Which do you want to hear first?

Bad news: my hands are back to being munted.

Right now, they are not actively painful. Right now, the ache is a lurking possibility, like a muffled and irritating song playing in another room that is only bearable because I can’t hear the actual lyrics.

And to keep it there, I am being sensible. I’m stretching! I’m walking! I’m taking my meds! And, my least favourite, I’m writing in ten minute sprints at the computer.

It’s working, but it’s incredibly frustrating. Every time I feel that I’m in the flow, every time I’ve nailed one character moment and am flowing naturally into the next one, boom! The timer goes off1. And because I am being sensible, for the next ten minutes I have to stand up and do my stretches and wash some dishes or something that is not sitting at my computer typing. 

My writing work day doesn’t take any more actual writing time — I write to word count and scene finishes, not to the clock — but the day must mutate to take it. My ideal working day starts with reading until noon, then concentrated work to the mid-afternoon, at which point I close the laptop and do chores, run errands, read, or work on whatever textiles craft is currently consuming me. Then I go back to writing in the evening and into the night.

Right now, those chores, the reading, the fabric craft - those are also happening in ten minute chunks. My sense of time is completely askew. Yesterday I vaguely thought, “I’m hungry, I should make dinner, what time is it?”

It was 11pm.

Some things work in ten minutes! Cleaning windows, one at a time. Hanging a load of washing on the line. I’m doing a lot of baking to feed people at ceasefire rallies, and that’s a great ten minute activity - ten minutes mis-en-place, ten minutes mix and pop in the oven, then however many multiples of ten it takes to bake.

Here’s what I made while I wrote this newsletter:

I am also rewatching season two of The Bear in ten minute chunks. My comfort watch is a show about stressed perfectionists trying to create ephemeral art in a flawed world.

I know. I am aware.

So that’s the bad news.

The good news is that Persephone in Bloom is now available in print! All of you paperback lovers may now get your groove on.

You can order it right now from Amazon, and it should be available from other print-on-demand retailers very soon.

The EXTRA GOOD GREAT news is that because Persephone is out in print, and I’m wrapping up the first arc of the Olympus Inc. series with Hera Takes Charge in early Jan (pre-order now!), the Persephone in Bloom ebook is FREE for a limited time.

This is not the permanent price, so get in quick!

Penelope Pops the Question, the prequel novelette, is of course always free to newsletter subscribers, so don’t forget to pick that up too. And, as always, word of mouth is the very best promotion. Please tell your friends!

(Setting Persephone to free did some weird and cool things to the book downloads in Amazon which I’ll be talking about in my next Business of Writing newsletter. For now, suffice to say that I am giddily updating my friends on the new numbers every few hours and they have kindly refrained from telling me to cut it out.)

The timer is about to go off again. I am going to eat a muffin and watch Richie start to care about forks. I hope you will find something similarly good in your day, whether your news is bad or good!