Oy veh. What a week the last few weeks have been. Stress levels haven’t been just through the roof, they’ve been somewhere out beyond the orbit of the Moon, so my body’s said, “OK, I’ve had enough of this fun.” Welcome to knock-you-flat-on-your-back fatigue. To quote the lyrics from the ’70’s rock band Spirit, “It’s nature’s way of telling you something’s wrong.” Boy, howdy.
That Stalled Book
I’d like to blame it all on the draft of book #3. Progress has come to a screeching, grinding halt. I shouldn’t be surprised: I knew, even as I was writing the second draft, that there were significant problems. Then my writers’ group found what they found, and my own read-through and analysis found even more.
OK, fine. I’ll interview my characters. That’s a technique that’s helped before. It sounds schizophrenic, I know. They’re my inventions, but I’m going to interview them?
It’s kind of like “method acting”: putting on their personality while an anonymous interviewer peppers them with uncomfortable questions. One of my characters got so annoyed she dropped the f-bomb several times! Well, that’s who she is. 
So that helped. But not enough. The problems are WAY deeper, especially with two story-lines, and so far I don’t have any answers. SIGH.
Head, meet brick wall. Oh, you’ve already been introduced? Well, meet it again! THUD.
And this is a job I WANT to do?
Yeah, it is.
I know the right answers, the right insights will come eventually. I just hope it will be before the year 2525. “If man is still alive. If woman has survived….”
The Old House
The news hasn’t all been bad, though. Remodeling work has started on the old house. The old flooring has been ripped out, the new tile is going down, replacement exterior doors are almost on order, the new exterior paint colors have been selected. And I’m not living there while this is all happening.
That should be a stress reliever. Yeah, well. When the house is sold….
Art in the House
Who’s Art? No, not Art. Art, like in artwork. Week by week I’ve been putting up more and more of the stuff that’s been in boxes for the last six to ten years. Or longer. Like this batik that my Dad bought ages ago and no one ever had a place to put it.
It brightens up the powder bath, don’t you think?
This Dancing Rama batik is one that I hung in my house in Oklahoma, but it’s been in storage since I left.
But the pieces I really wanted to get up were two stained-glass windows.
My Dad and I found them in the feed room of an old chicken coop that used to be on our property in Denver. We had no idea where they’d come from or how old they were. A neighbor who did stained glass rehabilitated them, and years later they hung in a north-facing window in the house my parents moved to. But then they went into storage and had rarely seen the light of day until a few months ago.
I asked my cabinet builder, Jeff McClain, to tighten up the frames a bit.
Speaking of Jeff, he also delivered this display cabinet for the “oriental” bedroom recently.
Little by little, the house comes together.
Recent Comments