The KU Book That Consumed Me

“This book consumes me.” These are the words I wrote in my journal one night, when I spent most of my day writing in the March KU book. (Note: KU means Kindle Unlimited. I started out writing this book strictly with the intention of it being an ebook available as a free download on Kindle Unlimited, but now I am thinking of making it a print as well, because two people I know who want to read it prefer print books.)

 

I had hoped to get this book written in one week, but at 30 chapters and nearly 150 pages, it took me two. It didn’t help that, during the first week, I was also working on a writing assignment. For that week, I spent half my day working on my assignment, and the other half working on my book. Trying to stay focused on two different writing projects got to be pretty challenging. I was able to turn in my assignment on time, but that experience was exhausting.

 

Which is why I prefer to focus only on the book when I am writing it. For the second week, that’s what I did – perhaps a little too much. There were times I was absentminded about other things (I left my keys in the lock on the front door!), I was late to pick my kids up from either school or work, and I often lost track of the time at night while I was busy writing or doing research, which meant late dinners.

 

I’d get up in the morning and start writing it.

 

I’d stay up late at night writing it.

 

I’d battle headaches and sleepiness while I was working on it and getting those chapters written.

 

I actually ended up moving a chapter to another location, as well as changing titles of chapters I had originally put into my outline when I was preparing to work on this book last month. I also got an idea for another chapter that I hadn’t even thought about before!

 

And, unfortunately, I neglected certain duties – housework, walking the dog and my usual reading routine – while I was writing this book.

 

I kept tabs on how many words I wrote each day. At one point, I started keeping tabs on how many chapters I wrote each day. My followers on Twitter and my Facebook pages were often apprised of my progress. But after a while, I stopped sharing word counts, because it felt like bragging. But when a fellow writer told me that all of this writing-related stuff I was sharing inspired her to get writing again, I realized that perhaps sharing this stuff is not so terrible after all. I was excited that my efforts to write this book was inspiring another writer to get writing again! Yay!

 

That is one of the reasons why I share my efforts with writing: I do want to inspire others to write, too. Or, get back to writing. I want to be an example to others. I want to inspire others. It doesn’t bother me at all when people copy things I do; if their copying is something that is GOOD for them and something that can bring joy, accomplishments and inspiration into their lives, then copy away! I told the universe one day “Use me” because I want to inspire others, motivate others and bring positive changes into the lives of other people.

 

That motivating factor recently played a role for me – when I was actually writing this book.

 

I am subscribed to a monthly newsletter sent out by a fellow writer. In one issue of the newsletter, she talked about writers who were able to write 10,000 words in one day. I was stunned. How was that possible?? The most I’d written was a little over 2,000 words. (That’s not counting the words of the 7 chapters I wrote in 1 day on Christmas Eve! All that writing was done in a notebook and I didn’t count the words.) Even so, I wanted to see if I, too, could manage to write 10,000 words in one day.

 

Well, I sure got close!

 

It was on Day 13 that I wrote over 5,000 words. Oh, boy! What a day that was! I woke up ready and eager to write in the book, so that’s what I did. I sat down at the computer, opened the file, and started typing. After I wrote three chapters, though, I crashed. Not from headaches, this time, but from another deterrent I have been dealing with lately: Sleepiness. I’d get VERY sleepy sometimes and conk out for 2 or 3 hours. (My doctor is currently running tests to find out why this is happening.) So, after I woke up, ate something, and was feeling strong enough to write again, I got back to work.

 

Then the power went out! ARGH!!

 

Thankfully, my youngest got the power back on and, thankfully again, I remembered what I had written that was not saved before we lost power. I am grateful the power stayed on during that time I spent writing!

 

On that day, I wrote 4 chapters, the afterword, and the Introduction for the book. It was all totaled to over 5,000 words. I got halfway to my goal of 10K! Yay!

 

Here is the total word counts for when I was writing this book:

 

Introduction: 530 words

Day 1: 3876 words

Day 2: 2124 words

Day 3: 2601 words (2 chapters)

Day 4: 1186 for 1 chapter (had bad headaches today and couldn't write the second chapter that I wanted to write today)

Day 5: 4910 words for 3 chapters

Day 6: 3240 words for 3 chapters

Day 7: 3217 words for 2 chapters

Day 8: 1342 words JUST ONE CHAPTER TODAY BECAUSE OF HEADACHES!

Day 9: 2791 words for two chapters

Day 10: 2205 (two chapters)

Day 11: 3675 (two chapters)

Day 12: 4,635 (4 chapters)

Day 13: 5,732 words for 4 chapters, afterword and introduction

Afterword: 380 words

 

TOTAL: 41,647 words in the first draft

Second draft (after some edits and revisions): 42,023 words

 

That is not so bad. I noticed I am a little short of 50K words here, which is what I aim for since I want to write a NaNoWriMo novel in November. This is why I am keeping track of word counts. I want to be able to write that novel with 50K words!

 

Hopefully, I will be able to find a routine to make that work. When I am working on the books, I don’t keep track of how many words I write. I keep track of what I get DONE for the day. I go into the day with a goal to get certain things done for each book: A chapter written, a section of the book edited, a part of the book revised or a poem written for a new collection. These are what I aim for, not the number of words written. But because I want to do NaNoWriMo this year and write 50K words, I need to pay attention to my daily word counts. (I DID write a novel for NaNoWriMo one year, but it came in under 40K words. Drat!)

 

I will keep trying to get to my 10K words in a day goal.

 

Right now, however, I am going back to work on the group of books I have been working on before I started working on this book: The next GHOST Group book, edits on the haunted houses book, writing End Game and also writing my next poetry book. I am also working on my next writing assignment, which is due at the end of the month.

 

For now, that’s a wrap. I’m done. The March KU book is out for edits and I have completed putting everything else together for it (both front matter and back matter). I am DONE doing research on this book; now to do research on the next book!

 

And, thankfully, the next book will be an easy one for me. It’s just a book of quotes on a theme. It won’t need too much work on my part, and zero work from the editor. I think we both could use the break!

 

Books published in 2016

Earlier today, I saw an old meme I had shared on Facebook about how I should believe that “good things are on the way” for 2016. I saw that, shook my head and rolled my eyes. “How very wrong that was,” I muttered to myself. Yeah, I was hopeful that this new year was going to be a good one. Better than the last, at least. But it wasn't.

Well, no one in my immediate family died this year, thankfully, but some relatives did pass away. One of my aunts was among them. The year 2016 just ended up being a crappy year. And of course a lot of us are not going to forget the large amount of celebrity deaths that happened this year, either! Seriously, it was like more celebrities died this year than usual. I normally don’t care about celebrities or celebrity news and I’m not the kind of person who goes crazy over any ONE celebrity. But I DID notice this happening. I did see the pattern. There were a lot of celebrity deaths in 2016. Some people started calling 2016 “The Year of Death.” Indeed, it was that, for a lot of people – and not just celebrities! (One of my cousins also died this year, too.) Some people saw this year as a way to prepare for Armageddon – and this warning was often followed up with the comment that it would strike on January 20, 2017.

But, yeah, on a serious note, 2016 wasn’t really a good year. There’s just so much bad stuff that happened this year.

So I am not surprised I didn’t get many books out this year, either. I did plan to self-publish two children’s books, but I was sick for the entire month preceding the pub date of one of them, so I could not get it out in time. I just bumped it to next year.

So there was just one children’s book that was published this year. That book was God’s Birds. You can read the story behind the story here.

The second book published this year was released by my publisher, Gypsy Shadow Publishing. That book was Burning the Midnight Oil Revisited. You can read the story behind the story of this book here.

I did try to get the new version of the haunted houses book out this year, but, oh my God, it has been a NIGHTMARE trying to self-publish this book through Createspace. I have never, ever run into the kind of formatting problems and obstacles of self-publishing a book with CS as I have with this one. (One of the problems I have had? They would not review the ENTIRE 577-page file I submitted for review. Only like 35 pages of it – and they approved THAT! Uh, no!) So it has just taken me so much work to get it formatted the way THEY want it and get everything right with it. I am STILL working on that! But if this one last attempt fails, I will have to look elsewhere for affordable self-publishing. The good news is that the new file is shorter.

I am really excited about the prospect of getting this book out. It will happen someday soon, I hope! Martha and I worked very hard on updating this book and adding new material, and I know it’s even better than the first one.

Another thing I could not do this year was finish writing my YA novel. Writing this novel is NOT easy! There is so much limited research on this topic and I’m doing the best I can to construct a realistic story based on what little research I have been able to gather on this topic. But I know I will finish writing this novel soon.

And while I also could not finish writing one poetry book, I DID complete work on another poetry book. That book was Seasonal Songs. You can read about the story behind the story of this book here.

I hope that next year will be better. I am not going to predict what books I will get out next year, only that I hope the number will be higher than this year. That would be nice. It would be VERY nice if I manage to get all the books out that I hope to get out for next year, but we will see.

And I wasn’t able to get a new writing job this year, either – or ANY new job, really! – but I’ll keep trying.

Burning the Midnight Oil Revisited: A look at how writing parents are still burning that midnight oil

Many years ago, when I was working as a freelance writer, I hit upon an idea: Why not interview other writing parents to see how they manage to balance a writing career with the demands of parenting? I got that idea sometime after my first child was born and I read in an author’s acknowledgments about how he’d spend time working on his novel while his children took naps. Having been in the trenches myself, I got to experience just what it was like to be a writing parent! Gone were the days I could sit at a table and blissfully write for hours without interruption. Meeting my deadlines was starting to get tricky as I battled exhaustion and/or sick days (either me or my baby being sick), and I really had to learn how to manage my time better in order to keep up with my assignments. So I really wanted to know how other writers out there were managing it.

Fortunately, I was able to write – and sell – these interviews to the Write From Home website. I eventually interviewed many other writing parents (including Kim Wilson, who owned Write From Home) and included those interviews in my book, BURNING THE MIDNIGHT OIL: How We Survive as Writing Parents. This book was published by Booklocker – and I even interviewed Angela Hoy (who co-owns Booklocker) for the book!

As I worked on that book, though, I got to see just how many writing parents there are out there. I decided to do a second volume – though my journey there wasn’t an easy one!

Sometime after I started interviewing writing parents for the second book, we had major computer problems. Somehow or another, the entire folder containing ALL of my interviews for Book 2 was lost. I was devastated! I had all of those interviews and had all of the contacts in that folder and it was all gone! Getting that information from the email account I used for this purpose wasn’t possible, either – because that account had been deleted by the email account provider! (I don’t use that email provider anymore. Gmail all the way!)

I was forced to accept this disaster and move on. I wasn’t happy about it, but there was nothing I could do to fix it. My plans to get this second book put together were finished.

Fast forward several months down the road. I was poking around on the computer’s hard drive one day, getting files sorted and everything organized. I came upon a mysterious folder and decided to open it.

Lo and behold, there were all of my interviews for Book 2! Not only this, but I also found my list of contacts for the interviewees, as well. Yay!

I contacted everyone I had not been in touch with for so long (I think it was 2 years, at this point!) and let them know what had happened. Almost all of them were excited about this book being a go again – one of them, however, ended up backing up so I had to remove her from my list. I also contacted some NEW people to include in this book and was excited that they agreed to be in this book, too. Everything was coming together again! Hurray!

I got back to work on this book and, eventually, finished it up.

The next thing I did was work on getting it to a publisher. My publisher Gypsy Shadow was interested in the book and so I sent it to them. They accepted the book – and suggested I give it a title change so that it would not be confused with the first book. So BURNING THE MIDNIGHT OIL: How We survive as Writing Parents, Volume 2, became Burning the Midnight Oil Revisited.

Burning the Midnight Oil Revisited was published at the end of October. I was so thrilled to finally see this book get published! Yay! The book contains interviews with 27 writing parents as well as 9 essays I wrote about being a writing parent that were published in the BTMO Book Zine. There are also resources for writing parents included at the back of the book. 

I was really happy to finally reach the end of that journey and also that all of those people who invested their time to be interviewed by me for this book had not wasted their time for this after all. I was also happy to get the word out about these writers in the book.

Many thanks to the following writing parents for agreeing to be interviewed in Burning the Midnight Oil Revisited:

Maggie Ball
Frank Baron
Bettina Jenkins Bathe
Linda Carlson
Cheryl Dellasega
Michelle Dunn
Shanta Everington
Judith Fitzsimmons
Julie Fletcher
Lee-Ann Graff-Vinson
Jenn Greenleaf
Shanna Groves
Bill Jelen
M.L. John
Marie D. Jones
Mary Potter Kenyon
Tim Leffel
Mysti Linne
Steven Manchester
Dellani Oakes
Cathe Olson
Karen Putz
Mridu Khullar Relph
Gregory J. Rummo
Laya Saul
Kate Tenbeth
Tim Warneka

Thank you also to Denise Bartlett and Charlotte Holley of Gypsy Shadow Publishing.

I am very thrilled about this book being published and learned some good tips from some of the writing parents included in this book. My first child is a teenager now and I also have a young child and so I am still dividing my time between writing and parenting. These days, my writing career has taken a major shift, as I no longer have deadlines hovering over me and I will also soon be more active in publishing books instead of writing them, but I am still writing here and there so I can still relate to trying to find time to write while also being a good parent for my child. I hope this book will help other writing parents out there struggling to find balance, or perhaps they will be inspired to keep going just as these parents interviewed in this book have inspired me.

Dear Successful Writers: Please keep your snobbery to yourselves

A common sentiment among writers is that the nonwriters just don’t get us. They don’t know what it’s like to be a writer, what it takes to be a writer and how hard we have to work in order to get somewhere as a writer. It’s that last part that I can relate to. Years ago, I’d get criticized by family members for being on the computer so much, especially after my first child was born. And I would tell them, “I’m working!” Or that I was writing. And they weren’t happy that I’d try to squeeze in some work while on vacation, either. Oh, yeah, I have TOTALLY been there as far as being criticized by family for the things I do as a writer. But they’re not writers themselves, so I’d remind myself, They don’t get it.

But this week, I came across a statement directed at all writers. And this particular statement came from a writer. And in this case, I may be able to shrug it off and say “She doesn’t get it.” But she should have. I was really fired up over the snobbery behind her message. It just really got to me because I was once in that situation as a writer.

Some background.

When I first started as a freelance writer, I made it my goal to get published in the glossies. I did not JUST want to be a freelance writer; I actually had a goal in mind. I wanted to accomplish something as a freelance writer. I got sooo excited by all the talk successful freelancers kept doling out about how if THEY can get a six-figure check or land an assignment at one of the glossies, then I can do it, too! Oh, gee! Sign me up! Yeah, I was really taken in by all their talk. I read their stuff and I did what they did.
 
I was so taken in, in fact, that I spent ten years of my life TRYING to accomplish the same thing they did. That’s right. TEN. YEARS. And I wasn’t just sending out the occasional query whenever I felt like it or not reading those magazines.

This was what my life was like during those ten years:

I was working at the computer for AT LEAST 8 hours Monday through Friday, researching markets, learning EVERYTHING I could about writing a good article, sending out queries and brainstorming for ideas. I was also networking with other writers. I kept an Internet presence. I tried like heck to get my name everywhere, to get my name KNOWN, just so editors at those big-name magazines would recognize me.

And I did that for ten years.

Did I manage to get one article into one of those major magazines?

Nope. Not one!

I did get into a few national magazines, and that was great, but I never really broke through the surface. I never made it.

And I wasted ten years of my life TRYING to make it.

And after 10 years, I threw in the towel. I decided this freelance writing thing just wasn’t working for me anymore. So I quit.

Now, after having been through that, and after being forced to work for low pay only because I had to help support my family, I couldn’t help but get a little fired up over this writer lashing out at other writers who write for low pay and think they’re work is not good enough to TRY to write for a higher paying market. It bothered me because, first, I HAVE tried, and I felt she was wrong to get up on her high horse and judge all the writers toiling away for peanuts and acting like they’re not even trying to get paid better for their work. It also bothered me because I HATED writing for low pay when I wrote for a content mill, but it was WORK, and I needed the work. It was REGULAR work. It brought in good money that helped my family A LOT.

Yes, I probably COULD have decided to not try to get a job that required writing and, instead, try to get a job as a waitress or secretary or grocery store clerk, or something like that. And here again is where I have the whole “I already TRIED to do all that!” answer for them. I have tried applying for several nonwriting jobs and not one of them came through. One lady even told me that if I had been able to communicate on the phone, she would have hired me for the job. But she had to stick that whole “I can’t hire you because you are deaf!” sign in my face and tell me to take a hike.

So, I took the job that I COULD get: Writing for a content mill. And it was a good thing, anyway, because I was able to prove to myself that, going back to something like that, I could do it even better than before.

I don’t regret ever going there, because I did it for my children, and I really become irritated by writers who thumb their noses at those of us who don’t even have a choice. I have had writers I have known who became successful who dropped me because of that gig. They decided they lost all respect for me and became these huge snobs that gave me the cold shoulder.

But, you know what? As a writer who had small children at home, I did what I had to do. At that time, we were struggling financially, and I had to help out. I took the work that I could get because it helped put food on the table, buy the kids clothes and keep the electricity on. That’s what we writers who aren’t such a huge success have to do when we have children. (This particular writer IS a mother, but her kids have grown up and left the nest. She is actually a grandmother now.)

So to those other writers out there, the successful writers who have made it and who think they can judge other writers who are trying to earn a living any way they can, I say this: Get off the snob bandwagon. Stop putting us down. Think for a minute that maybe we ARE trying to get into a better paying market. Or that we have already tried. Don’t look at us and trash us for doing whatever it takes to keep our kids fed. We are doing the best that we can. We are SURVIVING.

Finding time to write in the summer

It is almost officially summer! As a writing parent, that means getting creative with finding time to write. Of course I am serious about my writing, but time with my children comes first. Also, we have activities and a couple of other things planned for the summer, so that's something I'll have to consider, as well.

The big thing about being a writing parent is that I refuse to make my being a writer this huge “secret.” I don’t write in a secret room or only when the kids are sleeping. I plant myself in the living room and allow the kids to see their mom writing. The children understand that Mommy writes books and needs to work on her book every day. I tell my daughter, a young author, the same thing: Write every day. So when they see me writing in my book, they respect this – that is, until there’s a crisis or the two of them start fighting. These writing sessions usually don’t last for very long, and with as much writing work as I have going on this summer, I’ll need to find some extra time to get more work done.

To start with, I need to spread the book work out. Because I’m working on 4 WIPs this summer, I can work on 2 books on Mondays and Wednesdays, then 2 books on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Fridays can be used for catching up on work I could not get done. (I don’t usually work on my books on the weekends, but during the summer, I need to make that happen!)

One thing I can do to have time to write is get up early or stay up late. This way, in addition to my normal writing time during the day, I can have extra writing time in the morning or at night. Because my days are completely unpredictable, it could go either way.

Playdates are also nice. A mom who lives across the street has a son who is the same age as my own boy, and the two of them get together every weekend for a playdate. We take turns hosting playdates, and when it’s her turn, that is time right there to write.

My son is signed up for summer school for two days a week. These are ideal times I will have to work on my books – definitely more than one hour of writing time. The time the kids are in school is designated as “me time” – time to write, read or enjoy a movie. The same goes during the summer. While my son is at summer school, I’ll have more time to write. (The oldest is more understanding about my need to have time to write while her brother is at school so there’s no need to worry there.)

Sometimes, I’ll “hire” my oldest, my daughter, to watch my youngest, my son, for an hour so I can have time to write. This is usually when I absolutely NEED the time to work on a book and can’t seem to fit in the time, and it usually works out really well. My daughter is happy to earn a little money from babysitting, anyway. She wants to take on some babysitting jobs when she gets a little older, and this is good practice for her.

These are pretty much the best ways for me to get some writing time during the summer. I don’t want to miss out on summer fun with my children and the time I have with them is very important because they’ll be grown up and living on their own before I know it! So in order to have time to write and be able to enjoy the summer with my kids, these are going to be the methods I will have to start putting to use if I want to get some writing done.

An ebook that is always free

As part of Read an E-Book Week, I’ll be featuring ebooks here on this blog. Three of them will be my own ebooks, but I’ll be sure to include a couple of others. The books featured here are only available as ebooks and not in print format as well. It’s my way of staying true to promoting actual ebooks during Read an E-Book Week!



The fifth ebook I’d like to promote for Read an E-Book Week is my free ebook, Survival Strategies for Writing Parents. This ebook is always available as a free download from my web site. I wrote this ebook when I was working as a journalist/freelance writer and I feel that some of the advice still applies to writing parents. (These days, I don't condone being so uninterested in meeting deadlines.) Thankfully, today's technology makes it easier for writing parents to get more things done. 

I may revise/update this ebook at a later time but for now it is available for free as-is.

Survival Strategies for Writing Parents
Self-pubbed, 2006
Ebook, 22 ppg.
Link

 
Synopsis:
Finally! A resource for writing parents that gives it to them straight from the trenches! Trying to manage a writing career with children underfoot may seem impossible but it doesn’t have to be! This little collection of essays will guide writing parents who struggle to find time to write, manage a home office and work around obstacles to ultimately find success as a writer.



Excerpt:

When “Take Your Child to Work Day” is Every Day

Parents writing from home often find it difficult to keep their writer side balanced. The bad news: You’re a parent 24/7 but also a writer 24/7 because writers are always thinking. How do you keep one afloat while staying true to the other? That’s where the good news comes in: The task is darn near impossible, but just as conquerable.

Keep in mind that just because you’re a writer, you can’t turn off being a parent. The same goes in reverse. You have to figure out a way to lead this double life of cooking for your kids, cleaning up after them (and the house!), getting to the PTA meetings and soccer practice all while managing to meet your deadlines, work on an assignment, write a chapter and interview sources. Just that list could make the uninitiated run away screaming and swear off the job of trying to write from home with children underfoot. But for the serious writing parent willing to work around schedules, do without and be a little creative, the task can be done.

Here’s how:

Make both jobs a priority.

I’m not saying you need to be a superhuman willing to do it all. You can’t. No matter what people tell you, you can NOT do it all! I’m only suggesting you go easy on yourself and do something for the writing here, something for the parenting there. Yes, I am saying you need to do both things at once. I’m saying you need to work on your assignments while, at the same time, committing yourself to the parenting duties. For example, I’m constantly jumping in and out of my seat as I work, typing a paragraph, getting up to get my child some juice, typing another paragraph, then stopping again to admire a picture she drew. There are also times I’ll be typing with one hand as I entertain my child on my lap with the other, talk to her about what I am doing while she curiously examines the screen. I’ll even write a first draft in my notebook at the dinner table then type it all up after she goes to bed. That’s just the way it is.

If you have little ones, you can’t lock yourself in a room and work all day. That’s not possible. You need to give attention to your kids just as you do for your writing. Take some time out to talk with them, ask about their day and even compliment something they’re wearing. It’s the little things that can make a big difference.

Spring Break: How did I do?

Ah, Spring Break. The time when students everywhere gleefully embrace the mornings they get to sleep in, the nights they get to spend wide awake watching movies and the days they get to spend (gasp!) NOT being in school!

It’s also the time every single parent who works from home takes in a breath of dread, preparing for the challenge of trying to balance their work with time spent with their children. And while, yes, I DID spend time with the kids on Spring Break, and we did stuff, I also made it a point of getting things done. Since this was the last week of March, I especially wanted to wrap things up since April means moving forward with OTHER projects on the table. I didn’t know how I’d be able to do it, especially since travel was a possibility for us. (But, unfortunately, our travel plans were canceled after we had some car trouble.) But I took in a deep breath, rolled up my sleeves and stood ready for these five days of trying to work from home as a author/book reviewer/editor, AND find the time necessary to fulfill my role as a mom!

I made a list of the things I had to do this week, just so I could stay focused:

1. Finish editing manuscript for client.

2. Read in the book I am reviewing for the Dabbling Mum.

3. Work on what I am calling “the alien book” – the book I am co-authoring with Martha Jette and Usko Ahonen. I had to finish reading the draft they have put together then send that back with my notes, revised outline and any extra questions and comments I had about what to bring to this project.

4. Finish reading the novel I am reviewing for Night Owl Reviews.

5. Finish typing up the second draft of the third book in The GHOST Group series.

6. Finish reading the book I am reviewing for my own book review blog.

Yes, that DOES seem like a lot, but I work in clusters of time for each project (which has been an amazing time management tool for me, by the way!) so I was able to figure out ways to fit them in. That’s actually my USUAL schedule – though next month I am working on 4 books at a time, so I have to figure out a new system for that – so it’s nothing new.

The only wrench in the machine was finding a way to do my usual thing while also enjoying Spring Break with the kids!

The good news is, we DID enjoy Spring Break in our own ways (I only wish it didn’t RAIN so much!) and I DID get some things done.

I kept tallies on my progress from Monday through Friday. Here is how it came out:

Editing: Four days. (I had to stop work on it after the project became compromised.)

Book review for The Dabbling Mum: Two days.

Book work on the alien book: Three days. (Finished it today.)

Book review for Night Owl Reviews: Four days. (Finished it yesterday.)

Book work for The GHOST Group #3: One day. (I will try to finish it tomorrow.)

Book review for my own book review blog: Two days. (Will definitely finish the book tomorrow.)

And, you know, that’s not really all THAT bad. I’m thrilled I got some things done – the IMPORTANT things done – and look forward to wrapping up some other things before Monday gets here.

So, the bottom line is, I survived Spring Break. Yay! Yes, our Spring Break could have been better if we had been able to travel and if it hadn’t rained so much. But my kids made the best of the situation.

And, apparently, I did, too.