Sheila and Sara

 Please excuse Sheila from working on her novel for the next several days, as it is Holy Week and her state of mind for that period will not be conducive to doing so.

 Please excuse Sheila from working on her project for the past several days, as she went on a long weekend to see Sir Paul McCartney play in Las Vegas. This time includes a day off after her return to recover from a red eye flight. She has resumed work today, and hopes she'll be able to continue the momentum.

 Please excuse Sheila from working on her book today, because she was rereading and taking notes for her writers group tomorrow. Thank you.

So, after many months of intermittent poking, I have all the feedback for Christophina's Wings  from all the beta readers that I'm going to get. Which means I now have no more excuses. The last bit of feedback I got wasn't exactly glowing, but it made some flaws clear that I need to deal with. So I'm burrowing through the book and finding all kinds of things that need tweaking. I'm going to run the first and second chapters back through my writing group, so I can put them up on the internet to people to see, and in the meantime go over everything else in detail. This means it's time for me to resume the habit of Excuse Notes. Until I have the novel fully revised and out in the world, I have resolved to do at least something towards that goal each day. I did some work today, but I didn't yesterday, so here is my excuse note for that: Please excuse Sheila from working on her novel yesterday because she had to deal with her job later than she would have liked ...

 Please excuse Sheila from working on her novel yesterday as she was cleaning up and recovering from her birthday party on the 15th of June. She has done work on her novel today.

 Please excuse Sheila from working on her novel yesterday as she went to a screening of Citizen Kane  that afternoon and spent long-delayed time in Second Life that evening. She has already started work today.

 Please excuse Sheila from working on her novel yesterday as she had a very long drive from the lovely little condo where she vacationed to the lovely little condo where she lives.

Please excuse Sheila from working on her novel today, as her evening was taken up with planting tomatoes, preparing feedback for tomorrow's writers group meeting, making lunch for the week, and taking a damn shower. Thank you.

 Please excuse Sheila from working on her novel today, as her evening was spent making up the work hours she lost to oversleeping this morning. Sheila would also like to report that, as of yesterday, she has completed the reverse-engineered outline for Christophina's Garden  and is looking forward to completing the work as a whole. Thank you.

 Please excuse Sheila from working on her novel today because she had a full day of work and a visit from a dear friend. Thank you.

Please excuse Sheila from working on Vexations  yesterday and in the near future, as she has run out of things to do to it and will likely not have any new things to do until she receives feedback from her various writers' groups. Thank you.

I just pointed some people to this blog, which I take as a hint that I should update the thing so the last entry isn't over a year ago. My various streams of income have been very demanding and I have been writing actual fictional stuff in the free time in between. And NaNoWriMo pretty much ate my November. But one of my New Year's resolutions was to do twelve posts in my various blogs (in totality--not per blog) and I just finished another resolution of submitting The Two Kinds of Magic  to at least five agents, so I'm feeling like things are possible. I'm working on two things right now. One is a short(ish) story called Vexations  which I was starting in the previous entry here. (It was 7,000 words then; it clocks in at 14,000 words now.) The other is a detailed outline of this coming November's NaNoWriMo effort. (It's a sequel to last year's--I guess I just didn't want the story to end.) I've sniffed out some potential places to submit Vexati...

Please excuse Sheila for all past days missed in the course of the year so far. She underwent some considerable difficulties that are not a matter for public declaration. She will make an effort to be more consistent with her excuse notes from this point forward, barring similar catastrophe. Thank you.

I signed up for the Clarion West Write-A-Thon because my hope was that it would motivate me to get my arse in gear and get a workable draft completed of The Two Kinds of Magic . This did not happen. There are reasons, some that cannot be discussed in public and others that are all too familiar.  (The Ugly Handsome Man was in fine form, I must say.)  In point of fact, I was in a bad enough place that I couldn't even make myself write excuse notes, so there are a lot of unexcused non-writing days to account for. I believe today is the last day to donate.  If you'd like to make a donation on my behalf, despite my miserable failure, the link is thus:  http://clarionwest.org/writeathon/sheilaoshea .  Anybody who does will be sent one of my Ten Thousand Flowers to the address you provide when you make the donation--you will not need to send a SASE to receive it. I am slowly working my way back to regular writing sessions in an effort to complete this beast. ...

Please excuse Sheila from working on her novel today as she went straight from work to see Collin Kelley and Theresa Davis read from their new poetry collections, had dinner in Decatur afterward and thus did not get home until quite late.

Please excuse Sheila from all writing projects for the remainder of the year 2012.  Thank you.

Please excuse Sheila from her 100 Odd Words for the month of November, as she is once again participating in National Novel Writing Month and needs all the words she can spare for that project.  Thank you.

Please excuse Sheila from working on her novel for the next several days as she will be attending DragonCon and feels she will be more relaxed and productive if her work is considered a nice bonus instead of an obligation.  She intends to resume work on the fourth of September.  Thank you.

Please excuse Sheila from working on her novel today as her morning writing session was consumed by recounting the events of the past weekend, her day was consumed by a full eight hours of work and her evening was consumed by a homeowner's association meeting.  These three events have drained too much of her mental energy to do much more than dither on the Internet until bed.  Thank you.

Please excuse Sheila from working on her novel today as she picked up her copy of The Lord of the Rings in a fit of insomnia last night and cannot be sure if she will be able to set it aside long enough to get any significant work done.