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October 13, 2019: The Writer’s Life: When it Doesn’t Rain, It Doesn’t Pour

The last few days have been sunny; although today it’s a bit colder and breezy. Yesterday I was out most of the day. I’ll get out today, but I must first deal with administrativa. – a-ha.

I’ve been dealing with administrative-all morning. It’s not something I like to do, but the list was getting long. A motivator – I realized that writing needs to be a work-related priority, but because the EMT class studying was more immediate, I had put writing tasks on the back burner.

Saturday was a bit of a wake-up call for me. I took the EMT practical – we had to examine a trauma patient and provide an assessment. If we failed the first time, we could do this a second time. Well, yours truly was the only one in the class to fail twice.

I considered dropping the class, but I have decided to stick with it. May as well finish. But I am not going to work as hard. It’s my nature to work hard, so we’ll see how long I stick to this plan. I’m no longer going into class early, nor am I going to special sessions. I’m instead going to

focus on really what’s most important, that is getting writing projects done.

So, this morning I first called The University of Alaska Press, to see if they had read my proposal. The answer, from the assistant editor, was that she had read the proposal and parts of it did interest her, that is the parts about the Alaska State Fair History and The History of Recycling in Alaska. So, I will take another look at the manuscript as a whole, revise it, and then send it in. My thinking right now is to include less personal information in the draft to her. I can do this.

I then called Sharon at Relevant Publishing. She’s the woman who had the author’s booth at the Alaska State Fair. She indicated to me that she hadn’t gotten to it because there have been family issues, which of course, for her sake, and that of her family, I won’t go into. I told her that my proposal is the least of her concerns at this point in time, which I mean.

Okay. So, my plan is to again put my heart and soul back into my writing-related endeavors. I’m first going to go over my Forks draft, taking out a lot of the personal information, and I’ll then resubmit to editor at the University of Alaska Press.

I’m also going to print out a second copy and have that one, unedited, ready to share with Sharon. And lastly, I’m going to print up The Gift of a Good Ride, revise that proposal, and send it on to Rebecca at Trafalgar Press.

Maybe I didn’t do this previously because I needed a break from it all. I work hard and tirelessly, so my subconscious may at times be shouting at me to take a break. Dunno. Will never know. What I do know is that I feel good right now about having gotten back on the writing track.

Next: 284. 10/14/19: Privacy?

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