tiffanyshearn

Overwhelmed by People Stuff

The last two weeks have been packed with people. From both work and personal perspectives, I’ve been inundated with human interaction. It is starting to put pressure on me. As the upcoming week’s schedule is also packed with people, I’ve decided to take today off and be by myself.

My husband had already decided to have sushi lunch with friends, so this works out well from a timing perspective. Sushi is one of the few food styles that I will usually pass on – surprising for someone from the Seattle area, I know – so it is no hardship to skip this lunch for leftovers at home. It leaves me with plenty of time to just exist and take care of internal tasks.

I do have a few goals today. Two of them are must-do items, while some are in the time-allowing category. My self-assigned, mandatory tasks are to complete the “read-alouds” for our D&D session this week and to finish my edits of book one. For D&D, I’m not sure which directions the party will go at this point. They could potentially reach the end of this level in either direction, so I want to have all the level one commentary completed in preparation. I can wing it at need, but I find I forget more details that way, and I prefer preparation that gives them all the initial information they will need to make decisions.

For the book, I only have the epilogue left. I need to edit what exists right now and add one perspective to it as recommended by an alpha reader. I should complete both of these today since the epilogue is shorter than a full-length chapter. With this timing, I’m also posting my beta reader request for a couple more readers today. I want them to focus on plot or character disconnects or areas that pull the reader out of the story rather than line edits. With those items as the focus, I’m hoping to have the book back from them within two weeks.

The timing becomes tighter now. I’m going to schedule a copy editor and will need to finish any edits before that deadline. While I’m going to have some buffer planned in the sequence, any beta reader delays mean less time for my side of the polishing work. I also need to work on the administrative tasks, but I will do that once the book is out with betas.

As for the optional weekend tasks left for today: one is related to how much effort I want to put into cooking dinner tonight, the other is canning some pickles. I purchased some pickling cucumbers the other day, and I want to turn them into pickles. We will see if I can dredge up enough energy to fit that in today or if I procrastinate until a time when it is either “do it now” or “they go bad.” Wish me luck!

Busy Week

I started the new job this last week. With all of the training, access requests, and new names and acronyms, it kept my brain busy enough that I stayed off of the computer most evenings rather than working on the book edits. Trying to push past a certain threshold for computer usage means sloppy or slow work for me, so I listen to my brain fatigue.

I did complete one more chapter on Friday, and that only leaves two or three more before the book goes off to beta readers again. I plan on reaching out to copy editors at that same time to coordinate the schedule on that. I think I have a fair idea of how long the final revisions would take me.

Saturday was a fun day with my D&D group playing Mad Mage. I was not pulling my punches, someone even took the bane of an elder rune – that is 20 six-sided dice worth of damage – to the face, and no one even dropped unconscious. This obviously means I need to up my game or they will start to think the dungeon is no challenge at all!

With the one cursed sword picked up in the last game, they were a little more careful of additional magic item finds this time…well, some of them were more cautious. I’m pretty sure the rogue swore off caution for the day. He now has a ticking clock in his chest due to a beating heart in a box that is bound to something still in the dungeon. I hope they discover what that something is in time. Mwahaha!

That is for another week. Right now I’m getting ready to watch the Sounders play this evening. I hope they can have another amazing showing as they did on Thursday when half the starting lineup was about half my age. Kids these days are so impressive!

Go Sounders!

Gardening

An update for the book’s progress this week would consist of: editing is still going strong, a few chapters left to go, and beta readers are still the next step. Rather than leave the post at one sentence, I’m going to share some progress on our garden that I mentioned earlier this year.

I am sad to report, the pickling cucumbers did not make it. My best guess is that they need to go out later in the season or have some sort of greenhouse cover to keep them warmer for longer. Other than that, the plants are doing well. There are some aphid battles being fought over the brussels sprouts, but we believe we have them under control for now.

The tomato and tomatillo plants are growing like crazy, and I will need to set up some support lines for the tallest branches soon. The romas are starting to come in now, and the others are already producing many of the fruits. Off to the left in the picture, you will also see the asparagus in all its tall fluffiness behind the cilantro in bloom and basil filling out nicely. We are letting the cilantro go to seed to plant again for a fall harvest.

These things are still too early to can, but we have done a couple of jams so far this year. Over the last couple of months, I bought rhubarb and mixed it with strawberries. A week or so ago we were also given some sour cherries. We decided to mix those with blackberries to sweeten them up. I prefer some tartness to my jams, so we use low-sugar pectin and only a bit of sugar (much less than the recipes show).

We made the black(berry) cherry jam this morning, and I think it turned out pretty well. We have about a serving or two sitting in the refrigerator that was not enough for another full jar. I have actually found I enjoy using the jams on bagels. I put a thin layer of cream cheese on half and some of our jam on the other half. Now I need to buy some more bagels!

Strawberry-rhubarb in the back right. Black(berry) cherry on the left.

More editing complete, jam jars sealed, and the new job starts Monday! Have a great week everyone!

Introvert Power

When we were all going into the office every day, I preferred people set up meetings with me ahead of time rather than just stopping by my desk. That is because I had to psych myself up for every interaction. It is not that I dislike people. They simply drain my energy levels. The bigger the group, the more the drain. Even dinner out with my husband requires some level of energy from me.

Working from home for a year has helped me mellow a lot, as I can spend my energy in a more focused manner each day. I feel more productive, happier, and less stressed overall. The one concern I had over the forced isolation is whether I could push myself to interact socially again.

I isolated myself in my younger years, safe in my little bubble, not going out with anyone unless I had at least a week’s notice. That usually meant staying home all the time. A friend eventually broke me out of that habit, and I realized how much I needed that form of interaction in my life, even if it was a little uncomfortable or draining. It was worth it.

Now I need to remember that value and push myself out of my cocoon of comfort again. I need to watch how often I decline invitations or talk my husband out of inviting others over. Fortunately, he is extroverted, so the latter is much less likely at this point in my life. I am already easing into society again with soccer games and Dungeons & Dragons. Slow and steady, we will all get back out there safely.

As for writing, I believe I have overcome my editor’s block for the moment. After the long weekend, this edit is back on track for my target schedule. I hope I can find another beta reader or two for this version to see how well I fix some of the (thankfully few) early issues brought to my attention. Now I need to poke at my alpha readers on book two, so it is ready for me when I get to that point.

Tonight, dinner with friends. Tomorrow, more editing. Progress on all fronts!

Mid-Year Changes

Happy 4th of July, everyone! I hope you are all able to have some fun today. We hosted my family for grilling burgers and dogs. S’mores fixings were brought, so we also dusted off the propane fire pit to toast some marshmallows. The weather turned out a perfect mild, sunny day after that heatwave we had last week.

The long weekend is a great way to start the second half of 2021 and head into some changes. I will be starting a new job in the middle of this month. A big driver for me looking so soon after a job change last year is the commute factor. You may have heard some horror stories about Seattle traffic. After working from home for nearly eighteen months, I did not think I could personally handle a ninety-minute commute in each direction when we go back to the office, so I decided to look around.

It worked out for me and happened faster than I ever thought it would. The new job is at a company that sounds like it has a great culture that I will enjoy, it is part-time remote even after we go back to the office, and the office is only about a ten to fifteen-minute drive away. Maybe this one will take me to my career as an author!

That is the other change as we head into the second half of the year. My goal of publishing before year-end means several key steps pick up over the coming months. I recently shifted this site over to my domain. In July and August, I’m looking into working on some of the business requirements for publication, finishing the book description and frontmatter/backmatter, and looking into the ISBN purchases. September will be looking into the Amazon account and publication requirements and process.

As for editing, I worked through another chapter and a half after work this week. I am targeting another chapter or two tomorrow. If I can keep up the pace, I’m looking at sending it out to beta readers in August, the final edit in September, the copy editor in October, and a final check in November for uploading. That is my rough schedule, and I hope to run a bit ahead of it for all of the stumbles I’m sure to run into along the way. For now, back to editing!