I’m supposed to write four blogs each month for my website. Let me be brutally honest: I’m really not crazy about writing blogs. I feel like no one reads them, and that they’re a waste of my time and energy if no one is reading them. I never get feedback on my blogs. Maybe people read them and give feedback mentally. I don’t know. Either way, it doesn’t leave me motivated to write and post more blogs.
I wrote three blogs for February. I was late with them, for starters. They’re supposed to be submitted on my end by the 15th of each month; I submitted them as the month ended. My webmaster has been insanely busy with his primary business. (I just checked. The last ones posted are from January.) I didn’t even get around to writing any blogs in March. So… In the interest of saving time and energy, I’ve decided not to try to back up and do four for March, and another four for April. I’ll cover events from March in a blog, but I’m not going to pretend that it was written last month, lol! So March is just a lost month. No blogs that are supposed to be from then. Everything I’m writing for April is being written and submitted to my webmaster after the April 15th deadline, but I already know that the webmaster is swamped, so I don’t expect these to be posted until May. Hopefully in May. We’ll see.
April has been kinda crazy for me, too. Actually, everything since I got home from the 80’s Cruise in mid-March has been pretty insane. I was home for one week after the Cruise, then I went to the Orchard Keepers Writers’ Residency to cat-sit for my friend Denton, who went to a writing conference in Philadelphia. During the week I was home between those events, I had a horrible sinus infection, though, and had to quit taking the antibiotics because they caused a weird allergic reaction, and my hands broke out in blisters. Only me, right?
The Saturday I was at the residency, I also had a Scentsy vendor event, so I left Speedwell, Tennessee, around 5:30 a.m., and got back there after my event in Abingdon, Virginia, around 6:00 p.m. It was a really long day, but I sold enough on Saturday to pay for my spaces for the two weekends of events I had signed up for (even though I missed the first weekend because I was still so sick). Cat-sitting was great, though. I love Denton’s fur-babies. First, there’s Dorie – I call her Dorie, The Story Cat, because – well, because it rhymes, and because I’m sure that she could tell stories if she could speak English. Her brothers, Willy and Bo, are more skittish than Dorie, who wants (and demands), love and petting – as much as you’ll give her. But throughout the course of the week, I gained the boys’ confidence and was able to pet both of them some. Denton and I both were amazed. I look forward to seeing all of them again, as well as Denton, when I go back for a few days in early June.
I also spent some time at the residency that week trying to decide which poetry and prose pieces to include in my next book, which I hope will be ready later this year. The fantabulous Wendy Dinwiddie, who is a professor at the University of Alabama, has agreed to contract with me to edit the new book, the first time I’m consulting with another writer to look at my work before publishing it. In the past, my wonderful friend, Virginia Salmon, who is a librarian at Northeast State Community College has helped me by reading and proofreading the work before I deem it a “book” and self-publish it. So, this time will be a little different; I’m excited by the prospects of trying to change up the process somewhat this go-around.
There has been more news on the writing front in other ways, too, but I will save that for a separate blog about the Tennessee Mountain Writers Annual Conference the weekend of April 9-11. I’ve hit another submission deadline and have more looming in the next four weeks. It’s a very busy time of year.
I saw a robin outside today. Yesterday morning, there was snow/ice on our back porch. Robins are lying s-o-b’s. That’s all I’ll say about that. We’re supposed to hit 80 degrees by this weekend. You have to love “April” in Northeast Tennessee/Southwest Virginia!
So, regardless of how far behind I feel, regardless of how far behind I actually am, I just wrote my first blog since the end of February. And, even though my thoughts are scattered, even though my heart still isn’t completely in it, it feels good to feel like I’m getting back on track. And I thank you for indulging me. For humoring me. And hopefully, for reading along at home, even if you don’t tell me that you are. I appreciate your encouragement and support, in the many different ways it is shown to me.
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