It’s funny, in the interesting, weird, ouch kind of way, how things sneak up on us. Twenty-five years ago today I was very pregnant, looking forward to the birth of my first child – she emerged two weeks late, at the end of January, in the longest month of my life until three out of my four children had repeated that very-late gestation period. Am I woman, or am I elephant?
Yesterday, after my son had loaded his car and my truck to the gills, I drove down with him to unload all of his stuff into his new apartment. He’s got a good job, a plan for his life, and he was vibrating with the excitement of it all. I was also excited, although not just for him (I’m very proud of him!) but also because this marks the end of an epoch. I drove home with a much lighter truck and an emptier house, planning where I was going to put my art desk and bookshelves and… muahahaha! I have a studio!
I’ve also finished what is arguably the longest-running project of my entire life. Four children, raised to adulthood and released into the world to manage their own lives. They will return to me sporadically and mostly via texting memes. I’ll get to feed them once in a great while. But the work is done, and I can relax and reflect back not just on a single year but on the era of motherhood in active mode.
When I think about it in those terms, merely writing a novel is trivial in comparison. I don’t have to feed it, change it’s diapers, or monitor it twenty-four-seven for year in and year out. I just have to sit down at the computer for the odd hour or two a day, and pound the keyboard until the story is out of my head. Wander off to do other things, then write when the story seeps back into the well and I can let it out more. Refilling the well takes some effort, sure, but usually can be managed by pleasant activities, like a long drive alone with music blasting. Reading does it, and now I’ll have more time for that. I’ll have time for many things, at least in theory!
When I need a spark to urge the story onward, I have the weekly prompt challenge, over at More Odds Than Ends, which is coming into it’s fourth year. There are the Postcard books, which perversely in asking you to write 50 words and only 50, tend to draw volumes out of you. At least, that seems to be a common complaint! I also have the prompts for art we’re doing in Book Club with Spikes, which Discord server also has channels for writing, discussion of books being written, and general chat… all of which support the writer’s brain and aid in both distraction and research. You’re more than welcome to join in on the fun!
This is going to be an interesting year. One of adjustment, certainly. I’m also hoping for growth, lots of writing, and getting my art even more dialed-in to what I want out of it.
I’d planned on ending this with some kind of inspirational call to action for the coming year, but you know what? I have a cat on my chest, having suddenly materialized there, and it makes it very fiddly to type around her. Toast isn’t small any longer. I think I will go pat the cat, contemplate where I want my art desk to be in the new studio, and check in with the comments to see what you all are planning in the upcoming year. If any of you need or want a prompt, you know where to ask.
No Toast, you may NOT have my mocha…
The header image is his recliner, TV, and that’s about all a young bachelor needs, right? Not shown – he has a table, a bed, a desk (and a chair), and we got him an end table with shelves to keep next to the recliner. All the furniture he needs and has space for! He’ll pick up a bookshelf and be all set at that point.
Mad Genius Club 
15 responses to “The Turning of Time”
Two TVs! Between those and the books, he’s set.
TV and a computer monitor – and he’s still taking two classes this spring, online, to finish out his AAS in Welding. So he needs the monitor!
Leaving college in 1975 from New Haven to NYC with my eventual husband. All we could afford was a 3rd floor walkup in Alphabet City (Avenue A) as I wrangled my first serious job (B.C. — Before Computers) at a metals trading firm in mid-town.
Old-style railroad* tenement — 2 apartments per walkup floor, shared toilet in the hall, tub in the kitchen, with a metal cover to make it a counter space when not in use.
(*) A railroad flat is one that has 4 narrow rooms in a row from the back of the building to the front, and no side windows (buildings built without gaps). Natural light therefore only in the front (living room) and back (kitchen). The two inbetween rooms were even more narrow to allow for inner walk-through (corridor) and outer public stairs/corridor.
Their original intended inhabitants raised several children this way.
What are our plans for this year? Well, other than burying last year, and pissing on its grave… No, seriously, This last year was a bear, several family (blood and choice) deaths, the wife retiring (if you don’t think that’s stressful you’ve never done it) and many other stressors. It wasn’t a total loss, we got to go to Scotland for a month and did a circumambulation of the US, but all in all, 2023 is best seen in the rearview mirror.
2024: We have to go back to Ohio in a couple weeks to do the funeral for my aunt, then continue to fix up the house (improvements for selling) and do a few things to the RV that are “lessons learned from the last great road trip.” In August, we’re meeting the family at Rushmore for the scattering of my aunt’s ashes, and next December will find us on another “Great Road Trip” to do Christmas with the family back east, then drop down to TN/KY/NC on a land hunt for a month plus, hit Mobile for Marti Gras, then aim for what is increasingly not home, in WA.
In between, hopefully, Three Ravens Press will be releasing my first two John Fisher books, and getting my third one to press, and if I can get the damn thing done, the first of the Scout Ship novels will get finished and go to press.
Survive the academic year, write more, sing two concerts, perhaps travel. A lot of my plans depend on things outside my control, so I’m trying hard not to stress too much about them.
And I really, really hope I don’t see more people whose last initials are MD unless it is in a social setting or among the season-ticket-holders at the symphony!
Congrats to the young man, now go kick the world’s butt!
In 2024, I’m trying to figure out how to arrange my life. I’m now retired, and my parents’ estate is closed out and house sold – that was this year’s big project. I applied for two jobs (mostly out of boredom) and didn’t get hired for either one. Which means I need to learn how to discipline myself. It’s way too easy to pick up a book and read all day; I need to finish unpacking and decorating.
So many unfinished stories . . . so many new stories knocking on the Muse’s door asking to be the next one to keep me from finishing those others . . .
Resolution? Survive and keep writing.
Same, same. And stopping getting depressed so I can write more would help.
What, he’s not using boxes for furniture? 😀
More space just challenges you to fill it with stuff. Ask me how I know.
$SPOUSE$ was musing just today about when we had a lot of blank floor in a one bedroom apartment when we lived in New Hampshire. All of our clothes fit in one regular closet. We washed dishes after every meal – or we had nothing to cook in or eat on for the next one. Twelve inch black and white TV that (on a good day) would pick up a Boston station, kind of. We slept on a twin bed.
Prompted, no doubt, by the pile of Christmas boxes I pulled in to take down the tree on Monday, so that we recover at least some of the living room.
We’ll never get back down to that level of possessions, although we’re trying. DEFINITELY not fit on a twin bed – either one of us, much less both…
I’m ready for 2023 to be over, too. Replaced a few more books today with the Amazon gift cards I asked for – and, damn it, David Drake’s were the ones on top of the pile.
When I had my first solo apartment, I happened into Menards and discovered 1) two sets of cheap, adjustable pine and birch shelving that worked great for books, and 2) small wooden crates with a piece of decent-grade sheet birch on top are the best things for holding CDs and a small stereo. No TV and didn’t want one. The book shelves and “CD crates” lasted two more moves, until I relocated to RedQuarters. Then I found good homes for the book shelves. The little crates, alas, suffered terminal structural failure. DadRed turned the birch into part of an entertainment center for Sib and Sib-in-Law.
The moving boxes lived under my bed, neatly broken down, because they were too good to dispose of. One of them has lasted four moves! It reposes in the storage unit, because one never knows …
Write more. Kick manuscripts out the door. Possibly my first related stories to be published.
2023 was actually pretty good. Got to Ireland to visit my brother for the first time in four years, and bought a house. For 2024 the plan is write & release four books next year and work at making enough money from books to pay the mortgage on the house we bought this year. Hopefully both of us will be able to go to Ireland to see my brother as I don’t think he’s going to make it here for a couple of years. Other than that there will be family visits and friend visits.
I have been the beta reader and sometime editor for the novella/middle reader that my mom just wrote. I bought the Affinity software package that Cedar graciously recommended, and am teaching myself how to use it, as I have both a website to design and build, and cover art to do. In addition I am on tap for mom’s and my children’s picture book that we did together. Then figuring out self publishing. All of that on top of working full time and PRN work at the hospital once a month to keep my hand in on the most medically technical stuff I do. Blessed that dad made it home from an unexpected hospital stay that almost ended badly, in time for Thanksgiving, and I am ready for 2023 to be over!