Where to start, where to start?

Well first, I’m just coming out of a migraine so if you haven’t seen me around in a few days, that’s why. Darn sinusitis.

I quit drinking coffee for a while. Figured out that I can have one cup with no ill effect on my tummy, but my problem is stopping at one cup. I enjoy the ritual of the coffee, and also I feel like I owe it to the coffee to drink it. Weird, but that’s how it is. I think a lot of us have that “clean your plate” mentality, which affects all my habits around food. A while ago I said I was going to do better with my food choices, and I have. I’ve only lost about five pounds, but I’m really working on the habit part rather than focusing on losing weight. Things like making sure there are healthy things in the kitchen, not being lazy about cooking, and thinking about portions rather than just shoveling it in till I can’t anymore. Those are the things that will make me a healthy weight and keep me there. I can wait to hit that mark if I know it will last.

What else…

Oh yeah, I finished my book. Sent it to my first reader on Tuesday and had a migraine headache an hour later, whatever that means. Thinking of everything I’ve gone through during the course of this book is a bit overwhelming.

I didn’t have the confidence to write this book when I started. It doesn’t fit into a template, I see now.  I tried to make it fit a template and ended up spinning my wheels for a couple of years. For a long time my forebrain told me it was a mess, even though it made a lot of sense to me, and the characters spoke with their own voices. Only when I threw out the template did it come alive and drive me to the finish.

We’ll see how the public receives it, but whatever happens I’ve written the book I wanted to write, and that’s a pretty damn good feeling. Later in my career, I will say, “That’s when I learned how to be a writer.” Shoot, this whole BVA period has taught me how to live.