, be sure to check up on them. Make sure they are ok. Be sympathetic if they are having a tough time or keep canceling plans on you. There just might be a reason they do that and that reason could be that the heat is giving them a harder time than they usually have. Enough of the soapbox, let’s get back to the regular stuff…

During one of my sleepless nights, or in my case, days, I suddenly had an idea about how to cut a shitton of words in my manuscript! It would help cut my word count by a whole lot and bring about a deeper part of the storyline that has been lacking. Now I just have to write it.

With ADHD comes a lot of doing everything but doing what I’m supposed to do. So after I had this remarkable revelation on how to fix my book, I did what any other writer would do. I read a book, did some laundry, cleaned the bathroom, binge watched 9-1-1, edited previously edited chapters. Now it has been two days since I figured out how to fix this story bridge and I have yet to rewrite the section.

The one great thing about this, is that I know I’m not alone. I’ve befriended a lot of writers on the internet and we all do the same thing. We do anything but what we are supposed to be doing, ADD or not. It’s in the author’s DNA to postpone the work. Thankfully, I’m not on a deadline. Actually, if I was, I’d do it last minute like I always did in school. (At least stuff got done.) Having no deadline means I can take my time to make this right. Or binge more Chicago Fire when my brain decides to take a vacation.

The point here is, I’ve figured it out. The execution of it? Hopefully I’ll have better news on that front in a future post.

In the meantime, for those celebrating, Happy 4th of July. For those beating the heat? KEEP HYDRATED. And for those sticking with me throughout all of this? I thank you greatly!

Until next time folks…cheers!!

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If you’ve gotten this far, I thank you and will see you soon!