The Sunday Salon: A Perfect Storm

From the looks of our weather outside and the forecast, we're in for quite a summer storm today. I could have predicted as much, given the migraine that's been holding my head hostage since Friday afternoon. It's raining. Earlier, thunder was heard in the distance. Still is.

Fortunately, the weekend errands are completed and we don't have any plans for this Sunday - which of course meant that I woke up at 5 a.m. As much as I would welcome a lazy morning of sleep, I decided to fight through the headache and use the two hours that the quiet house provided to do some writing and tweaking of the novel.

I'm still focused on hopefully having a full first draft of this completed by the end of this summer, thanks to the unexpected luxury of time provided by being laid off 7 weeks ago. This summer really has been a gift in that way and I'm grateful for that, incredibly so. There are still details to be worked out and still much writing to be done (oh, so much writing!) but there is something to be said for having this time to see my way through to this story. Forget the writing and the research behind the writing: the very time it takes for a story to come together in one's mind is something I hadn't realized or fully appreciated before this summer. And I've needed that.

That said, I've been doing more reading than writing over the last two weeks, but the two are intertwined. Since the novel I'm writing is set in the midst of the AIDS epidemic, I've been reading Randy Shilts's incredible book, And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic. It's one of those books that I had always been meaning to read "someday." Still, even knowing it would probably prove helpful in the writing of this particular story of mine (and it absolutely has), it was still intimidating. I mean, we're talking 602 pages. It may be one of the longest (if not the longest) books I've ever read.

With 200 pages to go, I'm hoping to finish this today. It'll be like my own solo Read-a-thon. And then, reading-wise, it's on to ... well, I'm not quite sure. Maybe a shorter book or two, especially since this is a busier week than usual. I have a second interview for an intriguing job, I'll be attending Tory Johnson's Spark and Hustle conference, and The Husband will be at a work retreat at the end of the week.

I'll see where the winds - and whims - take me.



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