I didn’t think this would work …

Some time back I conceded the increasing demands of pet care were cutting into my time to the point working seven hour days made more sense than trying to put in eight hours. Though of course, they’re worth it.

The thing is, the last hour of the “work” day, from 4 to 5 PM, never seemed to work after that. I couldn’t quite relax but couldn’t think of anything that really filled the hour either. Well, this week I tried working all the way up to 5 … and strangely enough, that works better. I quit at 5 PM much more comfortably than at 4 PM — has the concept of “9 to 5” been that burned into me over the years? Still, I’m not complaining; getting more writing done is a good thing.

And I managed to get a lot done, even though Trixie got me up around midnight Sunday and Monday to go out and squirtle (worse, she didn’t quite make it outside). Fortunately whatever brought that on, it stopped after that.

I got some work on Savage Adventures done for the first time in a while, bringing the finished book almost up to 1939. My Local Reporter work included one story on Vimala’s Curryblossom Café, which is helping feed the victims of Tropical Storm Chantal, and a more general one on local recovery efforts. At Atomic Junk Shop I blogged about the start of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Pellucidar series, then a second post on the rest of the series.

I got a lot of work done on Jekyll and Hyde. Rewriting some of the book (I need to become much more organized and systematic), reading the section on Jerry Lewis’ Nutty Professor to the writing group, and watching a couple of movies I only just stumbled across.

I’m almost done with watching the movies, though there’s a lot of TV to get through too. But given I have until the end of the year, I’m confident things will go smoothly barring some unforeseen catastrophe (and those are always possible). Fingers crossed.

Oh, and I’ve been remiss in posting about Con-Tinual online convention. I’m on a couple of panels about breaking writer’s block and one on best and worst comics adaptations.

Also one on Lovecraftian horror —

— and superheroes and mutants. All of these will show up on Con-Tinual’s YouTube channel eventually.

Cover by Frank Frazetta. All rights to images remain with current holders.