I haven’t posted here since the middle of October. Instead I’ve been, well, knocking down a series of piñatas that have come floating up one after another. Slow-moving targets, but each requiring a fair amount of energy to knock down
In the last few weeks, I have:
Finished drafting HEAVEN IN FLAMES. (Will probably require rewrites, however.)
Celebrated a birthday. (yay)
Scheduled the first of three joint replacement surgeries. (yay?)
Completed a proposal for the next two Praxis novels.
Finally organized my 2024 taxes into a coherent package that my accountant may actually understand.
Started a piece of short fiction that is unconnected to any other project, to any deadline or expectation. I’ve been busy writing novels for ten or twelve years now, and working on a shorter piece feels like quite the liberation. I don’t owe this story to anyone but me!
And while this has been going on, I’ve been dealing with the fact that our building no longer has a working elevator. We’re on the top (third) floor, and now I have to painfully hobble up and down stairs with my cane. It’s much worse, of course, if we do something unwise like buy groceries, because we then have to drag our purchases up the stairs somehow.
This has been going on for three weeks now, and seems to be entirely the fault of the Otis Elevator company, which has taken its damn sweet time to find and ship the necessary replacement part. But at any rate, I’ve disposed of the various tasks that have been a drag on my life for most of this year. I have laid my burdens down. I have enough leisure to enjoy myself without having the feeling that I really ought to be doing something else.
Maybe I’ll hook up the PlayStation I bought back in April. I haven’t even taken it out of its box.
Or maybe I’ll just kick back and enjoy the holiday season. And let someone else carry the groceries.
