I feel like I’ve been defaulting to a lot of apologetic personal updates on this blog of late–and by a lot, I mean two–but I also feel the need to offer some kind of explanation regarding why I’ve been more or less radio silent for the last seven month or so.
In short, I’ve been BUSY.
I’m not always good at making an honest account of everything I’ve accomplished and everything I’ve been doing. But even I can’t pretend that there aren’t a few key things that have swallowed a surprisingly amount of my time this summer and fall.
1. Travel
Since July this year, I’ve taken five separate trips. My husband and I spent a week in Portland, OR at the end of the July and the beginning of August, which marked our first visit to the Pacific Northwest. We had a blast hiking, exploring the city, eating a bunch of good food, and spending a ridiculous amount of time in Powell’s Books.
We went to the Canadian Rockies with my parents in early September to visit my sister who lives there, and we were (largely) blessed with gorgeous weather the whole time. (September in the mountains is a dicey proposition – sometimes it’s warm and almost summery, and sometimes it snows.) We explored and hiked around a couple of cute little mountain towns–including the cute little mountain town where my sister lives–and drove a portion of the Icefields Parkway into British Columbia. I’ve never seen so many glaciers, breathtaking mountain views, or beautiful lakes in one place.
We also made a short sojourn to the Twin Cities with some friends in October, where we spent most of our time wandering various beautiful neighborhoods strewn with beautiful fall foliage and popping in and out of restaurants and coffee shops. Between the St. Paul Conservatory and the Mississippi River National Park, we got plenty of outside time there too.
My husband and I also made two separate trips to two separate parts of Wisconsin for two separate friends’ weddings. One was in August right after we got back from Oregon–this delightfully musical affair that took place (at least partly) at a local theater. The other was a costumed Halloween celebration that took place at the zoo in a snowstorm. (Yes, really.)
2. Work
I’d mentioned back in July that I landed a new job, but the transition between my old job and new job wound up taking more time than I expected. Although I officially stopped working as a full-time employee at my old job at the beginning of August, I stayed on as a part-time employee through the end of September. I also began freelance editing in earnest around the end of September, and that has kept me surprisingly busy.
(Side note: Hey! I freelance edit! If you’re a fiction writer who’s interested in getting an extra pair of eyes on their work, please check out the editorial services page on this blog to see whether I might be a good fit for you.)
3. Other Writing Projects
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Much as I love this blog and blogging, the work I hope to get paid for often has to take precedence over the work I do for fun.
I made decent progress on my novel this spring and summer, although not as much as I would’ve liked. (More on that in a later post.) I finished revising a spooky short story I drafted last winter and started shopping that around. I also placed a short story with this anthology, which was produced by a local writing organization and is available for purchase as of November 5th. My piece is about a forbidden romance between a female stowaway and the second mate on board a merchant ship, and I’d encourage you to check out the anthology if it–or any of the other stories–sounds interesting. There are a lot of good writers featured!
I’ve also got some cool writing news forthcoming that I’m not willing to share yet, so stay tuned.
4. Personal
For the sake of this post, personal is a big old catch-all for “the various lesser life changes and struggles that don’t really fit under the umbrellas of any of the previous categories.” My husband and I are in the process of figuring out where we’ll move, what our timeline for moving needs to be, and what logistical steps we’ll need to take to pull a move off. My parents came out for a lovely weekend visit in October. I turned thirty in October. My mental health has . . . not been great (although not because of turning thirty).
What I’m trying to get at with this post is that I’ve been on the cusp of a whole lot of changes. Mostly that’s a good thing; I feel like I’m finally taking steps toward the life I want to have. But all that upheaval has made time management difficult, and any number of things beside this blog have suffered for it.
My goal is to post at least a little more regularly through the end of this year and into the next, but we’ll see. I also need to make a committed effort to finish the first draft of my WIP before the year is out, and I’m not sure how compatible those two goals will be.
I’m going to do my best though–for myself as much as anyone who happens to be reading this.
What have you been up to this summer and fall? Let me know in the comments.