Focus

Anyone who knows me knows me to generally be the kind of person who gets hold of something and then chews it up until all the flavor is gone and its completely "handled." The problem is that i can't stay in any one subject area for very long without getting bored. So I'll hit writing hard for months at a time, then disappear from the writing world, reappearing at bar meetings and taking on pro bono clients and proving that yes, i still can change the world! This characteristic makes both law and fiction good options for me simply because the facts always change. Maybe not the rules or language or laws, but the facts always have new twists.

Overlap is hell though. If you are the "last client" on my desk before the creative writing monster grabs hold, I resist finishing your work, not because it is hard or I don't want to, it is just that my focus has already moved on.

This week is the last week of October, so NaNoWriMo starts Monday... which is a creative sprint for 50,000 new words of fiction. I really like Nano months, because they fit my personality.

But I really like the two clients on my desk, too, so discipline must set in and i must get their work sent off before the week ends. And hope they are satisfied and happy so when writing loses its tartness in a couple of months, I'll have work to come back to.

And what I have really lost my taste for is virtual worlds, so if that is where you've found me in the past, you might want to go to twitter or facebook or even... gasp... email! Who knows if that will light back up for me? Some things i guess we just outgrow.

I'm heading off on another trip this weekend, a little business, a little fun, in Sacramento. I don't think I've been to Sacramento before, other than a fly through, so I look forward to the adventure.

The next two months will rival my traditional summer travel spree though, with 4 more trips before the end of the year, and of course two major holidatys. Add that I want to have a birthday party for my spouse this year, and our traditional Christmas Eve Eve party, and then the events other people have, and you'll understand my nerves.

But in true form, I'll add to them all. I'll do Nanowrimo, and I've committed to finishing up the nagging files on my desk that I actually assumed would be finished this time last year.

And I still have three doctors to deal with… two are just doing those nasty tests people my age do, and one is a six month follow up from the tests I did last winter with the cardiologist. We are all determined, despite awful hereditary stuff, that I will not have cardiological issues! It really is all preventative at this point. Well, I never said I wasn't a control freak.

Today I took Scout on the "long" walk we do, about 4 miles I think. Last week when we tried it, she fell down in the street and had a seizure. It didn't last long, but signals a change in her disease… she's never had one when she was actually active before, they generally hit her in the middle of the night. She had two more short ones in the next 24 hour period, but has been fine since then. No issues today, and now she's resting. She will be ten years old in December… it makes me pay attention.

What I noticed on the way was that the trees are actually dropping some leaves this fall. Not beautiful, they mostly go from green to brown, but remind me of past vibrant falls, mostly the ones in Michigan. There used to be one maple by the Y where I played tennis a couple times a week that turned the most gorgeous shades of gold that I looked forward to it all year. It also signaled the end of nice weather, when that Maple's trees were gone, winter set in, and the long dark season is not part of living there that I miss.

It is hot this morning in Texas, but not by Texas standards. The pollen is debilitating, but the humidity has lifted, and for now, the trade off is acceptable. Just one more pill!

Full moon this week… I'll add photos of last month's harvest moon at the beach. Not great photography, but a great memory.