Back at work this week and, while I missed the tranquility of my staycation, it wasn’t too bad. Still, I’m happy it’s Friday! My husband is off this week and since this is one of my usual work-free days, we are having ourselves a little date day – the second one this week! [I also have Wednesdays off.] Taking advantage of alone time before the kids get out of school for the summer next week. Don’t worry, we have some fun stuff planned out for them, too.
With my husband on hand to chauffeur me, I finally managed to hit up the City of Edmonton Re-Use store, which I’ve been meaning to check out for a while. It’s a great place to pick up craft stuff (and other things) for free. Yes, free.We were both chuffed to find a bunch of magazines for our hobbies – scrapbooking for me, woodworking for him. Then we hit up The Upper Crust, which is one of our nostalgic hangouts; we went there on the day when we got engaged (and many times since). Speaking of which, our wedding anniversary is coming up very soon. Hard to believe it’s gonna be 16 years. So much has happened and, yet, it still feels like the blink of an eye.
I’m trying very hard this week to avoid the post-publication doldrums. In some ways, this is the most difficult time for a write: you’ve put your book – the product of much sweat and tears, if not blood – out into the world and now you wait to see what happens. Will readers find it? Will they like it? The waiting is killing me slowly, lol! But I was pleasantly surprised yesterday when I checked my KDP dashboard and saw that The Mysterious Affair at Gaunt Hall had 1100 KENP (pages read in Kindle Unlimited) in a week. That’s equivalent to about 3 books’ worth! Yay! And it’s got its first rating on Amazon, too: 5 stars. Double yay!
Here’s hoping it’s a sign of more good things to come.
In the meantime, I am keeping myself busy with scrapbooking (natch) and editing on my latest WIP. This project is something of a departure from my usual style/genre, so I honestly don’t know if it will ever see the light of day. But it’s something to do, while I decide on my next steps. I have one more book planned for publication later in the fall, and after that … what comes next is what I need to figure out. I have a lot of complicated feelings about my writing journey that I still need to sort out first. Next week, I’m going to share some of the things I’ve learned along the way.
My TBR is begging for some attention, so I have promised myself to devote some time to reading this weekend. Buuuuut … there’s an equally good chance that I’ll be spending that time on the couch, re-watching old episodes of Poirot (or Marple!) again for some good old comfort food (for the mind). Sometimes, that’s just what giving oneself grace looks like *shrug*
Have a great weekend!