Don't they say that the mind is the first thing to go? I think I lost mine somewhere after I broke my foot. Maybe it was pain clouding my judgment. I didn't quite realize just how busy I was or how much I had to do until I starting listing things. All I could say then was GAH! What was I thinking?
So far in September, I've judged some unpubbed contests. That's almost done, but I did agree to take a couple more entries because one of the other judges fell through. What was I thinking? At least this is a short contest, so it won't eat up a ton of time.
I have a doctor's appointment to take a look at the break and see how it's healing, and a dentist appointment. I'm supposed to be getting stuff together for this house I somehow am going to be building, although, well, yikes! And in the middle of all this is the ton of promotional stuff I need to get done for Crimson Veil. On the plus side, I've mailed out bookmarks to everyone I promised them to. On the minus side, everything left is time consuming and much of it involves me writing something. Of course, that all takes writing time/energy away from TOD which I'm trying to work on.
I also signed up for a workshop. It's given by Debra Dixon who wrote GMC. This is the book that allowed me to turn the corner on my writing. It was a huge light bulb moment for me. Since there's always room to learn more, and since I've heard her workshops are great, I signed up. It's an all day event. Afterward, I'll swing home, change clothes and head for the Mall of America to do a book signing. The next day, I have to get all the way over to St. Paul (that's a long drive for me) and make an appearance at the Midwest Booksellers Association tradeshow. Wonderful chance to meet booksellers and librarians so how could I turn it down?
And did I mention I want to run a promotional contest for Crimson Veil? This is ghastly as far as eating up time because of the sweepstakes sites. I have no problem with my contests being posted there, or with sweepstakes entries IF the entrants read the excerpt. What really happens is that someone will post the answer to my contest question on their bulletin boards and then I get swamped. Once the cheating starts, it takes more work. This time I'm going to give away books and a leather purse. I'm focusing on the books and not the bag, and hoping that it helps attract readers, not people who will enter anything just to win something--including cheat.
One of the things I was hoping to do with Crimson Veil was drive around the Twin Cities and autograph store stock. I think this idea will have to be shelved (no pun intended). First is the foot issue. I don't think it's going to hold up for walking through a ton of malls. The second is the time factor. Quite frankly, I've stretched myself too thin and I have too much to do in too short a time frame. :-(
And the thing that bites the hardest as far as writing goes is that I can't bring the laptop to work and write during lunch. :-( The computer is too heavy for me to carry with my foot and extra weight makes it hurt worse. It hurts enough as it is after I've been walking on it at work all day. That time, though, was so valuable to me, and now that I don't have it, I'm understanding just how much I accomplished during that short time. Sigh.
Well, now that I've complained for paragraph after paragraph, I'll finish up now. I really didn't mean to get going on this topic, but I'm short on sleep--again--and suddenly my time constraints just seemed overwhelming.
MN Weather Report: 66 degrees. Still very humid.
