TL;DR: I’m too tired and behind already to update, so I’m providing some links for you to read some of the older works. I’ll update during the week if I can, but otherwise, I’ll see you next Friday 🙂

Hello! Checking in on Saturday after completing our first week. It never fails — no matter how prepared I am, there’s always six things I haven’t thought of or eight things that throw me off my game.

This year, the crates I ordered to store student folders and notebooks are back-ordered, and not available until November, so for most of the week, I had stacks of manila folders everywhere. Then, I ordered the wrong notebooks. Luckily, I am insane and spent $80 of my own money to get extra notebooks so I was able to get together for French I, but I had nothing for the rest of the students, and I had to order more. We live in a Title 1 district, which means half our students are eligible for free or reduced lunch. I try really hard to supply the students with everything they’ll need. Not having notebooks for the first and maybe second week meant I had to scramble to figure out what to do. And by Friday, I had enough temporary storage (again with my own money because I am, as we already established, insane) so we have some sort of system.

And all of that, and I’m just generally exhausted. My favorite work shoes got a hole in the heel, so now I have new ones and blisters. I’m getting used to the schedule and the huge French I classes — I think I’ve learned maybe ten out of 55 names.

I didn’t get nearly enough done for next week while I was at work because I was putting out fires, so I’m spending basically the entire week getting things organized and back under some sort of control.

I’m just not going to be able to update this week — I don’t have the mental bandwidth. I have some links for some of my older work to keep you busy if you’re missing the stories 🙂

• Novel: Counting Stars (set in January 2000)
• Novel: The Best Thing (set in December 2004)
• Novella: Karma (set December 1997)
• Flash Fiction: Hits Different (set March 1996)
• Edited Flash: The Last Time (set February 2007)

Update Link: The Archer – Part 16

Hello 🙂 I’d hoped to update more this week, at least once or twice, but back to work brings the early alarm, work days packed with meetings and prep, and then crashing when I get home. Two days, I took naps at 5PM, including yesterday.  If you’ve been here a while, you know that September is always a crap shoot for updates.

I’m tentatively optimistic for this year. I have the bulk of prep done for September, and there’s no construction or renovations planned for my house this year or a new cat to ease in. I won’t really know until I get through the first few weeks what I’m dealing with. I have my largest classes yet — 25 in Period 1 and 30 in Period 4. I haven’t taught a class that large in a long time, but I’m also really happy that my French I numbers are up. 34 students last year, 55 this year. I have a study hall again, but only for the first half of the period. If that holds, it’s an extra twenty minutes going into my lunch.

I’m hoping/planning to update every day through Monday to make up for the fact that I’m probably not updating again until the following weekend.

I really appreciate the patience this summer — I’ve had the most horrible mental writing block, and it’s not coming back as fast as it usually does. I’m still really having trouble visualizing the story, which is a brand-new problem for me. I used to just struggle with getting the vision on screen, but it was always in my head. Now, I can’t see or hear the characters the way I’m used to, which is kind of scary as a writer, I’ll be honest with you. I’m trying to write my way through it, but I honestly don’t have a frame of reference for fixing this. My high level of productivity always came from my ability to play the story in my head when I wasn’t writing, so I was always preparing or planning. I feel like I’m trying to find my way in the dark.

I’ll see you hopefully tomorrow 🙂

Update: The Archer – Part 15

I had to set my alarm to 6 am again 🙁 Staff development week starts on Monday. So long, summer.

I had some awful mental writing blocks this week — I kept sitting down, opening Scriv, and just nothing would happen. I tried scriptwriting software instead because sometimes just writing dialogue helps, but seriously nothing. I finally got some lines down last night that I don’t hate, but I just couldn’t make anything happen.

I haven’t been reading a lot this year — or last — and I’m wondering if that has something to do with it. I used to read an average of 4-5 books a week, and now I rarely read even one a month. There’s a couple reasons for it — some of my favorite authors have switched genres or retired, and there aren’t many historical romances being published (which is WILD because it feels like they disappeared right around the time Bridgerton came out). I also just rarely have the time or energy. I’m going back to reread my favorite series (In Death by J.D. Robb) and hoping that that helps.

Still not planning to stick to update schedule right now — I’m going to update when I have time and energy, and hope it’s 1-3 times a week 🙂

Update: The Archer – Part 14

Hope everyone’s week got off to a good start 🙂

I spent most of my Friday dealing with my phone. The sim card died and I couldn’t make any phone calls — it’s the only phone I have, so fixing it was an emergency. Just a huge hassle, spent half the day in the Verizon office, and ended up having to get a new phone.

I went into week early this week and I’m so glad I did — two huge items from my order are missing, and I found out they emptied all of my bookshelves and shoved the items into my closets, so it all has to be unpacked and set back up. If I’d found that out next Monday, with only a week to fix things, I’d be going insane.

The Phillies are playing on the West Coast all week, so I’ll be updating later and hopefully every day 🙂

Update Link: The Archer – Part 13

I fixed the numbering on Long Live, because obviously the last update was only Part 3. Not much else to say — still trying to prep for the school year, still annoyed at how many things I didn’t get to this summer, and still terrible at waking up early.

Update Link: The Archer – Part 12

Hello! Hope everyone is doing well! I had the worst night sleep last night — couldn’t fall asleep until midnight, woke up at 1, couldn’t sleep again for three hours, and then overslept until 11. Pretty sure that’s the first side effect I’ve had from the meds — they said it would cause trouble sleeping so hopefully I’ll be able to get that sorted. The most annoying thing about starting medications is how long it takes to build the therapeutic levels in your body (6-8 weeks) but side effects are immediate booo.

I’m updating The Archer M/W/F this week, and I am hoping to do Long Live Tues/Thurs but those are optional. I still have to add it to the Flash Fiction page. See you later 🙂

Update: Long Live – Part 3

Welp, it’s August 13, and there’s only two full weeks of summer vacation left. I report on August 31 for staff development. I’m going into my classroom for a day on Aug 24 just to see what it looks like, if my order is there, etc, and to deal with technology. So…it’s over. And somehow, I never got caught up with laundry. Diabolical.

I’ve been trying to shift updates back to 4-7 to account for the schedule changes 🙂

Update Link: Long Live – Part 2

The creative muse is so weird. I posted the first part of this on Friday, and then my brain was like oh hey I know how to do that thing in Archer now, and you know what, I have. I just have to deal with the pacing. I’m not going to break it down scene by scene, but I want to know the general order of things because there’s a thing I want to pull of and it really only works if it’s happening at the same as another thing–That will make sense one day.

In other writing news, I am so happy so many of you were excited to go back to this universe. I have such a soft spot for this world because it was a crazy ambitious thing I managed to pull off in a timely manner (the fact that I posted Book 1 in 2018 and book 4 in 2022 is insane now). I also set up so many bread crumbs and loose threads that I could tug if I wanted.

I honestly was just so desperate to write something and this was the only idea that seemed like it was workable. I literally opened the Scrivener project folder ten minutes before I started writing, and threw together a format idea, lol. It’s named for Long Live, by Taylor Swift and was going to be part of that collection (All books in Mad World are titled after a song because I am creatively bankrupt), and I promise you there’s a reason, lol.

Anyway — I’m going to switch off — update Long Live this week, and then The Archer and go back and forth. I had a lot of fun doing that with Chain Reaction and Warning Shots and it worked really well I think.

In personal news, I had my appointment on Friday with a psychiatrist to talk about possible treatments and ADHD. He surprised me by suggesting that most of the symptoms I was associating with ADHD could be that, but were more likely an outgrowth of anxiety. The good news is that medication he gave me should help with either. I started on Saturday, and am hopeful to see some improvements eventually.

Update Link: Mad World: Long Live (Book 4.6) – Part 1

Catch-Up: Mad World

so hello.

The week got away from me though I’m not really sure how. We’ve had nothing but rain for days right around the time I usually feel like writing, and my power’s been flickering a lot during these storms. I honestly feel like I’ve lost power more this summer than in my entire life in this house. I’ve also just had trouble putting words on the page. I write best when I can visualize a story in my head — I play the scenes out when I’m doing other things, hear the dialogue in my head, and then I can write it. I just can’t seem to visualize pretty much anything lately so it’s been affecting my ability and desire to write. I know how I want this story to end, and I know the general direction, but a character has to do a specific thing for it to work, and I’m just not seeing how he does it just yet.  I was going to force it, but that feels like a mistake.

But there is something in the back of my head that I’ve been playing with, but I didn’t quite have the right angle — but we’re going back to the Mad World universe for a short stay 🙂 When it’s done, I’ll clean it up and post it on the subsite.

Update Link: The Archer – Part 11

Hello 🙂 Appreciate the patience while I sorted things out. I’ve had a few appointments with my new therapist, and this time around, I’m really glad I actually went through my insurance. The previous therapy was through Better Help which was definitely helpful, but it was expensive and I had to discontinue it.

I’m getting a referral to a psychiatrist so we can confirm an ADHD diagnosis and open up a treatment plan. It was kind of a relief to talk to someone and list all the symptoms. I’ve been hesitant to do that because I didn’t want to come across as someone who diagnoses themselves online, but every time I read an IEP or worked with a student with this diagnosis, it just so similar to me. Luckily, she was already seeing those same signs from our discussions, and I’m hopeful to get some movement on that in the next few weeks.

I’m going to take the schedule a week at a time, and see what I’m comfortable with.

• Today (7/30) and tomorrow (7/31) I’m updating The Archer.
• Then next week, I’ll update The Archer on Monday/Wednesday/Friday.
• I’m planning 25 minute sprints of These Small Hours daily.
• Tues/Thurs, if I’m up to it, I’ll work on Crimson Swift.

See you tomorrow 🙂