Reading, Writing and Retirement

     I’m pleased to announce that, after working as a certified medical assistant for 34 years, I am retired. Sort of. Because the clinic where I’ve worked for the last 22 years is so short-handed (thank you, covid-19), I agreed to fill in a few times a month. Right now that stands at four days in June, two in July, and three in August. We’ll see how that all goes and if I continue to offer my time.

This has been coming since November when I found out that the doctor I’d been working with was leaving his position for something new. I cut back to 24 hours a week the first of March, which was a nice transition.

I’ve got a long list of things to do with all this time on my hands. Everyone is like, “you’ll be so bored, you’ll run out of things to do”. Obviously, they’ve not seen my list.

The number one thing I’ve been wanting to do is to get back at writing.

In 2018, I had a dream (a real dream like you have when you’re sleeping, not when you’re someone like Martin Luther King, Jr.), which inspired me to start my next novel. I got up to chapter 13 when recent news events gave me an idea for another storyline.

I started writing that novel in August of 2020 and four months later came to a standstill. Covid was haunting us all and working in the medical field had become oppressive. I just wanted to spend all my free time reading or binge-watching whatever TV series my husband was into.

Then last November I saw the light at the end of the tunnel. I spent six months thinking about opening that file on my laptop and tapping out a new adventure for my protagonists – Ellen, Emma, and Tara.

On June 9, I finally made my commitment – one hour of writing five days a week. I found that if I take my laptop out to our camping trailer, there are fewer distractions. Since starting that routine, I’ve written 3,221 words. Nothing record-breaking, but it’s a start.

If anyone is interested in reading the first twenty-two, unedited chapters, I’d be happy to email it to you. Just let me know.

In the meantime, it’s been two years since I released my last novel, “The Truth Beyond the River”. It’s still available on Amazon, as a paperback or e-book. If you’ve read it already and haven’t had a chance to write a review of it, it’s not too late for that either.

All of us struggling writers need whatever encouragement we can get to keep plucking away on the keyboard. 

Thanks for all of your support. Chris 

June Check In

 When I started this blog, my goal was to post here twice a week. I kept that up for a few years, but then fell back to once a week. Slowly, that target plummeted to once a month. Then I quit altogether for a while. Recently, though, with retirement pending, I got fired back up to commit to this writing blog, but have still been stumbling around with it.

I’m not going to beat myself up over it. I must have written that twenty times here over the years. Oh, well. It’s all I can do.

Here are my goals and accomplishments for the month of May:

1. Write two chapters in “Rewrite the Now”. Nope, still haven’t touched it. 

2. Clean as many closets in the house as I can. A dumb and nonspecific goal. Umm, I maybe cleaned one.

3. Have a rummage sale. Yes, finally! Got rid of some stuff. 

4. Spring clean the camper and go camping one weekend! Yes. Thanks to the stupid snow we had all April, we didn’t bring the camper home until the first of May and went camping the very next weekend, but I got it cleaned and ready in time.

5. Clean up and organize the pictures on my computer. Shoot, I totally forgot about this.

6. Finish my sewing project. Yes, and I love how the little bags turned out which I made for my co-workers.

The June calendar, unfortunately, is just about full. I work (so much for retirement) four days this month, am going “cabining” with my sister for three days, attended a funeral yesterday, and hope to get together with a long-lost cousin the end of the month. I am starting to get settled into a schedule of sorts though, learning how to pace myself and making lists of things to do for each day.

My June goals:

1. Reread my work in progress, “Rewrite the Now”, again.

2. Write two chapters in “RTN”.

3. Clean the guest room closet and my linen closet. (Need to be specific.)  

4. Organize my pile of USB drives and start saving stuff on them. 

5. Clean up and organize the pictures on my computer, which is part of #4.

6. Start a new sewing project. (I have so many in my head!)

Well, that’s about it for now. We’ll see how it goes. Have a good month and God bless, Chris 

The mini bags I made out of my old scrub tops for my co-workers. 

Camping the first weekend in May!

The Rummage Sale