Friday, July 11, 2008

A Lot Can Happen in A Year!

Each year around this time, we make our annual trek up to the beautiful country of Muskoka - which is actually in Ontario, Canada. For the next six weeks or so, I'll be stretched out on my dock taking in the beauty of the lake, going for long walks and enjoying the company of family and friends. I use the time to catch up on my reading and we watch a lot of movies.
As I start to wade through the mounds of laundry and set aside things that need to be packed, I find myself looking back over the months that have passed since last July.
This year I have to say I'm a little overwhelmed.

We started building our home. A huge undertaking with major headaches, and this will continue until April.
Around this time last year I had completed a full manuscript that I was getting ready to pitch at the ACFW conference that September. I didn't have an agent, but I felt more confident in my writing than ever before.
My daughter, my first born, was headed off to university. I was a bit of a mess about it.
But life was good.

Since then - our home building continues, the stress continues, but it's very exciting.
I've rewritten most of the book I had pitched at last year's conference.
I have an agent.
I've written another full length novel that is now in said agent's hands.
I managed to survive the year without my daughter - MSN, Skype and Facebook are wonderful ways to keep in touch!
I've dealt with a dog who developed seizures, and a son who turned fifteen.
Not to mention church, volunteering and trying to keep the few friends I have...
Amazingly, I'm still fairly sane.

I'm thinking two books in a year is probably pretty good. I'm taking my cottage time to relax.
Of course nobody believes that and I think bets are being placed on the fact that I'll probably be working on something else
by the time I get home, but we'll see.

Everybody needs a break once in a while! This is mine.

2 comments:

Jorge said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Richard L. Mabry, MD said...

Catherine,
Time has a way of slipping away, doesn't it? This year I finished my fourth novel and started another, severed my connection with my agent (without rancor on either side), decided to give up writing, felt a recurrence of my call, got a great new agent (the same as yours), and so it goes. We never know what tomorrow holds. So enjoy your time away, and come back refreshed and ready for your next project. Blessings.