Florida Hurricane Watch

So yesterday was the Katrina anniversary and all the attendant emotion, and my oldest daughter calls at lunch to let me know her hurricane plan for Dorian next week.  She’s  planning to stay on Disney World grounds and ride it out in their hurricane facilities.

She’s moving onto the property likely Saturday and will just wait it out there, cooking for guests and employees of the hotel.  They will likely have guests because this week was the opening for the Star Wars attraction and a lot of people are not going to be able to leave before the storm hits.  SO that is the deal so far.

I just pray that it weakens before it hits Florida. I dont’ want her to have her own hurricane trauma.  She remembers Katrina but this would be as an adult on her own and away from family help.  She has friends there who can help if they need to she says, so we will see what happens.

I’m holding up okay thus far.  Getting ready to eat lunch; not sure what I’m going to get but I’ll manage.  Started reading Biloxi last night and it’s not too bad.  I’m not yet into the meat of the story, but we’ll see how it goes.  Hopefully I  will knock it out in short order and start on the others as well.

Hope everyone has a good weekend and can stay safe from the weather here down south.  Thanks all for reading!

 

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FInally

Finally I got started on my reading.  I went back to my habit of reading while soaking in the tub,  I can’t take notes on it or anything there but I can tab pages that I like and write them down later as to what I found interesting.  So it is a start.

I worked on my pages for my nonfiction class first and will start on my Welty reading tonight with the book Biloxi by Mary Miller.  So that is a mind game I have been playing with myself over with–at least I hope so.

We’re getting close to Bob’s surgery date–it’s next Tuesday, the day after Labor Day.  So he will have his hernia repair and be out of commission for a couple of days.  I hope it goes as simply as everyone is saying it will.

Friday night is my youngest one’s first away game with band and Bob and I are planning a date. We’re going out to eat and I hope we have fun.  Not sure if we’re going to do anything else than that but it will be a nice interlude.

My moods seem to be holding steady if I could just get rid of the sleepiness in the morning.  I went back to sleep again even after going to bed at nine  last night.  I dont’ feel depressed but I sure am acting it.  I want to feel good again.

 

Eating or Sleeping

Those seem to be my choices lately for how I spend my time–eating like there’s no tomorrow or sleeping the sleep of the dead. I woke up and ate breakfast, then got back into bed and woke just around 11:15 and ate lunch.  Now I am trying to stay awake and everything else.

I need really to move my “office” off of the kitchen table to keep from eating so much.  My middle daughter has offered her room, but she needs to clean it out before I move in.  That will be about six months from now.    So I need to exercise more willpower.

And I need to work on classwork. I did do reading last night after our class conference and soon I will work on one of the discussion questions.  THen I will read the other book tonight and answer the other two questions.

I don’t know why my mood is headed south so badly. I have plenty to occupy my time.  I just feel bad.  Maybe my mood cycle is tightening.  I just don’t know.

 

Classwork

Trying to do all my reading this week so I can respond to the class discussions.  I started last night after finishing everything else and got an okay start.   I need to check the syllabus and find out how far to read for this week before I start commenting,  So far I like the craft book we have to read.  Then I need to start on the memoir for this semester. So that will be interesting I hope.

We have a class meeting tonight and will see how that goes.  One girl in the class is on the European continent (!) and we may have to rework times so as to accommodate her.  So we will see.

It’s raining AGAIN.   This is August in Mississippi, not November.  I don’t like so much rain.  It depresses me terribly, makes me so sleepy and all.

I did finish my article on the Mississippi Book Festival and am sitting on it a couple of days before I send it off.  Then I will reread it and see what I think, then send it off. Hopefully it will be good for them and what they want.  I’ve enjoyed doing it an hopefully can bring some people in from other places to come see us.

I’m also still working on my fiction piece–I want to title it “The Sins of the Father” but I’m scared that will give too much away about the outcome. I’ll need to think it over.

So hopefully it won’t rain all day like yesterday.  I need to stay awake and get things done.  Hope everyone else is having a happy Tuesday!

 

Raining

It’s been raining all morning here and I need to go to the grocery store, but I dont’ want to get out in this messy weather.   I don’t like going to the grocery store under the best of conditions, so now I really don’t want to go. But we are just about out of everything so I need to.  Don’t know what I’m going to do or when I’m going to go.

I could get my reading done while I’m waiting for the rain to stop.  I think that may be what I do with my morning.  Either that or finish my article on the MS Book Festival.  I thought I only had 1,200 words, but looked back at the email and saw they are allowing me 2,000.  So that helps enormously.

Or I could work on my fiction project, which is going to be difficult to fit in with everything else now.  I’ve got two more sections to do and I’ll see what I can do with them.  Two sections in their past and two in their future.  Two sections in 1986 and two in 2006.  So we will see how that goes.  So many fun choices of things to work on!  Maybe I can get it all done in due time.

WEll. let’s see what I can settle down to work on.  Hope everyoen has a happy and productive Monday!

 

 

 

 

Catching Up On Reading

I am reading for my nonfiction class–several pieces of flash nonfiction and essays on how to write flash nonfiction.  I am hoping I can improve enough in this class.  I need to keep my focus on what I am doing and not on what has to be done in the future.  I feel so much better that I want to plan ahead, but I’m not sure that I won’t get overwhelmed doing that.

That said, I have a short piece due Sunday on a “familiar object”.  So I think I’m going to write about my bed in our master bedroom.  What it looks like, how comfy it is, and how I tend to think that as long as I am in the bed, nothing can go wrong :).  So hopefully that will be interesting.

My youngest marches in her first football game of the year tonight, so I am all dressed in Brandon colors–that’s what I went shopping for yesterday.  Picked up a couple of other things–some new fall outfits and a new dress to wear to the Welty Gala in October.  So I did well picking up from sale racks and what not.  I’ve lost enough weight to go down and pants and dress size–so that was kind of nice to find out.

WEll, I guess it’s back to the reading.  Then to more writing.  Found out my mental health  MCIR articles will come out in early September.  So that is nice to know.  Hopefully they can help someone.

 

 

 

First Day Back

Lots of reading is in my future for this nonfiction workshop.  I naively thought it would just be he required textbooks. Nope.  A lot of supplemental reading as well as keeping and turning  in a reading diary where we’re supposed to pick out passages that struck us while reading.  So that is the way we start off.  I already posted my introduction and will be working on my upcoming flash piece due Sunday. My other class hasn’t opened yet so I am still waiting on its syllabus and whatnot.

I started on my nonfiction piece about the book fest last night–got four-five paragraphs done and sent out a bunch of feelers for further interviews so we will see how things go.  I am still thinking on what I want to do for my fiction piece–I am thinking maybe do two more sections and then wrap it up.  I don’t know.  It keeps saying it wants to be long and include more narrators, but all the other characters would be evil and I don’t want them to have their say so I don’t get the dreaded “unlikeable narrator” trope. Anyway.

So I’m going to start reading and see where I end up with nonfiction workshop.  Looking forward to a new semester!

 

 

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Pay Dirt!

I pitched an article yesterday to Parhelion Literary Mag and they accepted it!  I’m going to write about the MS Book Festival that I went to last weekend!  I am really looking forward to this one. I’ll talk about me and Mary Jane and the authors and all that we went to.  Not sure if I actually get paid, but it is a good name and I need all the encouragement I can get.

Aaand I got a very sweet rejection from Typishly.  Good dialogue, good story. Just not quite enough of something unspecified. But I don’t feel bad because they are as always so nice about it.

So school starts tomorrow also and I am looking forward to that. Hopefully I won’t get too  overwhelmed with that.  My main class only has two books, but I’ve never had this professor before so I don’t know what to expect in the way of workload.   And I know I’m behind the 8-ball on the other class; c’est la geurre.

And I finished a scene yesterday on my new fiction.  I started at the end–now I’ll go back to the beginning and see what to do with that.  I’m going to work on it as long as I am still excited about it.  We will see how long that lasts.

Hope everyone has a good day and a good rest of the week.

 

 

Everyone’s Well!

As well as we ever are, I suppose I should say.  But the stomach bug is gone and my youngest didn’t get it so all is well on that front.

The podcast went live last night for my interview with Jack Criss–it’s on Anchor.fm under “Now See Hear with Jack Criss” if you want to give it a listen. I think I did okay except for overuse on the word “Um”.   I wasn’t thinking as fast on my feet as I usually do so I paused a lot.

In another two days I start class for this semester. I am looking forward to it!  I want to see what all I can write for my memoir this semester and get the Welty Residency out of the way.   So that is good to look forward to.

I finally got the last phone call for one of my MCIR stories yesterday and so the press should be rolling on that set of stories soon.  I look forward to seeing them onsite and seeing who all might pick them up.  ANd the money will be nice, too,

Well, I have a new story that came to me ysterday that I want to work on so I am about to start typing and see where it goes.

 

 

 

Recovering

Not sure how coherent this is going to be.  I spent yesterday sick as a dog with my stomach so I am not firing on all cylinders today.

THe book festival on Saturday was wonderful.  Me and Mary Jane went and enjoyed ourselves thoroughly.  We heard Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor speak, went to a Southern Humor panel with Harrison Scott Key, heard Anne Patchett speak, then I went to the Southern Fiction panel where Mary was appearing.  It was a ton of fun seeing everyone and talking up a storm to people.

And I spent all day yesterday in bed sleeping on and off after throwing up ini the morning.  Now Bob is home throwing up so it must have been a bug instead of just the food truck food I ate Saturday.

I start school this week on Thursday.  SO that has me excited.  I need to send off my tuition. Life had just interrupted me doing it.

Hope I continue to feel better and that Bob doesn’t; get too sick after me.   Hope everyone has a good beginning to their week.  I think I’m going to go play on social media.