Why waste September on work?

These cooler September days are beguiling me away from my computer...

I just want to be outside on the deck intermittently reading and watching the birds and squirrels, and the leaves drifting down from the persimmon tree, which is always the first to shed them. It also sheds fruit, which lies fermenting on the grass, attracting butterflies and bees. Intoxicated butterflies and bees.

But no. I have too much to do these days. First and foremost on my list is preparing for the 6th annual Carolinas Writers Conference, coming in  April.

But, you may say, that's so far away! Why worry about it now?

A good question. The answer is, so we won't have a dozen pesky details popping up at the last minute that could have been taken care of ahead of time--because it's guaranteed there will be a dozen pesky details rearing their ugly heads at the last minute that we didn't think about ahead of time.

So lots of correspondence with presenters, drawing up contracts, etc.

Then there is the matter of the final edits on "Riverbend" before I begin submitting it to publishers, editors or agents. I am excited that this project is so near completion and I am already thinking about a sequel.

And, since getting my rights to "Angels Unaware" and "The Lunch Club" back from the now-defunct Draumr Publishing, I have decided to self-publish the books. So I am reformatting the pages to upload to CreateSpace. The books don't need editing, since they have already been edited, but I do need to look carefully at the formatting so that the paragraphs don't all run together. Thank  you, Ashantay Peters, for the tip on reading the ms. from back to front. You really do see errors better that way!

I am not trying to do all this at once. Multi-tasking means only that nothing gets the full attention it needs. I try to focus on one thing at a time...making sure there is enough time left to go out on the deck and sip a glass of wine while I read Ashantay's novel, "Death Stretch."

Aah, September.