Happy October! It is weather-change month around here in far-northern California. We’re getting a four-day storm in starting tonight. The trees that surround my villa cabin will love all this nourishment from the sky.
It has been a long summer and a busy year for me. I was elected to the local Chamber of Commerce board of directors last March. I resigned two days ago. My reason is that I’m not getting my work done! My business is a one-person endeavor. When I’m not here there’s nobody left to take over for me. This year I spent too much time on community projects, and need to instead work on my own projects so my business will prosper.
I love my community and the other members of the board of directors, and didn’t want to disappoint them, but I had to. It is a matter of self-preservation. Now I’ll have time to sit in front of my computer with peace of mind, and get work done.
Primary on my list is my now-faltering Literature For Kids online magazine for children. That’s an important project for me, and I’ve been unable to do the work properly since last March. I’m now in the position of having to send out apologies for my shortcomings. I have learned, “Do not take on more than you can handle.” That phrase will be seen again in my “manifesto” currently being written.
I had planned to get River Girl published by October 15, but that’s to be delayed. The spirit is willing but the pocketbook is stretched. You see, I’m planning a book research trip to San Francisco at the end of the month. I’ll be spending several days in libraries there and in Berkeley to learn more about SF in the 1850s for a novel I started planning way back in 2004. This has to be coordinated with family events so that I can see my family for the first time since 2003. So . . . no publishing this month! Maybe next month, or December.
As part of the renewal of my business, I’ve rescheduled my work . . . moving back to what was working for me before I got off track, and adding in a few important items. Daily blog posts and daily work on Literature For Kids.
I’m currently on day 9 of the Master Cleanse diet. For those not familiar, this is a lemonade juice fast lasting from ten to forty days. At this time I don’t know how long my fast will last. I need this to detox my body and change my eating habits permanently. I’ve been vegetarian for a long time but have managed to eat a lot of foods that aren’t good for me. Primarily wheat. So I’m overweight and lethargic.
I always thought wheat was good for us, didn’t you? I really believed that bread is the “staff of life”. Now, come to find out, wheat is one of the worst things I could be eating. I just finished reading the book, Wheat Belly: Lose the Wheat, Lose the Weight, and Find Your Path Back to Health by Dr. William Davis. What an eye-opener! Even though the book contains a lot of medical jargon that went over my head because I’m not a health professional, I got a good intro to the scope of the problem and what I can do about it. When I come off my fast, I’ll be gluten-free and vegan.
This month I’ll be revising the second novel in the Antediluvian Adventures series… it is titled The Seagull Rebellion. In it a young girl living in a very ancient civilization is kidnapped and must find her way back to her father. This book features Maralin, who is also in the first book of the series, The Scribe of Irohila. Scribe should be published within a month or two and I’d like to have The Seagull Rebellion out within a few months after that.
Well, that’s it for now.
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