Crash & Burn

The past week as been...  Well, exhausting would be a good description.  A week ago today, I did a final polish on To Love a Cowboy (working title) and sent it off to my editor and agent.  One major thing crossed off a very long To Do list.

The funeral of my friend Mickie (see blog post below) was held on Thursday.  A sad day, brightened only by getting to see (and hug!) old high school friends, then a chance to spend some time with one of my BFFs.  Plans went awry, and I hurried back to the city to pick up the youngest  granddaughter and, later, the daily chore of picking up the other four g-kids from two schools.  After getting out of bed and hour earlier than usual to take oldest granddaughter to school, Friday was spent catching up on little details, then running through the usual pick-up-the-g-kids and the normal catch-up with other things, such as websites, email, Facebook...

By the weekend, I was ready to do as little as possible, but a request from my youngest daughter late in the day to run a shopping errand for Christmas things too precedence.  Then supper at oldest daughter's and off to bed.  Sunday turned out to be a sleep-in day, then hurrying to catch up on the time spent sleeping.

Somewhere, exhaustion set in, which dribbled into Monday and lasted through the day and a too-late night.  Then yesterday, momentum picked up.  Catching up with laundry and cleaning a bedroom took up the day and early evening.  At least the clean bedroom provided a catalyst to get up and move.

Now I'm back to Wednesday again, with all but one thing left to get done of the dozen on the To Do list.  The plan had been to take the week to do much-needed cleaning.  While the bedroom isn't completely finished, my office disaster, thanks to deadlines since July, needs immediate attention.  I'm still trying to find out how the belongings of others find their way into a room that should be exclusively mine.  Okay, mine, the cats' and the dog's.  Oh, and Johnny Depth, the Beta fish.

At least the center of my desk is relatively clear.  That's a good thing, because tomorrow I'll be working on AFS (Art Fact Sheets) for the book coming out next August.  What's an AFS?  It's information about and photos of the main characters of the book, with three scene descriptions and a short and sassy thirty-word teaser about the book.  All for the cover.  But that's for tomorrow and the weekend, if necessary.

If the old saying, "No rest for the wicked" is true, I rank right up there with the Wicked Witch of the West.  But even she crashed and burned.  Okay, she melted.  And that's how I'd been feeling for the past week, until, as in the Broadway play and book, Wicked, by Gregory Maguire, Elphaba rose again.  (For those who haven't seen or read Wicked, that's all I'm going to say. ::wink:: )

November is coming to a close in only a week and a half.  And then the crazy month of December descends on us.  We shall overcome!  Or at least I will.  Determination at its best.

Friday's blog topic?  Writing tips...but which one?

 Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward. ~ Kurt Vonnegut