Time for Some Changes.

This week has been exhausting. Lots of things going on. Lots of decisions being made.

I’ve been battling to catch up on my writing, following three months of bronchitis at the beginning of the year. The end was in sight. Almost there… One ebook finished. Two finished – and published. One week of a book blog tour and then I’m on the final writing spree.  Just one more…

Then came the September Trifecta of Terror. A month of hell. Two weeks of ear infection, and side effects from yet another course (two this time) of antibiotics (I’m allergic to most these days, so I don’t have much option). I picked myself up and continued writing.

September ended with a definite clanger – a double barreled attack. The first was totally unexpected.
Regular readers will know how much I love my garden. (Here are the latest pics of the front yard)

I have an organic mixed vege-flower garden and am proud of my bees – my hundreds of bees. I’ve lived here for twenty-five years, incident free. Until last weekend.

It’s been over forty years since I’ve been stung by a bee and had a reaction (the doctor said it was a very good thing it had been so long. Or else…) Now, technically the bee didn’t sting me. As far as we can gather, it most likely brushed up against my coat and dropped its stinger on it. About an hour later I brushed my arm against my jacket when I was at the shops. Yowsers! The pain!

Two staff members came to my aide, not sure what had happened. I grabbed some antihistamines and a cold bottle of water from the shelf and limped home. There was a little trepidation when my lips tingled and my heart fluttered – was it a reaction or just anxiety? The doctor arrived and dosed me up with Prednisolone and strict instructions not to get stung in the near future.

Two days later I still had a lump on my arm (right) and all-over itchiness! Next month I’m off to the specialist to see if an epipen is in my future. I’m still having joint pains, headaches and exhaustion.

The second dredged up my worst fears – electronic failure. I was taking steps to avoid such a disaster and purchased a super-duper external hard drive to save all my writing, art and video work  – in case of a computer demise. On Tuesday I turned on my computer to try to get some writing done.
…

All my research files and some book files were nowhere to be seen – not on my laptop, not on the new external hard drive!

This time the heart palpitations were definitely an anxiety attack.  My Dearheart finally found them and we are now trying to recover them and confirm they are all intact. (It looks promising.) I did lose the pre-formatting I had done for the upcoming paperback, so that will all have to be reconstructed. And all the time, I’m trying to write two blog posts a week.

Now I am retracing my steps, with (hopefully) not more than three or so weeks writing time lost. I have now adjusted the publishing date for the final eBook and paperback, in the Viola Stewart series, to some time in November.

And those changes I mentioned?

I’ve had to reassess my writing scheduling. It looks like the summer bronchitis (from dust allergies) will be a yearly thing. This was my third year. That means I will lose at least one month (it was almost three this year) of writing time. Right now I am struggling to stay awake. The doctors aren’t sure how long this will last.
I need to add more ‘fudge’ time – time to recover from unexpected crises, panic attacks, allergic reactions, and computer betrayals.

I have so many stories that are fighting to get told. I need to focus on writing and publishing those stories. I’ve had a heart-to-heart with some fellow writers and have decided to cut back on blog posts and concentrate on writing stories.

What does this mean?

Currently I write two blog posts a week: Photo Fridays and a weekly Sunday blog post. I’ll be cutting back to one Sunday blog post a month (there may be occasional bonuses depending on how I’m going) and I’ll post at least one Photo Friday a month. You can also subscribe to my monthly newsletter for updates, events and sneak peeks of upcoming stories. The time gained will be channeled into writing stories – both short and a new book – for you, Dear Reader.

Photos ©2017 Karen Carlisle. All rights reserved.