I am still bone weary. I just do not bounce back from sleep deprivation. My body refuses to push the envelope anymore. It’s a direct result of years of getting by on 4 or 5 hours a night while carrying the weight of my small existence around on my back, stooped like a Chinese peasant tending rice paddies.
Since I know it can take weeks to get myself even again, I will have to modify my plans for the next three months a tiny bit. Yes, it’s the new quarter, and I am laying out the calendar.
April will see me finish Night Dogs. Thanks to Rob’s plot insight, I have plugged the gaping plot hole in a plausible manner and can now continue. Night Dogs will be the story I workshop in June when I have plans to take a course on revision at the U of A’s Women’s Writing Week. The revision class is the only one I found that was not fluff, and it bothers me a bit to support a program that equates women’s writing with “journaling” and poetry only but so be it. It’s the only game going and I need to take a class.
In May I will begin working on a novel whose idea came to me via a science article on Slashdot about solar flares and our planet’s scary dependence on electrical grids and gadgets. Rob listened while I outlined it as we drove and he answered my questions about what-ifs. He liked it. He is partial – to me – but if he thought the idea totally blew chunks, he would say so.
June is classes. Revision, drafting and the beginning of prodding Rob to write out his part of our story. The memoir is now a joint project. We will work on it over the summer with the idea that it might be a pitchable idea by the time I head to the Williamette Conference in August (where I am going to try to pitch Night Dogs for sure and hunt for an agent at least).
In the meantime, blogging is going to suffer, but I will continue – just not at my usual pace. I can’t say what my pace will be, but if you bookmark me or put me on your reader, you shouldn’t miss much.
If you are wondering about the trip, you can read about it here, here, here, and here – if you haven’t already.
Wednesday afternoon was spent unpacking, doing laundry and generally regaining our land legs. Slept in on Thursday but as I mentioned, I am still whipped.
I finished up the presentation for the workshop on Saturday but I am not going to be practiced enough. Hopefully my teaching instincts will take over and all will be well.
Since I am too tired (I’ve mentioned that too much, I know), here are pictures from the trip to make up for the piteous Friday update.
Revelstoke Town Centre
Rob taking a photo of Mt. Robson
anniegirl1138 
You are so lucky to have two writing conferences to attend! And for me a new idea, a novel not yet born, is the most delicious.
Yeah, I wish I could find stuff closer to home however. New novels are alluring.
That pic of Kat is the cutest!
Yes, she is quite the photo op princess.
Why do vacations leave us so much more tired than we were before we took it?
Get some rest. I got tired just reading about the trip. Welcome home.
Too high expectations coupled with a manic need to “have fun”?
blogging is going to suffer
We’ll take what we can get and, honestly, that shouldn’t be a priority. Nice pix.
Thanks:)
travel by car is tiring enough, but when you add family and drunken snowboarders? ouch. i don’t recover as quickly as i used to… i’m dreading a redeye flight from seattle at the end of the next week – leave at 1130pm, home at 1030am. i know it’ll completely jack my body schedule for a week… hope you’re back to a set schedule and regular sleep soon!
It’s a bit better today. I just cannot abuse myself as I did a few years ago and expect to get away with it. I know I look like such a party-pooper to the extended family, but they just really don’t know what it is like to have to live with extended sleep deprivation as a way of life rather than a lifestyle choice the way Rob and I do.
Wait until you get to be my age. Glad you are safely home, and beginning to rest up. There is a saying that a vacation is divided into three parts: anticipation, vacation, and recuperation. Best wishes on the recuperation.
For me “vacations” of late have been “dread”, “endure” and “slow heal”.