A Month in the Life--April 3, 2010

Saturdays are usually my 'light' days.  Usually, I focus on house cleaning, managing whatever latest family tragedy is underway, take some time for some light reading, play with the cats--that sort of thing.  With Shannon going to school at lightspeed (he's finishing up his Microsoft certifications) my Saturdays are my alone day, to be divided up between taking care of the house and taking a much needed intellectual break.  I do get some writing in, but only if I want to or a story is driving me.

So yeah, obviously that didn't happen this week.

I woke up hurting worse.  One of the problems of any back injury is that you hurt at increasing levels for a few days after you've had some kind of impact or new injury.  It took a looooooooooong time to loosen up enough to get out of bed.  Regardless, I was still up and ready to start the day at seven-thirty--half an hour before I'm supposed to wake up.  A good omen, I'm thinking.  So, after hobbling to the kitchen to get my new ice pack, I set myself up on the couch and prepared to get busy.  I wasn't quite in the mood to write, so I decided to send out the previous day's two releases on to reviewers--thus freeing up my late afternoon on Sunday, which is when I usually do review subs. In addition to the usual round of sites, I added a few more for The God's Wife, sending it to about eight more reviewers than usual.  I then rearranged the release schedule for AMP, pushing back a manuscript that wasn't going to be ready and bumping up a release that was already in early.  One of my writers, Eden Elagbri,  wanted me to take a look at her book trailer--which led into an email exchange about promotional ideas.  Two new reviews came out yesterday including the first one for Mythos 1: Bride of Death, from Love Romances and More.  The reviewer gave me four hearts and said:

Everyone knows either one or another of the many interpretations of Hades & Persephone’s story and Ms. Summers delivers a fresh take on it. The intensity of her storyline completely took me away and you could almost feel the wind of the Underworld on your face as Persephone did the first time or the way Hades showed her what she looks like to him-beautiful and desirable. I could actually see it playing out in my mind like a movie, one I would gladly fork over money to see in the future. Ms. Summers is a masterful storyteller who completely captivates her readers from the first page to the last. With a broad stroke of her pen, she creates multi-dimensional characters, a fast paced storyline and sprinkles in a romance so tender it brings tears to your eyes. The sex scene didn’t take away from the story at all, but enhanced it as Hades shows Persephone the delights of passion. After reading BRIDE OF DEATH, I had to race to see when the next Mythos book will be out as there is a hint of who is next to fall to love’s (or Eros’s) arrow. If you enjoy a new romantic take on an ancient myth, then grab BRIDE OF DEATH. I highly recommend it and hope the author doesn’t leave us waiting too long for the next one.

I think she liked it.  Naturally, when an AMP book gets a great review, it's part of my job to post that information on the loops.  So that turned into an hour of playing around on the internet--which I'm entitled to, damnit.

During the process of which, I fell asleep.  It's only to be expected; I haven't been getting much sleep. I also hardly ever take naps--usually only if I'm sick or hurt.  While I was asleep, the dang ice pack turned into a puddle. (sigh)  It was then that I noticed the bottom of my foot (the one where the ankle rolled on me to cause the problem in the first place) was a nice lovely shade of black. Not blue. Not green. Not purple. Black.

Lovely.

While I was napping, I got a couple of completed manuscripts from two of my authors, so I decided to sit down and write out the Aurora editing schedule and added that into my daily schedules for the rest of the month.  Then I got the final edits for Mythos 2: Daughter of the Sea. I spent a few hours going through the manuscript, looking for any errors, and finally sent it back to my editor (Lori) with the feeling of a job well done.

By this time, it was after eight and Shannon was home.  I kicked his ass in a quick game of Monopoly (quick lasting two hours) and then got into bed and watched the Ten Commandments. I love this movie, and it's one of my Easter traditions. (My other traditional movie is Ben Hur, but I save it for tomorrow) Thank God for the DVR, though--I sped through all those damned annoying commercials and went through the movie in a mere four hours instead of five.  And then, I decided to go see what Shannon was doing in the living room.  I slid out of bed, catching myself with my left hand so I wouldn't land too hard, and a second later screamed in pain.

The other nasty side effect of an impact is bursitis, which is a painful inflammation of the shoulder. The first time I got bursitis was a few weeks after my father-in-law was acting like an idiot and pretending to drive through the garage door.  He slammed on the brakes at the last second and I slammed into the back of his seat, ending up in the ER two weeks later unable to lift my arm.  So now it's my right ankle, my left knee, the whole of my lower back and my left shoulder hurting--and I'll be honest enough to tell you that not even my formidable pain medication is working on it. Make no mistake--first thing Monday morning, my physician is getting a call.

Word count--light. Only 4k in and amongst everything else, mostly on the Terella WIP.  Total time spent working: also light. I only worked about nine hours between review submissions, editing, writing and business emails.