As the World Turns

 

It's been warm enough to swim for most of the last two weeks! 

And, if the weatherman is to be believed, it will be warm enough to swim for most of the NEXT two weeks. Usually, we don't get these long stretches of warm weather until we hit May, so that's both the good news and the bad news. Good news for me. Probably not so good for the planet. It's major drought time in California.

But we're all gonna die anyway, so oh well.

(I try not to say that around the Office Elf as it doesn't inspire her to do her best work.) ;-D 

So it's been a crazy-ass distracted start to the year, no lie--and also no signs of that letting up anytime soon either as we're once again trying to refinance the house. Also I'm going through getting our rental property up to snuff. This is time-consuming and nerve-frazzling stuff that I've been putting off for years, and now it has to be dealt with. 

But about the books. 

Hide and Seek is coming along beautifully--that 500 words a day thing is really paying off in a chapter a week.

The Movie-Town Murders is also coming along, but it's a more complicated story and, as I said, there have been a LOT of interruptions. Also a LOT of rewriting. I know I'm overthinking it, but at the same time, I have to be happy with it. Hopefully, hopefully, HOPEFULLYFORTHELOVEOFGOD I'll be finishing up by the end of this month. 

I've got (I think) half the book, but despite my detailed outline, I'm not writing in linear fashion, so it's more like...well, picture the parts of a clock--gears, springs, tiny cuckoo bird--scattered across a work desk. The bits and pieces are all there, but not in working order. Not yet. 

But it's coming. And I really love where Sam and Jason's relationship is at. 

BUT CAN IT LAST? 

Who knows. 

Anyway, after The Movie-Town Murders, I jump right into the next two Secrets and Scrabble books, and then...I don't know. I don't have anything else officially scheduled. There are plenty of things I want to write--I really, really want to finish the Holmes & Moriarity series this year--but given how insanely slow things are going right now, I'm afraid to commit to anything. To be honest, this year's goals weren't about books and writing so much as getting my house in order. My literal house but also my metaphorical house. 

So that's where we are. I'm working, I'm writing, the books are happening, but I've resigned myself to the fact that this year someone or something is going to be knocking at my office door every half-hour. I'm trying to be patient and good-humored about it. Four months in, I can safely say this is not the year I planned, but what else is new?