Never Enough Sleep

My fur clan was so thrilled to see me after I got home from the airport last night they had to check on me every hour or two all through the night. I missed them, too, but a randomized mix of nose nudges, kisses, and whines don’t put me in the best mood when it’s 6:30 and it’s the 5th time it’s happened. This, after a week of indulging my night owl tendencies and going to bed between 3-4AM… and getting up before noon. I’m feeling pretty wiped out today. Doesn’t help that I forgot to take my immune support nutraceuticals before spending the day on the planes so picked up a little bit of a cold.

So one of my new-find Facebook funnies pages came through with exactly the right image to sum up my life lately. Last week, too, there was widespread coverage about how much better off everyone would be if they slept longer and started their days later. I’m totally down with that, and have been lucky to have had a string of employers who allow me the flexibility of living a work schedule that more accurately reflects my natural (apparently genetically determined) circadian rhythm of sleep.

As anticipated, while visiting Gayla, I did less than half a mile a day of walking (around stores, for little things we regularly forgot, or around the horse barns taking care of horses), but I managed to cross off two major goals: I completed revisions and edits for both books 1 and 2 of my Red Slaves series and migrated the new files to distribution through Draft2Digital. If you’re an indie author and haven’t yet looked into them, they are AWESOME. Their text import/formatting for both .mobi and .epub files far outstrips what’s available at Smashwords in terms of ease of use and fidelity to the original, and in the three months since I’ve made the switch for all my other books, I’ve seen increased sales for my back catalog that have already outstripped what I had sold on Smashwords in three YEARS. Since my experience reflects Gayla’s as well, we both assume there’s something about the way Smashwords does its distribution that does not favor the visibility of books distributed via that catalog. I would be curious to hear whether anyone else has had a contrasting experience.

For my “what in the world are they thinking” files, the news this week that scientists are reviving a 30,000-year-old giant virus… Seems to me those guys might want to brush up on their scifi/fantasy reading, for object lessons from Jurassic Park, any zombiepocalypse stories, or even the slowpocalypse story by Tam Linsey I got to crit this spring, which is now through all its edits and available for sale.

I also began work on book 3. Incorporating crit partner feedback (and dealing with plot holes that became obvious after re-reading/editing the first 2 books) takes time. I don’t think I’m going to make the goal of finishing writing (& revising) book 3 by September 24th, which is the end of this year’s round 3 of ROW80, but I’m glad I’m at least back in the saddle with this story and making decent progress. I’m even over 300 words to the plus despite various cuts I’ve made in my latest draft. Now that all my travels are done (at least until next month when we return to WI for a family wedding), my schedule shouldn’t be such a mess that I can’t log the time to write. I’d certainly love to finally complete the story arc I started 3.5 years ago. Or 5 years ago, depending on whether you’re counting publish date or start-writing date.

Time on the various airplanes means I have a backlog of book reviews to write as well… But I’m putting those on hold in favor of my fiction for the moment. I don’t want to lose my little bit of momentum.

😀

Until next week, then, I’ll be getting used to regular walks and a reliable writing schedule; in the meantime, see how my ROW80 cohorts are doing with their goals.