Monday, February 1, 2021

Updates Galore

Hey, friends. How would you like an update on a few things in my life?

Business

Since the recent acquisition of PayPal by China, I have changed the method of payment for my copy editing work. Rather than PayPal, clients now will pay by mailed check. They will still receive a professional invoice, which will be the trigger to stick the check in the mail. The quality of my copy editing work has not changed, so hopefully my clients will continue to be satisfied with my work.

Life

So I caught Covid-19 on Christmas Eve. Yippee. From raging and unpredictable fevers to intense and draining fatigue like I've never before known, this illness wiped me out and stole all my energy to the point where I couldn't even read for about a week and a half. Recovery has been longer than that of most illnesses I've ever had (if not all others), but I have finally, about a month after first acquiring the illness, returned to normal with no remaining shortness of breath (as of Friday last). What remains to be done is rebuild my stamina, which, naturally, took a hit over the past weeks of struggling to survive the ups and downs of Covid-19.

Writing

My writing was put on hold through the last few weeks (see above paragraph for the reason). There was one night that I got vivid ideas for scenes in three separate in-progress stories. I pulled out my notebook and jotted down the first and most of the second, but I had to tell the third one to "shut up but don't wander too far away; I'll need you soon." Shockingly, that actually worked and I was able to attempt to sleep that night (Covid-19 refused to let me sleep, so dozing off and on was about all the sleep I got any night in the last month until a week or so after my fevers finally broke for good).

This past Tuesday, I managed to write a decent-sized paragraph in one of the above-mentioned three stories. I was hoping for a full page, but I was still experiencing the shortness of breath at that time, and I had to rest after the first paragraph. Since the breathing issues are now behind me, I'm hopeful that my writing will return to normal progress in the coming days.

Reading

This year I have some big reading goals. Books are taking over my bedroom (with piles that occasionally tumble if knocked or bumped on accident), so I'm aiming to chip away at my physical stacks. I'm also working through my NetGalley list of ebooks, to attempt to get my NG percentage at or above 50%. So I'm cruising through books. Some are fantastic, while others are mediocre or worse. I'm cherishing the good ones and discarding the others. So far, I've found some really enjoyable stories that y'all may like to read as well. Here are a few of the titles:

A Place to Belong by Melissa Tagg (Walker Family #4.5/Maple Valley #.5)
Wrong Train to Paris by Jennifer Moore (Romance on the Orient Express #2)
Every Now and Then by Karen Kingsbury (9/11 #3)
From Sky to Sky by Amanda G. Stevens (No Less Days #2)
The Inn at Ocean's Edge by Colleen Coble (Sunset Cove #1)


What books have you read lately?

What genres have you been craving recently?

How were your holidays? (Hopefully much better than mine, hehe.)

2 comments:

Katja L. said...

I hope your writing & reading will be blazing soon! :)

Andrea Cox said...

Me too! Maybe you and I can get some writing sprints going over on Hangouts.