Friday January 31, 2025

Short stuff

Welcome, I’m Mary Louisa Locke, the author of the USA Today best-selling Victorian San Francisco Mystery series and the Caelestis Science Fiction series. In this daily newsletter, I reflect on my life as an indie author trying to age gracefully. Occasionally, I will also publish some of my shorter fiction in this newsletter to read for free.

Daily Diary, Day 1612:

Hard to believe that it is the end of January already. Or that I have been slowly working on doing the research for the next novel. I really do hope I am able to get to the point where I have a good general outline and I am ready to start writing by the end of this month.

Yesterday, as usual for Thursdays, was very busy with phone calls and zoom meeting, so I didn’t get any work done. But I did get the basic filing done so I am ready to begin filling out the long form we send to our tax preparer. Indie publishing means I am running a small business and having someone else figure out what I can claim for business deductions etc, is worth the cost to pay someone else to actually prepare state and federal taxes.

However, new arthritis flare-up (in my left big toe…arggh…meant I limited my walking to yesterday to 15 minutes, and today since it is actually worse, I won’t walk but concentrate on icing, and elevating, and advil, to get the swelling down.

I also scheduled a video call with my doctor at the end of the month to see if there is any way to determine if there is some underlying systemic thing—besides old age and my chronic problems—causing all these recent flare-ups. As far as I can determine doing the basic google search, the two options are gout (and my recent lab tests don’t indicate this is going on) or rheumatoid arthritis (which I know is difficult to diagnose, but will also require a referral to a rheumatologist). But at least I think I need to make sure I’ve ruled out these, because I feel like I am playing wack-a-mole.

On the upside, my elbow almost looks normal, the tendonitis in the right foot is finally easing, the splint the technician made for me to wear on my right hand at night to ease the pain by keeping the middle finger straight is amazingly comfortable, and the wound on my shin is completely healed. So, Yay!

Thanks heavens I did take a number of photos on the walks I did take this week, so I have something to show you. Because few plants are blooming, I concentrated on taking photos of lawn ornaments.

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