Hi, friends! I hope you’ve all had a wonderful 2022 and that you’re anticipating 2023 with high hopes. I’ve been working hard this year and I look forward to continuing on my writing journey throughout the next year. I can’t wait to share with you the YA fantasy that’s on its way next year, but for now it’s a secret, so here’s a summary of what I accomplished on my writing journey in 2022 instead.
Writing Life
Books published: 1 eBooks published: 1 Signings & Appearances: 14 Personal Essays Written: 2 Manuscript words written: >122,000 YA manuscripts finished: 2 Manscripts queried: 1 Queries sent: 74 Query rejections: 40 Query no response: 24 Queries still open: 0 Partial Manuscript Requests: 2 (both eventually requested the full manuscript) Full Manuscript Requests: 10 Revise & Resubmit Requests: 4 Total accumulative completed manuscripts (2011-2022): 15 Online pitch contests entered: 1 Blog posts written: 6 Books read: 44 Friends’ Manuscripts read: 1 Writing friends made: Never enough!
Personal Life
Family members who got Covid (including yours truly): 3 (out of 4), 2 in July & 1 the week before Christmas Exchange Students hosted: 1, from Germany! Money spent on kids’ hobbies: Approximately 1 bazillion dollars, give or take a million Pets lost: 2 (one chicken, one dog) đŚ Pets gained: 2 (budgies!) Broadway shows seen: 2 (Phantom of the Opera both times, don’t ask)
A parent’s job is never done. There’s always appointments and therapy and lessons and endless testing and school projects to keep track of. By the end of May, most parents (and teachers, really) are ready to collapse in a heap of exhaustion.
Myself, included.
Amidst the current Covid spike, there are also a handful of other viruses floating around right now, including the flu, and the cold I got from my kid three days ago. At the time, we had her PCR tested for Covid, even after her rapid antigen tests came up negative 4 times. (With her father having cancer, we can’t ever be *too* cautious.) She came up Covid negative with the PCR test, too, so you can bet there was much lamenting about missing the AJR concert she was supposed to attend on Sunday.
16y.o. is sick – sore throat, low-grade fever, achy last night (not covidâŚso far). Insists she made a recovery, but I wonât let her go to the AJR concert. Weâve had tickets for almost a year. I am the WORST mom. But also? I deserve an award for making the difficult decisions. pic.twitter.com/bb2G0YlWyS
Anyway, she was kind enough to give the non-Covid virus to me despite our masking and isolation, and, suffice it to say, I’m not functioning on all cylinders, which feels very wrong at this time of year.
I forgot to RSVP to the school awards ceremony she was attending this morning, so we missed it, though I have high hopes she receives something other than ‘Most Dedicated for Gym’ today. (Seriously, she just texted me. That was the award she received. She’s mortified.)
Younger kiddo has a school dance tonight, so I had to take her shopping *yesterday* for something to wear because it slipped my mind all week long.
I missed pilling the cat twice this past week, too. She’s on regular meds – one for her thyroid and one to keep swelling off her brain from the terminal cancer that’s taken residence there. Thankfully, she didn’t seem much affected, nor was she angry with me. Frankly, I don’t think she noticed. I still feel guilty.
My point? Sometimes, the balls drop. Right to the floor. I’m tired. You’re tired. We’re all so, so tired. Are my kids fed? Do they have a safe place to exist? Do I encourage them? Have I given them what they need to succeed?
If the answer is yes, then nothing else matters. So yeah, I’m going to lie down on the floor now. I need a rest.
I’m tempted to leave the title and the title alone here in this blog post. Because damn. I am tired.
I worked eighteen hours this week on a job that’s supposed to take up no more than ten. And I did it all from home while supervising-slash-teaching my 11-year-old her ratios and fractions and comparisons for 6th grade math class on the virtual platform. I did it while scheduling my Covid booster and her first Covid vaccine. I worked while husband was on conference call after conference call, working with my Loop earplugs jammed in my ears to try to keep the auditory distraction to a dull roar. I played email and text tag with four different coworkers to make sure the work that needed to get done got done.
I worked at the dining room table so I could let my chickens out of their coop to roam the yard without fear of a hawk taking them. (We had several scares this week.) I worked sitting in bed. I worked at my desk and on the floor. I worked with the ever-present malodorous fog of incessant dog farts lingering in the air because my chicken-poop-loving dogs just can’t be more than two feet from me at any time on any given day.
Why we sit by the back door and watch our chickens when theyâre out of the coop.
The Cooperâs Hawk grabbed Roz today (not on camera), but kiddo got to the rescue before any damage was done. Everyone is safe. pic.twitter.com/Z5J1gV3c3L
I listened to dogs popping their gums while they lick, lick, lick, intent on driving me madder than any of Alice’s friends. And after the annoyance comes the worry. Wait. Are they licking because something is wrong? (Beyond the fleas we’re still battling. We’re winning, but not by much.) Is there something bothering our greyhound internally? Aches and pains? Or just dry skin? Is his mouth hurting and that’s why he keeps licking, or is it a deeper ache in his bones? And all of this reminds me, I have to run to the vet (like, now) to go pick up his medication. They close at seven.
Do I need to take him to the vet for something more urgent? And is the cat okay? The one with the terminal illness who is obviously not okay, but who is, at least, moderately comfortable since being put on steroids? At what point do we, as pet owners need to make a decision that the quality of life just isn’t there any longer?
And as if to prove my point, the greyhound (literally, just now) tried to attack the terminal cat, as though she’s any threat to him. In actuality, he’s just losing his marbles and doesn’t know what to do anymore, so he gets weird and just starts barking in the cats’ faces, then lunges when they hiss at him. So now the cat is on my lap as I type the rest of this post.
When the 11-year-old gets her Covid vaccine, she plans to go back to school after the holidays and leave virtual learning behind her. Of the two of us, I’m not sure who’s more excited. I think I’ll sob introvert tears of pure joy if I’m ever home alone in this house again. Time that used to be mine to work and write has been stolen by a pandemic ever since mid-March 2020.
Add in the ever present knowledge that husband has liver cancer and we won’t know until next year if the embolization procedures they performed over the last two months had any impact, and I’m basically an electric ball of nerves just waiting to be fried. Seriously, I’m a walking lightning bolt. Don’t get too close.
And, oh.
NaNoWriMo. I’m supposed to be writing today. At some point. Every day this month. So I still have that to do. I should enjoy writing, but after a day staring at the computer, I’m not looking forward to starting at the computer more.
In fact, wut r werds?
The only bright spot in all of this right now is that there is pizza. Yes, pizza is my happy place. 1. Because it is very yummy and tasty and good, and 2. Because I do not have lift a finger to prepare it.
So thank you pizza men and women. Because…right now? Mom’s just not here.
When youâre a writer who is also parent to rambunctious school-age children, planning your writing time on a weekend is everything. You see, I fully planned to devote today to writing. I even made all of the appropriate preparations for it yesterday. Without a hint of parental guilt, I signed both of my children up for a 1-month membership to National Geographicâs Animal Jam app so they could blow their minds out on electronics today. (Mom of the Year here!)
But all the planning in the world is a poor dam against the flood of reality. Like the hardworking North American beaver, I keep trying to halt the current thatâs intent on taking me along for a ride. (But beavers are better at stopping the current than I am, certainly.)
No leaks here. Â Photo credit:Â http://www.nhptv.org/natureworks/beaver.htm
âIâm going to wake up early,â I said as I went to bed at midnight last night, âIâll be refreshed and ready to go!â
Yet when the dogs whine at 7 a.m., I move from my bed like a zombie to feed and let them out. A crick in my neck and back had me sleeping so poorly all night long that I decide sleep is more important than getting up early to write.
I finally get out of bed at 11 a.m., with more sleep maybe, but the same pain radiating down my neck and right side of my back. I eat breakfast and pull out the laptop after a chorus of âThank you, Mommy!â has been sung at least a dozen times. My kids have discovered their new memberships and predictably, theyâve zoned out on their tablets. (And this is why we donât do memberships to apps very often.) I look at my WIP and decide that perhaps a hot shower will ease the pain in my neck, so I put the computer back down and head for the bath.
Itâs noon. I kick the kids upstairs to get dressed and ready for the day like normal people do. Okay, time to write. But first, Iâd better check the status on that disgusting Senate âtaxâ bill that also included yanking 13 million off healthcare, approving arctic drilling, and cutting the corporate tax rate while bleeding the middle and working classes dry. Scrolling through my newsfeed, now Iâve stirred my anger. Who can write while angry?
So I text a friend and blow off some steam. Keep in mind that Iâve got my current WIP open on the computer and Iâve reread the last few paragraphs at least half a dozen times. I may have even added a sentence.
At 12:15, older child begs for a friend to come over. Can she come over at 12:30? I agree to 2 p.m. which leads to chronic nagging over the next fifteen minutes. Finally, I relentâ1:30.
Between 12:30 and 1:30, I write approximately 300 words while scanning social media for urgent news I might miss and texting same friend about current WIP.
âI feel good about this one,â I tell her. âItâs darker than most of my stuff. I think this one will make the cut.â She agrees with me cheerily while we both ignore the fact that I havenât yet written more than 6 chapters so far and I havenât written more than a page today. We both know Iâm stalling, but sheâs a good friend and she doesnât call me out.
At 1:30, Iâm up for my own lunch, sitting back down to work at 2. At 2:15, husband asks for help tying his shoes. That really sounds bad until you know the context. This guy still canât bend over without a lot of pain and discomfort.
At 2:30, the dogs jump off their positions on the couches and whine and bark because they know itâs now close to their afternoon meal. Husband happens to be downstairs where their bowls are, so I manage to sneak out of the responsibility by asking him to feed them. But then they want to go out. I get up again.
At 2:45, younger child is upset because older child and friend arenât including her in their games. A quick lecture about inclusivity steals five minutes from my productivity. And hey, that’s a precious five minutes. Clearly, I’ve been really productive today.
At 3, younger child bounds down the stairs again requesting lunch that I (in my Mom of the Year status) didnât realize she never had. Up again, I make lunch and get it to her, sitting down in front of my computer again at 3:10.
Itâs now 3:45 and instead of writing WIP, I have written a blog post about all the reasons why I havenât been very productive today.
But, hey, Iâve now written over 1,000 words between WIP and this blog post, soâwhew, what a day. I think itâs time to call it quits, no?
L. Ryan Storms 