Weekly Writing Intentions: Saturday, November 18, 2023,

Daily Diary, Day 1173:

This week pretty much went as I expected, which was to keep up my exercise but not get as much written. The exercise was very steady, averaging an hour and 45 minutes of exercise a day, walking twice a day, almost always 40 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes in the afternoon, sometimes before, sometimes after dinner.

On the writing front, I only averaged 473 words, half of what I achieved last week. Main things that slowed me down were the time spent visiting with relatives (yay), time spent getting medical tests (yawn), and the fact that I am back in the weeds of rewriting chapters to accommodate earlier changes (sigh.)

I did start the process of republishing The Stars are Red Tonight today, and if all goes well this novella will be available on all major retailers by Monday.

As for the coming week, I am sorry to say, my right foot started to hurt last night, and this morning it feels suspiciously the way it did almost exactly two years ago when it turned out that I had broken my middle toe, only this time it seems to be the big toe. Because of my odd syndrome, and aging, I have fragile bones (despite going through multiple doses of the various things one can take to forestall bone loss), and when I got the x-ray 2 years ago, it showed 5 old breaks in that foot, that I evidently had simply ignored as arthritis! So, it would not be surprising if I had another break.

I am trying really hard not to catastrophize, Instead I am taking advil, going to ice it as soon as I finish this post, and I have asked my husband do the up and down the stairs that go along with the laundry (which I normally see as good exercise.) And, while I did the usual Saturday upstairs cleaning, I won’t walk today at all.

This means that I may not get nearly the exercise in (maybe I can do the chair exercizes), and this also may necessitate time spent going to doctor, getting x-ray, because if it is arthritis, then I should be able take up walking soon, but if broken, I think it will take 4-6 weeks for me to be able to resume walking. (double sigh.)

On the other hand, if it turns out the toe is broken, I should get more uninterrupted writing time in the next two months. This is the “always look for the silver lining” part of my personality.

In short, I think I will say my intentions for next week is to do the best I can and not get too grumpy.

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In case you aren’t sure how you got here, I’m Mary Louisa Locke, the author of the USA Today best-selling Victorian San Francisco Mystery series and the Caelestis Science Fiction series. This is my newsletter reflecting on my life as an indie author trying to age gracefully. If you aren’t already subscribed but are interested in doing so, you can subscribe by clicking the little button below. If you enjoyed this post, please do click on the little heart and/or share with your friends, and I always welcome comments!