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, including my struggles to maintain a balanced life, what I listen to, read, and watch for entertainment, and occasional bits of information I’ve gleaned from doing the research for my novels.
Daily Diary, Day 1278:
Starting out with some shameless promotion: Today is the last day you that practically my whole audiobook collection of my San Francisco Mystery series is on sale on Chirp.com. You can get the first seven novels in two boxed sets for $10.98 (80 hours of listening pleasure-smile), and the two collections of short stories are only $2.99 a piece.
These editions have been on sale for a month, and I have sold over 800 audiobooks during that time (compared to only 161 last month.)
The other good news is that over the past two days, by concentrating on using the dictation option for writing on the novel, I’ve gotten 2300 words written in total. However, since I’ve spent very little time editing what I’ve written, I’m not entirely sure whether or not I’ll be able to keep many of those words. On the other hand, it certainly has been a motivator to keep writing to see how much I can get written in a short amount of time. Today, after I write another scene, I think I will experiment by seeing how long it takes for me to edit what I’ve written.
Unfortunately, the editing part does make my index finger hurt more, so I am also going to experiment with trying to figure out what I can do to remind me to use my middle finger as often as possible when I would normally use my index finger to do things like move the cursor on the trackpad. I have scheduled a regular doctor’s appointment with my primary care physician in a couple of weeks, which is the first I could get an appointment. That should give me an idea of whether or not the ache is a permanent problem or something that is slowly resolving itself and will only be a problem when I have an arthritis flareup.
I wish I could say that I’ve had a vast improvement in my swollen eyelid, but I haven’t. Yesterday I tended to fluctuate between the eyelid being quite painful when I hadn’t taken any Advil, or when I took Advil, then beginning to feel sleepy. So, I’ve reluctantly asked for an oral antibiotic, which my husband pick up for me this morning.
I’ve been through this process before, (last winter it took 3 months to finally resolve, so I know I just have to be patient.) The main concern I have, because of what happened last time, is that the relatively minor problem of a stye then ends up being a major problem with getting enough exercise because the antibiotics cause arthritis flareups and tendonitis. This, in turn, impedes my exercise, which makes it harder to control my weight and blood sugar, and affects my general feeling of well-being. Therefore, I’m glad that yesterday, even though I didn’t feel all that great, I was able to clean, walk twice, and do my Pilates. I am hoping my current regime of frequent and different forms of exercise will be easier to maintain this time around.
I also took a break and sat out in the sun and finished listening to Persuasion, which was my current audiobook. That was certainly good for my sense of well-being.
This morning we woke to the promised drizzle, but it ended after a few hours, and now it is just cloudy. The first photograph is of the sunset last night with a little teeny tiny line of clouds on the horizon. Next is the sky this morning. And the citrus trees are bearing fruit all over the place. Here is an orange tree, behimd it there is a lemon. A nice pop of spring.
If you enjoy my daily posts and would like to subscribe for free or become a patron (where you will get the pleasure of giving me the resources to spend more time writing and less time marketing) click the little button below. In addition, please do click on the heart so I know you’ve been to visit and/or share with your friends, and I always welcome comments! Thanks!
I am really in awe of you Louisa. You write so much and do so much. You’re an inspiration xxx