My mailing list is broken. It’s been broken since, like, Easter, and I still have not managed to summon the wherewithal to lodge sufficient relevant helpdesk requests to get the thing fixed. I’ve tried a few times, but nothing so far has worked, and then *jazz hands* there was cancer and things just got too complicated.
The fact that I’m thinking about it again now though is a good thing: it means I’ve got a little more brain space to be able to do so, which means… maybe I can get it fixed by, oh, I don’t know, the end of the year? 😛
The whole living-with-cancer bizzo is settling into a new-normal routine at last; hospital visits are predictable and routine, the kids are back at school for the final term of the year, the mad flurry of ‘quick visit Amy’ visits has passed and instead has settled into a steady trickle of people I enjoy seeing, which is good for my mental health and extroversion. I’m coping a lot better than expected with being home 24/7 from that perspective, actively enjoying the quiet and solitude tbh. So: idk. Maybe blogging again soon. I’d like that.
In the meantime, picking away at edits for Touchstone (yay!! I am so excited about some new things that have cropped up in edits, this is going to be such a better book for this process, I’m so terribly, terribly proud) and also drafting a new book in a category I’m thinking of as “cosy mysteries with magic for kids”. Same sort of vibes as The Ice Cream Crown Skating Races, if you imagine two sprawling groups of siblings living on pegasus stud farms 😀 My own kids are in the target age range and are giving feedback on chapters as I write them, which is actually delightful. The book doesn’t have a title yet (though I think maybe the series* does?) but it’s lighthearted and easy and fun, and I’m drawing on a big horse stable I plotted out when I was literally in primary school that I somehow still have the chart for, which delights me to no end. (See, Ma? That wasn’t hoarding, that was Preserving Useful Information!)
* Yes, it’s a series, bwa ha; yes, I have series coming out my ears, oy vey; yes, I am aware that I really need to close out the series I have open before diving too deeply into more >.<
As well as all that, I’ve fallen neck deep back into Art Land, which is not really surprising, BUT ALSO I’m being gently and persistently and awefully surprised by just how nourishing it feels? Like, the dining table is just half covered in sprawling art supplies and that’s just The Way Things Now Are? And this is so delightful and charming and makes me so happy? It is delightful; it is delighting me; I am delighted.
Also fell neck deep into Clifton Strengths land, which I might come back and discuss here one day or I might not, but I found it via Becca Symes’ work (she’s an author and an author coach), specifically Dear Writer, Are You Intuitive, which has literally changed my life because it shifted how I thought about myself like a lens snapping into focus, and the Clifton Strengths (which, yes, I paid to do the full official test) has been wonderfully clarifying and validating, and I think I’m going to come out of this with a much stronger, resilient relationship with my writing if nothing else (but actually, it’s ‘plus a bunch more else’).
Also gardening, completely sporadic but sufficient that we shall be well fed in a few months when it truly warms up (I’m keeping track of the time I spend in the garden on Instagram at @DuskwoodAU if you care to know how little time it takes to be Well Fed from your garden! Hint: it’s not very much, so far totalling less than 12 mins per day since I started keeping track in early Sept), and also LANGUAGE WORK omg so exciting.
Did I talk here yet about how I fell down that hole back in approximately May? No idea. Can’t recall. I did, however, fall down that hole, because it became apparent to me that my main universe (do you want to know the name? It has a name now, yay!) needs Languages Because Reasons, reasons being that language reflects a lot of culture etc etc etc and I went to write a ‘short little novella’ that happened to include all seven of the fairy halls and SD:LFKJSD:FLKJ slammed headfirst into a wall because I was like uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh that means I need to know what these SEVEN VERY DISTINCT cultures LOOK LIKE after idk 4000 years of history and BAM, there we were, inventing languages.
This is relevant now because a) I’m picking away at it again and b) I am EXCEEDINGLY proud of myself because I’ve finalised the Light Fey writing system, which is based on COLOURS rather than LETTERS and OMG THEY DO EVERYTHING FOR THE AESTHETIC AND IT IS STUNNING.
Literally. I’ve made an entire writing system that is FUNCTIONAL based on colour.
I am so stupidly happy.
…That seems like a fairly comprehensive update of Life Right Now, especially if I note that as well as being neck deep in all those other things, I am also right at this minute neck deep in publishing work for Liana’s All I Want For Christmas Is A Cryptid, and also in editing work, which… I think I’m not going to do any more. I finally have time in my life to concentrate on my own writing, and that’s where I’d like my focus to be. So. After this book, no more editing. (Not the Christmas book, to clarify.)
If I was a better person, I’d fill this post with hyperlinks to All The Relevant Things, but eh. At least I am writing a post, let’s be grateful for that. Instead, I’m just going to remind you that you can subscribe so that you get my sporadic blog posts in your inbox and don’t have to come looking (sporadically) for them, and also that it’s nearly November, which means it’s nearly time for Christmas Miracle Is Just A Saying to be born into the world <3 Sassy lil Christmas Eve in novella with Arabella, who doesn’t want to go home from Christmas, and her buddy Jenson the wereshark. Naturally.
Be good, stay safe, enjoy whichever season it is where you are – and hey. Maybe go make something this week, yeah? It’s really, really good for your soul. <3
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