“2. The pretty, initial position which falls short of completeness is not to be valued – except as a stimulus for further moves.”

-Notes to myself on beginning a painting, by Richard Diebenkorn

Good morning compadres, it’s the second day of the year.

Yesterday was somewhat sedentary but we did still manage to vacuum the house, put away the Christmas tree, and pack away 99% of her 18 month and younger clothes. I relied heavily on premade stuff for meals (nuggets, gyoza, pizza and salad) but what is a vacation without unhealthy meals?

I also ordered Good Eggs everything for Carter’s birthday–a Moroccan chicken and couscous meal kit, chocolate strawberry organic cake, and some spicy giardiniera (plus some pre-cooked frozen chicken halves) for myself. Once upon a time I would have embraced a birthday as an opportunity to express my love by making everything from scratch and fiddling with plating and hand-picking flowers but I spent a good ten minutes patting myself on the back last night for figuring out his birthday arrangements in advance and having it all delivered to our doorstep and my general wifely excellence. No fuss, no muss.

Now, the big thing: Side Venture. I’ve been avoiding this a bit because I haven’t been as productive as I wanted to be over the break due to the sinus bug, perioding, and toddler-wrangling. But, I’ve run out of excuses now (having updated my expenses spreadsheet and all that jazz) and must begin again. It’s a quirk of human nature that we avoid painful things by making it more painful by ignoring it…but some sprints today will cure that little issue.

Summing up financially: $4835 made, $4045 spent.

Not all of this is SF; some of it is romance (esp. w/r/t profit). Much of the spending, especially towards the end of the year, has to do with prep for 2018’s books. I went on a wee bit of a spending spree on covers and ads-booking in order to avoid having to pay quarterly taxes in the new year, moreover. Nonetheless, I am in the black.

I was close, *so close* to the $5k goal I set at the beginning of the year. I suppose if I was being generous to myself and rounded it off, I hit the goal, but I also did not publish/write as much as I planned to and I think it’s worth being forthright with myself about that. 2017 was not a total failure, and not a total success–a definite mixed bag.

As cliched as it may sound, I *did* learn a lot through success and failure, and attracted a small group of dedicated readers for which I feel very grateful. I get itchy now if I go too many days without writing. I feel more confident about my technique and strategies. I embraced the sprint, and the outline.

2018 soft goals and objectives
1. Improve ads knowledge, especially of Facebook ads and AMS
2. Boost writing speed, wordcount production

2018 hard goals
1. Earn $10k total
2. Grow mailing list to 2500 people
3. Attempt rapid release schedule in summer with anthology project

2018’s tentative schedule:
Jan: publish book 3, write book 1 in anthology project
Feb: finish book 1, get it edited; start book 2
Mar: finish book 2, get it edited
Apr: start book 3
May: finish book 3, get it edited
June: book 1 published in anthology; write book 4 in old series
July: book 2 publish; finish book 4 in old series *or* standalone novel [depending on response to anthology project]
July-Aug: book 3 publish
Sept: finish book 4/standalone, have it edited, publish it
Oct: book 1 publish; start Kindle Scout campaign for standalone (30 days)
Nov: publish standalone (assuming I don’t get picked, which is the most likely scenario)
Dec: take a goddamn break.

4 novels is not *that* much more than 2 in the Indie world, so in an ideal world I’ll make time to write one more and do both the standalone and book 4, but that’s going to be a reach goal thanks to the wee one. I can count on the anthology project to force me to produce on schedule since I’m accountable to 7 other authors. I might really need a big break after 4, though. I’m only human, and there may be a pregnancy in the offing sometime this year (who knows when and how that affects the schedule?).

$10k seems really unlikely but it feels like the right hard goal at the same time.

Well, onwards.

“1. Attempt what is not certain. Certainty may or may not come later.”

“1. Attempt what is not certain. Certainty may or may not come later. It may then be a valuable delusion.” -Notes to myself on beginning a painting, by Richard Diebenkorn

Today I’m taking a vacation day for purely arbitrary reasons. As I was eating my eggs and zucchini this morning I thought about how glorious this time of day is, when the rest of the day is just spread before me like a vast banquet. As I start eating, though, dishes start disappearing, and as I get full the less I can take in. If I eat the roast lamb there’s no room for the peking duck, and so on. By the end of the day I’m struggling to get through the rice pudding. I like food metaphors.

So, sometimes I feel a little loath to start the day because it means that I can’t have every dish on the banquet table. Especially sunny, chilly, quiet autumn days like today. But whether I eat or not, the dishes will fade away. In fact some of them have already started to disappear. Better start eating.

By the numbers, for both pen names:
Royalties earned to date: $4500 (approx)

Well, it’s not looking like I’ll hit my $5k goal for 2017. I’m guessing as to what kind of income I can rake in during November and December and I’ll most likely be a few hundred bucks short. I feel okay about it. My productivity was not where it should have been for a few months this year, but ya know…full time job, baby, husband, shockingly needy dog.

That said, this year is winding down in a positive way right now. I wrote 30,000 words in October, and most of it during the second half; I have been doing writing sprints and they’ve been giving my productivity a real shot in the arm. I plan to write 40,000 in November and be on track for publication come the new year. I’ve already booked the editor so I must stay on track. Deadlines, accountability, profit, YES.

2018’s tentative schedule:
Dec-Jan: publish book 3; finish writing book 1 in the Charlie trilogy by end of Jan
Feb-Mar: write Charlie book 2, have Charlie book 1 edited
Apr-May: write Charlie book 3, have Charlie book 2 edited
June: Charlie book 1 published in anthology
July: Charlie book 2 publish
July-Aug: Charlie book 3 publish; write book 4 to finish current SF series
Sept: finish book 4, have it edited, publish it
Oct: Charlie book 1 publish; start Kindle Scout campaign for standalone (30 days)
Nov: publish standalone (assuming I don’t get picked, which is most likely)
Dec: take a goddamn break. Maybe learn about ads, somewhere during the year?

That’s 6 releases. I’ve haven’t had a release schedule like that since…gosh, my romance days, and that was for novellas of 20k words max, not full length 70k word novels.

However, I’ve been averaging over 2k words a day on weekdays, which means about 44k words a month. As long as I don’t hit any major roadblocks, I should do fine. My sprints are really doing wonders and I am a better writer now than I was a year ago.

Also, I might be writing a few romance shorts for the ole dependable romance pen name. Just for fun, and to keep that income stream alive.

Sorry that this blog has just turned into my business planning blog. But I gotta do it somewhere.

“Whatever you are, try to be a good one.”

“Whatever you are, try to be a good one.” – attr. William Makepeace Thackeray

Today is the first day I feel okayish after battling an ass-blasting case of food poisoning or some sort of stomach bug since Tuesday. I think I still need to take it slow today, but I can see the (non-poopy) future looming on the horizon.

Dave and I went to tour a house this past week. It was a strange experience. I shuffled through it, worried that I’d set off my sensitive gut. It was advertised as a fixer, and that was an understatement. It was thickly curtained and crowded with furniture and piles of old family photos. In the kitchen there was a wooden “Bless this Mess” sign and a picture of the Obamas taped on the wall. The back of the house was a bizarre warren of paths up and down to the shoddy addition, and an empty dog’s kennel.

What got me was the signs of life here. The house’s inhabitant was clearly old. He had died recently, and his heirs wanted to be quickly rid of the property–so much so that they wanted to get rid of the house as-is, with all the furniture and photos and dishes. There were broken eggshells in a little cup on the counter. The fridge was still humming, and there was food inside. An open bag of dog treats and a bottle of wine sat on the dining table. But–it was quiet, and no one lived here anymore.

After we left I told Dave that if I died first, he should hie over to a nursing home and sleep with as many women as he could. The odds are quite favorable for male seniors. Anyway, it was sad to think of a widower (I figured, based on the artifacts left scattered around the place) shuffling around the house and missing his wife. Her presence was everywhere, although as far as I could tell she’d died at least 3 years ago.

It’s been haunting me at night even before this but I think a lot these days about the kind of legacy I’ll leave. What kind of family we’ll raise, and what matters to me and us. I want to raise happy, whole people. Who will hold hands with me for a little while. Who will make me see things differently.

I want to write stories that will bring people satisfaction and happiness. A bit of escapism in the day–a pair of borrowed wings. I’ll glue the feathers to the frame.

By the numbers, for both pen names:
Royalties earned to date: $3395 (approx, including those owed)
Sales: 803 for sci-fi pen name only (I’ve stopped tracking romance)
Kindle Unlimited page reads: 186,880

I’ve broken even and a bit more! Now, if I can hit $5k by the end of the year, I’ll be chuffed. I’ve been accepted to a short-story anthology that involves some good number of well-known sci-fi Indies; and I’ve committed to writing a prequel with some other ranked sci-fi authors. I’m hopeful that this will be good exposure and link my books to bigger names. Substantial profit is not really in the cards for a year yet, I suspect.

Nothing like a memento mori to give one a real kick in the rear.

SF SV’s 1st month results & the homegrown MFA in genre writing

Today is the one month anniversary of the release of book 1!

By the numbers, for sci-fi only:
Royalties earned to date for this pen name: $804.26 (approx)
Sales: 620
Kindle Unlimited page reads: 89,180 (works out to be about 250 full reads, give or take)

Now it’s time to adjust the year end goals. By the end of 2017 I will have:

• Finished books 2 and 3 (80,000 words to the finish line)
• Made a submission to an anthology (w/no guarantee of acceptance)
• Wrote one more short story for my mailing list subscribers
• Grown the mailing list to 3,000 people
• Made one Bookbub submission (accepting that my chances are nil-low)
• Read and made notes from 4 craft books, focusing on characters/structure/plotting

I wish I could make a royalties goal for the end of the year but I really have zero clue as to how things will go once books 2 and 3 come out. A slight boost, I hope, but I’ll be surprised if I hit over $1k/mo income for any month this year.

My Homegrown MFA
I’ve been thinking about how to characterize SV. Of course, I want to make money and attract readers. But as I started picking up some writing craft books this year I kicked around the idea of getting more formal training and education in writing. That said, as I ruminated (lookit me using them big words!), I realized that I’d made the most progress as a writer by, well, actually writing. And the best, most accurate (ugh, brutally accurate) feedback came via sales, or lack thereof.

So, I’ve decided that Side Venture is going to be my very own homegrown MFA in genre writing. There are three components:

1. Craft – This is one I’ve largely ignored as I plowed through writing the first few novels of my life. I downloaded some loose novel outlines and kindasorta adhered to them; I adapted a couple popular beat sheets; I created an outline structure in a spreadsheet that has been working okay but not great. Picked up a book on scenes by Jack Bickham recently and discovered that there is so much good info and guidance that I’ve just been blithely ignoring by going my own way. I flatter myself thinking I have a basic understanding of what makes effective storytelling, but there’s so much more that I could be thinking about to improve it. Good craftsmanship means that a reader is unconscious of the effort that went into the writing, and can simply immerse themselves in the experience/world of the novel. The end goal: learn to write absorbing, pleasing, page-turning scenes.
   1. Craft curriculum for 2017: read the 4 craft books on my list (Scene and Structure by Bickham, 20 Master Plots by Tobias, 45 Master Characters by Schmidt, and Writer’s Guide to Heroes and Heroines by Viders). Put notes into Evernote.
2. Process & Productivity – I have a full enough life as it is. So, I need to learn how to maximize the time I do have for writing (she thought with self-righteous determination as she continued to waste time on her blog). MFA students have this part easy: they have deadlines and professors and thesis projects. I have to come up with my own motivation, schedule, and techniques for making this happen. A spreadsheet is probably involved. So far my daily word goals are helping here but this is going to evolve constantly until I reach a pace I’m satisfied with.
3. Marketing – The bane of all writers’ existence, and the most mysterious. I have an ad campaign running for book 1 on AMS but do need to figure out Facebook ads at some point. Some day. Probably in 2018. Right now, the pieces here are to build up enough of a social media presence that I look like a “normal” author and develop my mailing list engagement. Facebook ads can wait until 2018.

When do I graduate? I’ve thought carefully about this. I think when I have made over $60,000/year I can consider myself graduated from this MFA. If I’m making that much money, then I’m probably doing enough things right to consider myself a true professional wordslinger.

Beginning a tentative goal list for 2018:

• Have at least one month where I make >$1k/mo
• Make 3 figures every single month
• Write standalone novel in current SF universe (60k words?)
• Write 2 more novels
• Run a Kindle Scout campaign
• Compose list of craft books for 2018

More goals to be added at the end of the year, when I have a better sense of my books and universe, and how saleable this particular universe is. Maybe I’ll start a new series or keep writing in this one. We’ll save that analysis for the end of the year when I have more/better data, and update my MFA curriculum to match.

SV Mid-Q2 2017

Expense/Profit:
I’m only $139.22 in the hole, including projected earnings from last month. Closing the gap! Looks like I’ll be able to break even this year. Woohoo.

Audience building

• Mailing list size: 2194; open rate’s gone down since I’ve added more subscribers but no one is reporting me for spam and I get a lot of clicks from the people who do open my emails. Year end goal: 3k subscribers.
• All review averages for both novel + novella are above 4.5 on Amazon and Goodreads.

Actual writing
So, this is the hard bit (naturally). I’m slogging along with book 2 but have made an appointment with the proofreader to have the draft to her by June 25 at the latest. That means a minimum of a thousand words a day, maybe pushing to 1.5 to be safe. I think I can make that. I have to.

SV Beginning of Q2 2017

Expense/Profit
Profit: $1005.77
Expenses: $1506.45

A bigger deficit than last time, yikes. Approx $500 in the red. Buuuut we’ll see where things fall in a few months. Actually, I’ll probably even deeper in the red. I might modify 2017’s goals to be: break even.

Audience building

• Mailing list size: 1160; open rate holding steady at 54%, click rate at 32%. Will need to shave off subs who haven’t opened emails.
• 4.7 star average on Amazon for novel, from ARC reviewers, 7 reviews total; aiming for at least 10 before publishing

Actual writing
I’m 5k into the action in book 2; wrote 2 novella/short stories in the series as reader magnets (17k and 12k each). That’s around 30k so far in 2017. End goal? 180k. Time to get to work…

“Fear is the mind-killer…”

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain. -Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear, Dune, Frank Herbert

In December, where did I think I would be by now? I thought I would be releasing book 1. <insert image of God/the fates having a good guffaw>

In a sci-fi state of mind, I thought of the Litany Against Fear this morning when I was thinking about what I wanted to accomplish this year for Side Venture. I’m more fearful about turning SV away from romance and towards sci-fi, since romance is just so naturally profitable and popular, and I’d built a small & faithful audience. But the problem is, writing romance is not sustainable for me. If I were writing full time and had time to maintain more than one pen name, then I’d keep doing it, but I have limited time now and must choose. So I pick the one I personally enjoy reading more–SF.

Last night I received my marked-up draft of book 1 from the proofreader. I was initially excited, and then terrified. She did a great job, and there were positive marks as well as critical ones, and I thought I was good at taking feedback by now, but it did still send a pang of anxiety through me about the quality of my writing. I climbed into bed with C and he said, you won’t know if it’s good until you publish it. And, it doesn’t even have to be good, look at ____ author.

He was, as he usually is, right about this. But it’s hard for the perfectionist in me to let go of a work that might not be good–might just be so-so or even mildly bad. Or it could be absolutely great fun and it will find its audience. I dunno.

Today I’ve worked through her suggestions and feel a little better about things. Apparently, my perfectionism likes to aim the occasional salvo at my work, hopes and dreams, but actually getting down and dirty into the actual work fends her off. (She’s a jerk, but a lazy one.)

So, because I’m too tired and preoccupied to cogitate more about whether my writing has any merit, the state of SV by the numbers:

Expense/Profit
Profit: $731.98 (from romance pen name)
Expenses: $950.45(PO box, DBA filings, proof of filings, review service, cheap covers for freebie stories, notary, domain purchase & hosting, proofreading, pre-booking book promo service)
*Currently -$218.47 in the red, but that will decrease slightly when my ‘Zon payments come in at the end of the month.
*At least I don’t have to pay any taxes this quarter if I stay in the red! But seriously, I haven’t been in the red since I started SV, so this is giving me some anxiety.
*Forecasting further expenses for the year: $180 for proofreading (going w/cheaper editor for books 2/3), $90 for PO box to fulfill can-spam reqs, $300 for miscellaneous (including marketing) puts me at $570 for the rest of the year’s expenses. Even if I only make $100/month from romance pen name residuals and very little from sci-fi, I should be in the black by the end of the year. (I hope.)

Audience building

• Over 1,000 people have downloaded a short story of mine for free in exchange for being added to my mailing list. Open rate for this list is 54%, click rate is 32%, which is pretty darn good for a list of freebie-seekers. Unsubscribes at about 3%. Hoping that translates to an okay conversion rate when I actually have a book to sell!
• Observation: sci-fi readers skew male. Or readers attracted to my kind of sci-fi do.
• Someone emailed me: “I would rate “<short story>” FIVE STARS. I enjoyed the book tremendously. The storyline and characters were great. Thank you for a exciting story”. It made me feel pretty good. 🙂
• about 14 people requested to join my review team. I need around 10 reviews to be able to run book promotions. Hoping for a 50% yield from that list, so…7 reviews? Organic reviews will fill out the rest, I hope.
• No one follows me on FB or twitter, which I understand to be no big deal as far as sales are concerned. Thank god, because tweeting does not come naturally to this old lady.

Actual writing (I mean, really. Who does that?)
Book 2 is fully outlined and ready to chug, but I’m realizing that I need to outline book 3 so it can inform what happens in book 2. This pushes my writing schedule back slightly. Blarghity.

To work, and beyond!

Committed

That there is a screenshot from my receipt for the commissioning of three covers for my space opera project. I had to take a couple of deep breaths before I clicked the buy button; I’ve never, ever spent so much money related to side venture. And immediately the doubts poured forth: what if I never break even on the covers alone? Should I have picked a cheaper artist? A more expensive one? What if I get a bunch of one star reviews? What if I never finish the sequels? What if someone I know picks up the book and the shame of my terrible writing becomes known? What if no one buys it at all? Have I been going about this all wrong and don’t even know it?

But. The fact of the matter is, I did click that buy button. It means I’m committed. I want to do this, have always wanted to do this, and I have no time to waste. The baby needs a mother with some measure of courage.

Also, I have too much scrimpy immigrant in me to spend that much money and not try to squeeze all the value I can out of it.

Finally, I like this story. I’m having fun writing it, which is more than I can say for some other things I’ve worked on. I would write this story even if it did go exactly nowhere. So maybe–even if my worst dreams came true, and it was a commercial flop, I would still be happy to have written it. That’s a good thing.

When I look at my previous post, I realize that I’m really not so behind when it comes to SV goals. I’ve outlined SO1 extensively and is 25% written; SO2 is lightly outlined, and I know how SO3 ends. I didn’t complete nano (blame he-who-shall-not-be-named, a cold, a 7 month old, and Thanksgiving), but am still continuing to write at a steady pace. I found a cover artist. We’re on track.

Deep breaths.

Updated SV goals for the end of the year
-Finish SO1
-Finish SO3 light outline
-If time, do detailed outline for SO2 + SO3
-Start list of blog topics (have backlog of 5-10 before publication of SO1)

2017 Q1 SV Goals
-Complete SO2
-Detailed outline for SO3
-Hire proofreader for SO1
-Set up mailing list
-Compile list of new release book promo sites
-Find advance reviewers
-Get EIN/DBA?
-Facebook page?
-Plan for February release?!

2017 Misc/long-range goals
-Complete SO3
-Return to romance pen name, finish short stories 1-3
-Further blog topics for SO
-AWS/Facebook ads?
-Make $10k in 2017

Starting over – side venture & beyond

Well, baby is 6 months–almost 7 months!–and much has changed. Is that a simple, obvious understatement? Yes. Motherhood and early babyhood is so overflowing with drama and meaning and boredom and drudgery that I can scarcely make heads or tails of it. Things are moving so quickly that to stop and reflect means scrambling to catch up a few minutes or days later. It’s harder than I thought it would be, much harder. Nothing I have done in life could have prepared me for it, and things are getting easier and more complex at the same time. The doula who led my mother’s group said that parenting is to adapt and adjust, over and over and over again. We are all alive, C is gaining weight, and more aware day by day. She can roll, hold food to gnaw on, drink water, and grapple with toys. She loves to be held, although she’ll complain loudly if she’s not properly entertained while in our arms. That’s where we are for now–in a month, or even a few days, everything will change. That is the only thing that’s certain.

Side Venture
And now for the self-knowing: I need to get back to writing. For sanity and meaning and purpose and profit.

In 2015, the year I was most active with publishing, I made $12,475.15. This year thus far, I’ve been paid $6,743.36, about half of what I earned in 2015.

I haven’t published at all, written much, and have done zero marketing/advertising. It took me weeks to respond to a few meager pieces of fan mail. So, I surpassed my royalty goal while being totally indolent, which was $6k. If I  make $7k total for 2016, I’ll be content.

Nonetheless earnings continue to dip as the algorithms are so dependent on new releases. I should expect that I drop from about $200 a month to $150 and eventually $100 a month next year without new releases. This makes my quit number quite beyond reach. So, it’s time to ramp things up with writing in order to get off the CHW (corporate hamster wheel).

The problem is, when I sit down to write, or even outline, my eyes glaze over and I tab over to facebook or reddit or some forum. My ability to concentrate is weak and flabby, as if my brain’s constantly scanning the environment for snakes or spiders or tips from my mothers’ groups. That must change. And, like all exercise, it’s all about repetition and discipline. I think my ability to focus will improve if I just try, over and over and over again.

Tentative SV goals, for the end of the year:
-Outline SO1
-Outline SO2
-Outline SO3
-Outline SOprequel
-Complete nanowrimo (for SO1)
-Find cover artist

Body
One markedly positive thing that came out of pregnancy and birth is a deepened sense of appreciation for my body. For what it has done for me, for what it has done for C, for simply what it is capable of (more than I ever gave it credit for!). I want to do more to make life easier on body.

Body goals
-Lose 5 lbs
-Wean in Dec/Jan
-Dentist

“The blue colour is everlastingly appointed by the Deity to be a source of delight…”

“The blue colour is everlastingly appointed by the Deity to be a source of delight; and whether seen perpetually over your head, or crystallised once in a thousand years into a single and incomparable stone, your acknowledgment of its beauty is equally natural, simple, and instantaneous.” – John Ruskin, quoted in a very interesting article about ultramarine

Today was a good and beautiful day, and the sky was as blue as beauty, and the passionflowers were blooming in my backyard, and sunlight illuminated everything.

Today was especially lovely as it was cooler than yesterday. I spent yesterday at the  courthouse near Lake Merritt, waiting to be excused from jury duty for a murder trial. The courthouse was clearly a WPA building, art deco and covered in wood and marble within. There was nothing else nearby, a few closed museums and the lake not too far off. I went to a Cambodian restaurant for lunch and ate overpriced egg rolls and fried rice, then waddled back in the afternoon to see if my hardship excusal had been granted (“I will be 38 weeks pregnant when this trial begins…”).

The court staff and the judge were amiable and understanding that no one wanted to be there; they called two groups of 80 and excused most of us. I was almost moved to tears when standing in the hot, windowless vestibule of the courtroom a very nice man offered me his seat. I hadn’t realized how tired I was that afternoon. I took the BART home and walked back to the house very, very slowly. I lay down on the daybed in the baby’s room but don’t remember if I slept.

I can’t decide if I am genuinely less energetic than before or if the lack of distractions–like I had at work–is simply making me focus on my bodily discomforts more. The day before I left on leave an attorney commented that pregnancy hasn’t slowed you down at all. I cheerily responded that I felt great!

Well; three days later and I feel unwieldy and tired so much of the day. Maybe at work I had no choice but to keep moving, keep working, stop thinking so much about my body. I tried to get more exercise today–11.5k steps–and it did help some, I think. I wasn’t tempted to nap this afternoon. But my feet still ached, and I was short of breath, and my right hip felt like it was aching and over-rotated (like I had pushed my turnout too hard).

Still, the day was not without its minor achievements. I proofread my last novel and caught a few errors; I have my cover ready to go and will likely publish it this weekend. This poor book will alas be an orphan; I have no desire whatsoever to write a sequel and this will be for a different pen name. If it recovers the cost of the cover ($40?) I will be happy. I also began learning basic formatting for creating paperbacks, and this book will be my guinea pig. Tomorrow: dentist, more formatting, possibly some outlining.

I made berry smoothies and fried eggs for breakfast, lettuce cups and roasted Japanese sweet potatoes for lunch, and avocado quesadillas for dinner. I only had one slice of the strawberry cake we made this Sunday. I split a rich chocolate cookie with Carter for evening dessert. Very. Small. Victories.

Baby is turning over and over within me. She just finished her nightly session of hiccups. Little one, how is that I know you are going to be big trouble?

---

Things to do, mostly unorganized:

*General to-do’s*
Buy Toms shoes on eBay (Mon)
Buy Tieks (any day)
Toss old shoes (check for tread and holes)
Sign up for Imperfect Produce box using coupon code
Sort through SIL’s hand-me-downs
Make lettuce wraps
Bake sweet potatoes
Clear old food from fridge
Jury duty (check Sunday night)
Laundry (Sunday night)
Schedule house cleaning for Thu
Put cleaning powder on rug and vacuum
Schedule haircut
Roomba 2nd bdrm and bathroom
Trim dead leaves off houseplants
Repot the goddamn mint
Frame for art in baby’s room
Badger parents about TDAP shots
Cake for baby shower
Create inventory for chest freezer
Set up bassinet
Pack hospital bag
Get prescription filled
Clean out baby’s dresser, move my junk upstairs
Organize DVDs by genre
Wash baby clothes given as gifts, organize in dresser

*Food planning for postpartum period*
Jiaozi
Ravioli
Garlic meatballs or meaty marinara
Carnitas
[buy] precooked rice, TJ’s frozen meals (orange chicken, Indian entrees), frozen organic fruit (smoothies), raisins
Steel cut oatmeal pucks (freeze)
Freeze sliced whole wheat bread
Cookie dough
Banana bread (slice)

*Writing*
Sign box set contract
Proofread standalone novel
Format and publish standalone novel
Outline SFR series (4)
Outline bestseller story sequels (3)
Finish outlining space opera book 2
Outline space opera book 3
Write 1/3 bestseller story sequel