slow news days, plus reminder about Italian Souvenir Contest

I have been shamefully lax in updating this blog over the past week, but wow, no matter how hard I tried to keep up with things while I was traveling last month, I still came home significantly behind. I’m writing a short story and doing essay edits while taking care of non-writing business … little things like, oh, renewing my lease so I actually have a place to live next year, which I kind of had to do in a hurry. Ironically, when I’m busiest with the things you guys are most interested in (the writing), I have the least news. Because my days look something like this:

9-11 a.m. — Write 500 words, squint at them.
11-11:30 a.m. — Take out 100 of those words. Change one adjective in one sentence five times.
11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. — Add another three hundred words. Wonder if this is even the right scene to have in this story. Give into despair.
1 -2 p.m. — Lunch, HGTV
2 -5 p.m. — Take out half of remaining words, write 300 more, decide to rename a character.
5 -6:30 p.m. — Peruse baby-names book in effort to find new name.
6:30 p.m. onwards — Write like mad to make up for lost time. Also, dinner. Maybe yoga.

It’s the way the work gets done, but it’s not exactly a Tilt-A-Whirl of excitement for the observer. I shall work on having more colorful exploits as soon as this short story is done.

Just in case some of you guys didn’t see it before: It’s time to enter the Italian Souvenir Contest! You have a few days yet, so let me know what you’d like to see on this blog, and you could win a Murano glass ring I bought in Rome!