Well, it’s been a couple of weeks now, and it’s time for me to stop the mourning and get back to work, which I’ve been doing. I’m really pleased with my progress on The Water Bearers: In the past week alone, I’ve written 10,000+ words, more than I did all summer. (In my defense, I was having too much fun with my kids to spend much time writing.)

It’s good to be back in the groove again and feeling productive (Did you notice my new background? I’ve got bright, fresh dandelions now, instead of an old, grey seed; speaks volumes about my spirits). I’m hoping to finish off this first draft by the end of the month. I don’t know if I’ll ever publish it, but I promised my kids (and myself) I’d at least finish the damn thing. Right now, it’s acting as a giant, metaphysical cork, stopping up the work on my other manuscript that I’d really prefer to be doing.

I thought about posting an excerpt here, but when I turned off my laptop (after saving in eleven different places), it went into update mode (“Update 1 of 2,372 now in progress).

Yeah, saving doesn’t do diddly squat for you if you can’t access it during the updating process. Perhaps an excerpt next post.

At any rate, my current plan is to finish it by October 2, a giant stress-relieving birthday present to myself. We’ll see how well I manage my goal this time around (because I completely f**ked up my summertime one). Stay tuned!