Illness

Hey guys, welcome back. I know, I know, it’s been a minute since I’ve been here. If it makes any difference, I hate that I’ve been so inconsistent with my posts. However, it’s been a time and I’m back!

We’ve been having some brutal storms here in the northeast, the most recent being the seemingly never ending Nor’easter we just went through over this past weekend. Just two weeks before that, we had almost 8” of rain in a matter of hours after having almost that much just two weeks before that. Living in a coastal town, our city ended up under a lot of water…thankfully, as opposed to many others, I live on top of a hill and we fared well through it all. (Although the wind this past weekend nailed us pretty hard.)

Having said that however, it is my favorite time of the year and frankly, I love a good storm. Not that I like the damage they cause of course. But I’m one for sitting in the quiet, listening to the wind and rain rattling the windows while I sit inside with a hot beverage and a good book. Fall feeds my soul. Add in a storm? And I’m in a good place.

(Also, we have VERY loud kids who live in our complex that do nothing but let out high pitch screams for hours and after a Summer full of that, having them have to stay inside because of the storms was a nice break.)

Unfortunately, I’ve also been sick. Even coming off antibiotics, I’m very much still not right and haven’t been motivated to do much. All I want to do is sleep. Although I’m back in a nice rhythm with edits again and have been reading a rather excellent new book, I literally fell asleep with my hands on the keyboard last night. I didn’t remember doing it and woke up in a cold sweat of panic that I deleted chapters by accident. (I didn’t, but it woke my ass up that’s for sure!)

It’s discouraging because I had been doing well. I was walking so much better, working out almost daily again and just gearing up for my favorite time of the year. Then I pushed myself too hard one day and haven’t been right since. Walking is so damned hard. I thought I had Covid, but thankfully tested negative even though every symptom is there. Went on two rounds of antibiotics and still, I feel like hell.

With no discernible immune system, I can’t just get the sniffles. I get sinus infections that lead to bronchitis that in the past has led to pneumonia and 10 years ago, led to me on crutches barely able to hold myself up. I get sick every Fall like it’s on the calendar of public holidays.

I was talking about this earlier. Someone once asked me, ‘if your favorite time of the year is September to New Year’s Eve, but you get sick every year during this time, why is it still your favorite?’ I mean, I get the question. Logically, there should be no reason for it. I should dread this time of the year knowing what’s coming. But Fall? Is my soul season. (So much so, I made a design out of that phrase for one of my shops.)

The leaves changing, the crisp air, NO HUMIDITY OR MOSQUITOS, looking forward to the holiday ads…every little thing to come just gives me a happiness I don’t have the rest of the year. So sure, I may end up in bed and looking at the goodness outside through a window. However, watching my trees change color has me taking deeper breaths of relief. Living in hoodies and snuggling down under blankets have me sleeping deeper. I smile more. And what is so wrong about that? Nothing.

We all have those things that make us do that. Smile. These days, we need to hold on to those things even more. Hold on to the smiles. Hold on to the happy. Hold on to the little things that give us the breaks from the stresses of life.

Do I worry about my health? Of course I do! I’ve been dealing with so much over the last 10 years not to. And now I’m in a panic over possibly losing my insurance when the new year comes. Something, I cannot afford to lose with my situation.

So let me see some bright orange, red and yellow leaves. Let me see the silly M&M Halloween commercials. Let me spot the super early holiday ads promoting new light displays and trees. Because these simple things are not only fun to do every year but hey, they’re free! And when they say money can’t buy happiness? While ok, I can’t fully agree with that, as money can buy books…but there’s so much to see and do this time of the year that IS free and creates a happiness not found at any other time of the year.

I have a line in my manuscript that resonates so much here and is so, so true: “Happiness doesn’t come along that often my friend, grab it while you can.”

And that is where I will leave you for today. As always, I hope you got something out of this post and I thank you so much for hanging in there with me. Consistent posting or not, I promise to keep coming back and hope you will as well.

Until next time friends…Cheers!

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If you’ve made it this far, I thank you and will see you soon!!! 🙂

Hey guys, welcome back! I hope everyone had a great weekend. I know we here in the Northeast for the most part had great weather. Of course, we here know that can change hour by hour so we revel in it when it’s good. Especially this time of the year!

I’ve personally still been sick. I had posted a few weeks back that I was dealing with something and this has been with me since. Ironically, it’s been going on just as I hit the anniversary of when my life was changed by illness. If you’ve read my ‘Bit of Personal History’ page in the About section of this site, you know that I’ve had quite a health journey over the last 9 years. (Ok the page still says 6, but that’s because I wrote it three years ago.) Well, this particular illness now is hanging on and it’s been frustrating as hell. Not that it is stopping me from writing and working on my book, but still, this happening at my favorite time of the year is really pissing me off. Sorry, but it is. But on to other things…

I’ve mentioned several times that I’m in a cycle of reading and rereading and rereading my manuscript. I’ve become rather obsessive doing this and again I want to drive this point home…YOU CAN NEVER READ YOUR OWN WORK ENOUGH!

Even with going on more than several times of reading this book, I keep finding things to fix, to add, to cut and of course, the dreaded missed typos that I may have missed the other eight or nine times I’ve read the thing. That’s ok though. What I’m finding, is that the jokes are still landing. The tears, both happy and sad, still fall in the right places and I’m genuinely surprised at lines I’ve written several months ago. I go into each read through fresh and I think that is helping the process.

I just finished another one right before I started to write this post. Sure enough, the last few chapters (not the ending, I’ll get to that in a minute), had me all over the emotional map and I was feeling all the feelings. I’d been waiting to read these last few for days, having been stuck on a few previous chapters for over a week, reworking them quite a bit. So when I got to these last ones, I surprised myself with what I had written. It had been a while since I read them and while I was dreading them, I ended up being happy with what was on the pages.

Let me go back a second…not dreading them in the sense that I thought they were bad. Just that they were the newest I had written and so little had been edited. Plus, to be honest, I hadn’t read through the last five or so chapters. I honestly forgot a lot of what was there. However, I’m glad I did because I really am happy with how this story has progressed and now that I’ve done this latest read? It is time to start gearing up for the finish line.

I’m not looking forward to finishing this book. I know I’ve said that several times that I don’t want the story to end. However, the past couple of days, I’ve come up with what I think will be the ending for this one and how I can bring these characters back for a sequel/series. It is finally starting to come together in my head and the only problem with that of course, is that I want to start writing the next book! Of course, I still have to finish both this one and finish editing my first novel. And that one needs a tremendous amount of work. Plus, I don’t want to leave these current characters. If I go back to my previous book, I will lose the momentum of this current one…really I’ve written myself into a vicious cycle.

This is the problem that I know a lot of us have. We get more story ideas and soon, our files are filled with started books, while very few are finished. That’s me. Right here. If you were to go into my docs, you’d find quite a few novels begun and only one fully completed.

I’m so determined to finish this current one and get it sent off with my query letter as soon as I can. I’m getting excited for it now. I really am. I know there’s still a lot of formatting, cuts and more to happen before I can send it off, but just knowing that it’s getting close is keeping me going! (It also makes me a little nauseous as well from nerves, but hey that’s life right?)

I would love to say what a great thing it is to have so many ideas. In many ways, it is. But it can also be more than overwhelming. For myself, it reminds me to take a step back. Reevaluate what’s important right now. I’m big on pro/con lists. I’m also big at writing down new ideas until they are out of my head, thus the several started novels in my docs files. (Insert head slap here.) This is where I should mention that I also keep reading a ton to get my mind off of all of this. The beauty of that of course is that it clears my mind for what’s next. So whether it’s reading, going for a run, watching a ball game or binging a show, doing something else can clear your head and find the answer you need. For me, while reading another book, out of nowhere I was sparked with the idea for my ending. I know a marketing guy who used to get his ideas from running. Creatives need other outlets to fuel their work. Right now, if my other outlets could help me get to my own finish line? I will be forever grateful.

And that is where I will leave you for today. Thank you so much for being here and following! Until next time…Cheers!

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If you’ve gotten this far, I appreciate it and will see you soon! Thanks all. ☺️