Sorry it’s been a minute since I posted anything. For the one or two of you who keep up with this nonsense, it was sort of a planned hiatus. After 2 years of COVID lockdowns, I finally felt like it was safe enough to travel north to Virginia and see my family. I’m not sure there’s been a happier Mimi than there was when we pulled up in the driveway. Naturally, a vacation of that scope and scale tends to impact one’s productivity, especially with a combined 24 hours of driving there and back.
In addition, I still have a day job. There are some impending changes in that arena which have me focused on pretty much anything but HVE on most days. I’m also starting rec league hockey again tonight (at 11:15pm–no, that’s not a typo) so I’m chugging caffeine and stretching as often as I can think of it.
I’m so close to the finish line, though, I definitely need to get re-centered and get the manuscript submitted to Ingram. My perfectionism is kicking my butt about paragraph spacing, scene separators, and little fiddly details. I really need to get over myself and just put it out there. Once I get this finished, I can focus on The Beautiful Island and start reviewing Mom’s box of research for Vernon. There’s so much there, I’m not certain how I even begin! I have some ideas and, so far, Mom is down with everything. I promised myself, however, that I will not write anything new until HVE is published and I have a copy in my own little hand. I’m sticking to that!
Lastly, at the risk of violating my own policy of keeping this blog focused only on my literary pursuits, it feels like it must be said: #IStandWithUkraine. I have had the pleasure, over the last couple of years, to work directly with many people in Kyiv, Lviv, and Dnipro, and it hurts my heart to think that those wonderful people are in danger, sheltering in the subway with their families. I hope that this needless violence is ended soon.