Musings & Thoughts for Sunday, October 29, 2023, or: Weekend Update, Part the Second (The Anxious Blogger Edition)

Midday/Early Afternoon, Sunday, October 29, 2023, Lithia, Florida

Hi, everyone. How’s your Sunday going? I sincerely hope you’re having (or, depending on where you live, have had) an enjoyable last Sunday of October 2023.

As for me, I’m okay, I suppose. I’m still feeling tired from the sleepless night of October 27-28 – insomnia sucks – and I’m disappointed that I wasn’t able to work on Reunion: Coda yesterday, but last night I slept… I guess I’ll say normally and woke up a little after 7 this morning.   

Weekend Update, Part the Second

My Saturday was okay. As you can imagine, I didn’t do much due to not sleeping for more than one hour. I did go out to the front porch to sit and read a chapter from one of the books on my TBR stack. I spent much of the afternoon surfing the net and taking my mind off the issues – or rather, the issue – that kept me from sleeping the previous night.

Later, after 5 PM, I went for a brief walk to my favorite spot in the neighborhood – the nearby park where I’ve often sat on a bench to read or just enjoy some time alone outdoors to get fresh air or watch the sunset. I didn’t stay long; the sun was already too low on the horizon, so I didn’t take a book with me, and I’ve been so bad about going for constitutionals that I get tired easily.

After I came back home, I fixed a quick dinner and ate it at my usual place on the kitchenette table. Then I went back to my room, spent several hours on Facebook and other social media, played Regiments for 40 minutes, then watched Midway out on the Florida room TV set; I think I watched a third of Roland Emmerich’s OK-ish attempt to make a “based on a historical event” WWII epic before I (predictably) got sleepy and returned blearily to my room to change into my PJs and fall – blessedly – asleep.

As for Today?

Since my mind and body are still tired – especially the former – I don’t plan to do much of anything. I had hoped, of course, that I’d feel up to doing some work on Reunion: Coda, but the effects of insomnia don’t magically vanish in a day’s time. Not at my age, and especially not when the cause of my anxieties is still present. Anxiety, confusion, regret, frustration, fear, disillusion, and depression are my constant companions, and although I try to cope with them as best I can – often by working on my novel and blogging – all those “dark companions” tap me on the shoulder and whisper constantly in my mind, especially at night.

So, as much as I need to get on with the novel so I can have it done by December, I need to rest and relax today. That’s easier said than done, at least for me, but I have to at least try to find a fun diversion and escape, for a few hours anyway, from my current nervous state of mind. Reading a book, watching a movie, playing a game, or listening to music….I don’t particularly care which activity I choose. So long as it provides some escape.

Besides, tomorrow is a working day, so I’ll work on Reunion: Coda then.

Before I Go….

In the current issue of Time magazine, John Grisham, the bestselling author of The Firm and A Time to Kill, tells his interviewer that he loves the fact that most people don’t recognize him when he’s out and about. He said that he’s a “writer in a world that doesn’t read.”

While that might sound like an exaggeration, I think that the fact that most writers (including me) won’t make more than $5000 a year…and those are the ones who can afford at least some marketing to promote their books.

This month, I sold three books. Made $8.28.

What Grisham said is, sadly, true. Like him, I’m a writer (and a good one, or so I’ve been told) in a world that doesn’t read.

On the positive side: All the feedback on Amazon for Reunion: A Story is positive. The lowest rating (so far) is four out of five stars (I think three out of the 18 reviews and/or ratings are four stars). Four stars are still pretty darn good. The rest of the reviews and/or ratings are five stars.