I haven’t forgotten. But it’s been hot. For two months, the Dallas/Ft Worth suffered through triple digit heat almost every day. One Hundred degrees, or more. Hot. Depressingly hot. Add to that the change of season (post-solstice) bringing my S.A.D. to bear, and it’s been… slow but sure progress in all things.

The House
It’s been now two years in a house I hoped to buy and flip in six months. The renovation work is almost done, two or three final and expensive things that need financing to finish. Probably going to keep house and rent it out vs sell/flip it. Interested? 😉 It even has a goldfish pond! More on that another time.

The ‘Job’
A year and a half at this same job. Time for more income or more time away from work. At the moment, the hours are too long, the paycheck is now too short and I want to use the time and money for something more than just groceries and mortgage.

The upset to my daily life to complete this change is undesireable, but not unbearable. As they say, until the pain of remaining the same gets to be worse than the pain of change… nothing is going to happen. Well, it’s paining me pretty badly at the moment. The alternative is tough it out and make this job my last–develope the income from the house and, of course, writing. I like that option!

Family
I wrote this post while on a week’s vacation at my son’s ‘resort’… ie his home with the huge pool in the back yard! He and his beautiful wife are excellent hosts. Their only son, my only grandson, is a bundle of energy and affection and of course, cute as a four year old boy can be! My other three adult children are here or soon to arrive and I am about as happy as a Father and Grandpa can be. Oh, and add to this the fact that I am getting MORE than 8 hours of sleep every night… something that the job change/wage hike will hopefully address after this vacation is over. Again, stay tuned for details.

Writing
The final ROUGH draft for This Old House: Upstairs is complete. First revision is slo-o-o-ly progressing, but already almost a third is done. Am I satisfied? Of course not, but it will do for now. It’s on paper and I can actually revise SOMETHING. That is the key. I’m wiling to hurry this a little just to get through with the first round edit. In the end, I will slow it down and revise at least two more times.

Also, the revised copy for Small Town Romance is finished, as is the cover. I’m not satisfied with the cover but I stopped after three or four revisions, trying to fix it. Money spent, lesson learned: check your cover artists portfolio before you commit money to a project. Oh and don’t try to go so fast by doing too many things at once.

The rewrite of Tina Inherits the House… same story. Revised copy and a cover I don’t really like.

BUT!!! Both of these stories need to get out the door, onto sites for sale, maybe just ‘as is’, for the sake of making some personal progress, and to satisfy my public. 🙂 I can change covers, do a little revision and republish again, some other time. As always, perfection eludes me.

I am also working on a collection of four short stories, including some previously published material and adding new stories. No cover contracted for yet (see? I can learn from mistakes!) Have no ideas for the covers either. Suggestions welcome!

Conclusion
That’s all for now. I have lots of short anecdotes to share. And I finally got the WordPress app on my phone–the convenience should make a difference.

But in the meantime, Keep Reading!