Musings & Thoughts for Saturday, March 16, 2024, or: Wrapping Up the Workweek…and Striving to Get in Weekend Mode

Late Morning/Midday, Saturday, March 16, 2024, Madison, New Hampshire

Hi, everyone. It is a cloudy and chilly early spring day here in my corner of Carroll County, New Hampshire. Currently, the temperature is 44°F (6°C) under mostly cloudy conditions. With the wind blowing from the south at 2 MPH (2 KMH) and humidity at 70%, the feels-like temperature is 61°F (16°C). Today’s forecast calls for mostly cloudy skies and a high of 52°F (11°C). Tonight, we can expect a mix of scattered light rain and snow showers. The low will be 32°F (0°C).

How I Ended My Workweek…and Another Restless Night

I spent most of yesterday poring over the manuscript of Reunion: Coda and making a series of edits and revisions. Most of the tweaks, of course, were made in the chapter I just completed (Goodbye, Farewell, and Adios).

However, I also had to make quite a few edits to some of the chapters I wrote last year when I still lived in Florida. Most of the issues were tiny errors in grammar or punctuation that somehow slipped by both Word’s spellcheck function and me. But in at least one instance, I noticed – well after 9 PM – that a particular detail related to a character trait was inconsistent with the established canon for the Reunion duology.

It was an easy fix, to be sure, but I was disappointed with myself for not having noticed the discrepancy either when I wrote that part of the novel in 2023 or in the previous read-through “sweeps” of the manuscript to find mistakes.

By the time I finished my editing tasks, it was almost 11 PM and I was tired, so I wasn’t surprised when I fell asleep while attempting to watch an episode of the 1998 documentary series Cold War.

I wish I could say that I slept “well,” but I woke up several times feeling anxious. I have a lot of things on my mind, most of them unpleasant and (to me, anyway)scary. I try hard to keep them at bay by focusing most of my attention on the novel, but the issues that bother me are still there, robbing me of badly needed sleep and peace of mind.

My Agenda for Saturday

Today is a rest day, at least as far as working on Reunion: Coda is concerned. I woke up for the last time after 9 AM, having previously awakened at 3, 4, and 6:30 AM, so I’m not physically or mentally capable of sitting at my desk and coaxing the beginning of a new chapter if it were a working day today.

 Thankfully, it is Saturday, and I am trying my best to follow Stephen King’s advice to work on my writing during the regular workweek and take weekends off.

As usual, I have the following options to choose from:

• Read for pleasure and not for work
• Watch a movie or TV show (in my case, it has to be stuff I have on physical media)
• Play computer games
• Listen to music
• Hang out online, mostly on social media

And…that’s all I have to say, so ciao for now.