Monday, January 13, 2020

Productive and Refreshed

This past weekend, I had the first real weekend off in a very long time.

Rejuvenation means different things to different people. Here's what it meant to me.

On Friday night, I was supposed to meet Sue Midlock (local author and artist for The Adventures of Cornell Dyer chapter book series) for coffee at Barnes and Noble to discuss books and such.

Instead, with the weather turning icy, and Sue tired and meh, we hung out at my house drinking tea (her) and coffee (me) talking about varied topics (and only a little about books).

Sue left the house several hours later looking more awake than when she entered it. Yay!

On Saturday, I wrote a nice draft for the prologue of The Phoenix (the first book in the new BryonySeries Limbo trilogy) and a chapter in Lycanthropic Summer). Both are two very different books, so working on them in the same day required two very different mindsets.

But mid-afternoon, after finishing the prologue, Timothy suggested we head to Gloria Jean at the mall for refreshments: a tea for him, hot chocolate for Rebekah, and coffee for me.

The mental intermezzo (and coffee) did its magic. By bedtime (after a very nice dinner for Rebekah), I had one chapter completed and ideas flying out my head faster than I could note them (but I could read the scribblings in the morning, another hurray!).

Sunday was busy, so instead of heading up to Divine Liturgy in Homewood, Timothy and I went to a very early morning Mass at the Cathedral of St. Raymond, where we saw Sue and her husband.

At home, Rebekah and I went for coffee (tea for her) and we then we tackled a variety of projects: 2019 tax information for the BryonySeries, the final formatting for Phyllis' memoir (proof copy on itt way), creating accounts for distributors of the Bryony audio book (we are very close to announcing a release date), and signing and "carding" the latest shipment of books (about 80 in all).

Then Rebekah switched to her own projects, and I headed to a meeting with Tom Hernandez (my WriteOn Joliet co-leader) and Catherine Yanikoski Adamowski, the deputy director of the Joliet Public Library.

The Joliet Public Library became an official sponsor of WriteOn Joliet, so we updated Catherine on our plans for 2020, and Catherine updated us on the ways the library will be helping us with services and marketing for 2020. LOTS of plans in the works, very productive meeting.

Rebekah and I ended the day by working out.

The days were interspersed with some social media and a couple phone calls with family and friends.

While my idea of down time may seem busy to some, for me, it's far less busy then my work week, but I do thrive on my work.

At the same time, the down time, rests that "working" part of me and allows a different creative side to emerge. Both feed the other so that I'm able to happily let the weekend go in favor of work and vice versa.

It's a very happy Monday, readers, writers, and BryonySeries fans! :)



Illustration by Kathleen Rose Van Pelt for "Bryony."

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