Gang agley

So, I did jinx my free time, a little.  Wednesday did not take the shape I had envisioned, and I devoted the remaining time to writing (attempting to write, more like) sell copy for “Degrees of Separation”

Thursday morning, having carried my second cup of tea to my office so I could start reading Fifth of Five, and stopping at my desk to check the mail queue — I changed my day-plans on the spot, because UPS was pleased to tell me that the 200 copies of Neogenesis ordered by Uncle Hugo, long delayed at the warehouse for reasons the warehouse chooses not to share, were abruptly arriving THIS AFTERNOON.

Which they did.

Our challenge at that point became getting the personalized/signed books to the Uncle by the middle of next week, so there would be sufficient time to pack them and put them in the mail before the January 2 pub-date.  Normally we would have taken the weekend to do the signing-and-personalizing, but! Monday is Christmas Day, and there is neither mail delivery nor FedEx pickups on Christmas Day.

That meant that all the books needed to be signed last night, and shipped out today, arriving in Minneapolis on Wednesday.

Which we did; and the books got onto Fast Eddie’s FedEx truck barely a half-hour ago, bundled up in racoon coats; some of them waving Minneapolis! pennants.

This morning, I went to town to run the Last Errands BC (Before Christmas), and this afternoon, after lunch, I am, byerlady, reading this damn’ manuscript and getting on with doing Work.

In other news, with the outdoor thermometer reporting a brisk 14F-Feels Like-12F (aka -10C-feels-like-minus 11C) it is snowing in Beautiful Central Maine.  It’s a rather determined looking little snow, and the weatherbeans are calling 1-3 inches this afternoon, with an additional 1-3 inches to fall overnight.

So, among the weird habits I’m trying to adopt so as to make the next fall into the Slough of Despond less. . .all-consuming, is keeping a Grateful Book, as one friend styles it, or a White Stones Book, as I think of it.  The idea is that every evening, you write down one thing that you were grateful for during the day.

Last evening’s entry was the arrival of those 200 books and the necessity to sign them, and turn them around fast.  Why? you ask, when it disrupted your whole schedule?

Well, because very few writers get to the point of having a shipment of books to sign for their fans, arriving to disrupt best-laid plans.  It’s rare, and it’s a blessing.

And, thank you.