I think I won the week

I’m not sure why but things went really smoothly this week. It’s been a while since I’ve been this focused when I was writing, and that’s despite having a bad run of insomnia. I’m not complaining — okay, I’ll complain about the insomnia but not the focusing.

Part of it was probably TYG still feeling relaxed from her time off. Plus I didn’t have any contractors or errands to cause a major distraction. Well, until Thursday afternoon. We’ve been having wasps turn up in the house —

— all clearly sick enough they’re easy to catch and toss outside. Still, the possibility of one stinging us or the dogs is alarming so we had the Orkin man come in and put down some protection. That worked for a week, bhtne on Wednesday evening, as I was going up to bed, I felt something strange under my foot. Yep, another wasp, though again too poisoned to fly away or sting me. Good thing: I’ve been stung and I don’t care for it.

So yesterday afternoon we had Orkin do another check; they suspect they’re coming in through the chimney so we’re getting a chimney sweep out to clean it.

That aside, I had nothing to focus on but writing and it showed. I wrote Chapter Five of Jekyll and Hyde, covering films modeled on the Fredric March 1932 version and the 1942 Spencer Tracy. I got a good start on Chapter Six, dealing with Edward Hyde as a fun-loving party animal. These chapters are still in flux — McFarland wants them roughly equal in length so I may have to shift material around to make that happen. However the written analysis will still work whichever chapter things finally go in.

I wrote one article for The Local Reporter on Carrboro’s fire department getting a Class One rating. A second article looked at one of the town’s programs for managing stormwater. I often meander when I’m working on the newspaper stuff but not this week.

At Atomic Junk Shop I blogged about the incredible educational opportunities in old comics ads — just look at the options below —

— 1970’s surge in “relevant” real-world stories and Avengers offering Marvel’s first take on women’s liberation.

John Buscema sure makes the story look cool though.

Oh, I also got several real-world errands and paperwork tasks done. And discovered my short story Bleeding Blue is up at Stonecoast Literary Review. Here’s my Story Behind the Story from June explaining the writing process.

Working until 5 PM has worked out well. So have various other tinkerings with my schedule, which I’ll blog about at some point. I imagine eventually whatever I’m doing right will grow stale and I’ll have to tinker more — that’s usually how it works out — but until then, woot, go me!