Weekly Writing Intentions: April 8, 2023

Daily Diary, Day 949:

In review of last week, for those of you who have been following the day to day posts, you know I did not achieve my goal of getting back to an hour of walking. Instead, my over optimistic assessment of my healing meant that between doing regular cleaning and trying to walk for 30 minutes last weekend, I seem to have re-injured my back. So, I have had to go back to square one. So for this coming week, the watch-word is slow and steady.

I have been very careful about anything that might stress the back (including be very good about asking my husband to lift anything -- like box of birdseed delivered at the door, grocery bags, laundry baskets, etc.) I did a little very light cleaning yesterday and today, but concentrated on things like cleaning the toilets, bathroom counters.

I have also been stepping down the advil/tylanol down each day, and today, while my back doesn't feel 100%, I have made it to this afternoon without taking anything. Although I will probably take something in the evening, if the pain is increasing. My hope is simply that maybe I will get to start walking this week, but I will literally add on 5 minutes a day, which is what worked the last time I was building up from nothing.

As for the writing, much, much better news. I did get at least 6 chapters edited a day, I have now gone through the entire manuscript making the changes suggested from the comments from all my beta readers. And today and tomorrow I am doing a sort of continuity check by skipping in and out of the first three books to remind myself of things like tone of voice of certain characters, back story, descriptions, etc. Then I do some Find searches in the new manuscript to check on continuity, as well as making sure I'm not including unnecessary backstory (which was one of the common suggestions from my beta readers.)

I'm not rushing this because I told my copy editor that I would get the ms to her by the 12th, so I should be able to take as much time as I need, although I think I will be done this weekend.

Las Wednesday, as promised, I also did the post celebrating a year on substack, and I got caught up on all my sales data for 2022. I will start on 2023 next week, do a few more things on the todo list, then get serious about the Dandy short story and some longer posts. And make sure I'm not over-doing on any level.

Meanwhile, very cute dog pictures below! We have had six dogs over the years, but Leeza is the only one that routinely howls when she hears nearby sirens, especially if she is sitting up on our deck in the sun. My husband has wanted to get a photo of this, but every time we hear her, she stops by the time he gets upstairs. Today I was upstairs soaking my eye (yes, still needing to do this), when she started, so I got some good snaps of her. She doesn't seem in any pain, but it is clearly some sort of instinct. Interestingly, we have a band of coyotes in the canyon below us that do this every evening, and often in the middle of the night in response to one of the night-time trains in that canyon, but Leeza has never joined in with them.