I'm Baaack! And other bits of news.

Well, I got discouraged over the none response to blogs and then tried to blog again at Christmas, but my Blogetary at on the Wordpress blog had crashed and I didn't know how to fix it so I gave up. I guess I could have blogged here, but I gave up. And I was busy. So last night, I finally got back on the bandwagon because my blog got fixed. So now I can repost here what I blogged there. Hopefully you'll enjoy it. Or not. I do meander.

Rachel Olivier at Mountain View Cemetery, January 2014

See there? That's me at Mountain View Cemetery last month when Mom and I went out there to track down a relative's grave. It was a good trip. Took three hours to get out there by bus, but it was a good full day. And it was a good visit with my mom. So,where have I been? Well, somehow, back in December, when I was writing a blog, something got messed up in the innards, the code, of the thing. I don't know code. I didn't know how to fix it. I didn't have time between making Christmas presents and trying to get back to work on my novel to track down an answer. Then Mom came to visit. It's taken this long for me to have a good solid hour and a half to spend on the phone on hold so I could find someone to help me out. *sigh* But it's done now, and here I am!

The game plan, back last fall and winter, was to finish my novel and be able to email/mail it to people who had volunteered to read it by Christmas or New Years. But, with the crafting and the Christmas and the cleaning and the visit, and then there was a complete restructuring of the first part of the book, all creative work on it came to a halt. Now I'm trying to get that momentum going again while my friends still have a sleepy winter to read through. I don't think that's going to happen. Chances are I'll send out the book to them right when they're all going on vacation or really busy at work. There's still so much I need to catch up on. Last fall I was staying up until 2 or 3 a.m., sleeping until 8 a.m., going to work, coming back, taking a nap, and then ignoring everything but the novel, assuming I could then finish by Christmas and then move on with everything I was putting off. But instead, the novel isn't finished and neither are all things like bookkeeping that I put on hold for so many months. And I'm trying to go to bed early and get up early.
I think I might need to go back to the stay up until 2 a.m. and get up at 8 a.m. schedule. I got stuff done then. Trying to be in bed by 10 or 11 p.m., I end up awake at 1 a.m., and have a tough time getting back to sleep and I still sleep until 8 a.m. So, I'm still tired and nothing gets done. I hate afternoons. I never get anything constructive done in the afternoon. It needs to be at night. That's when my brain relaxes and opens up and work gets done. I used to always say I needed to live someplace where I'd sleep in the afternoons, so I think I'm going to go back to that. See if that won't kick my brain back into gear so I can finally finish this huge multi-character fantasy novel book thing that's been sitting in my brain for the past 30 years.
In the meantime, though, I still need to do those other things - the bookkeeping, taxes, housework, seeing to family issues - things that I put off for so long. And I still need to get to work, pay bills, and somehow find more work so I can make the rent that was raised this month.
We'll see how this goes. I was so ready to have this book done by the end of December, and now I feel like that song, Brother Can You Spare a Dime. I grew up hearing Judy Collins singing it, and whenever I felt depressed or like things weren't going anywhere, that was what it felt like to me, even back in high school. And then I start asking myself why I can't just be normal and want a regular job and regular life like everyone else. But then Utah Phillips - or more correctly Dorothea Brownell - said it best when she said to Utah's daughter Morrigan when she was complaining of the same thing about her dad. (I recommend listening to the entire 6:45 minutes, but the bit below shows up at around 4:50) Imagine the desire of young tween girl to fit in and not be embarrassed by her dad.
Morrigan Bell: "Why aren't you normal?!"
Dorothea Brownell gives Morrigan's shin a kick. "He is normal! What you meant to say is average!"
I try to remember that, but it takes work.
That's a bit of what's been going on here. Hope to get back to blogging regularly and more coherently and focused. Please remember me for any of your proofreading or copyediting needs. Or if you need an article written or a resume revised. Or check out my fiction and poetry at rachelvolivier.com.