Sylvia's Soliloquies

Wrapping up Mrs. Claus - 1/31/18

I've wrapped up my edits for "The Mrs. Claus Affair" and have sent it along to my beta readers.  I also sent them the short story that will be an exclusive extended epilogue in the kindle edition of the book.  It's titled "Speaking with Conviction" and it takes place about a month after the end of the book.

Now after reading through this sucker like 3 or 4 times, I get a break from it until mid September when I'll do the final edit based on my readers' feedback.  However, there's no rest for the weary, next week I start work on "The Business of Love and Lies."  I'm like 99% certain that title is getting changed (honestly, I think I'm 80% certain all of the stories will have their titles changed).

For those who attempted to read "The Business of Love and Lies," bless your heart.  I know it's a rough read.  It's sad because I really like the story, but I have a different perspective because I knew what it was back when it was a visual novel and sadly, it just didn't hold up too well when it got translated into a different medium.  However, I'm not giving up!  Out of all of the books I wrote  last year, this one likely needs the most editing as I already know I'm going to be completely tearing down and rebuilding a couple chapters, particularly the first chapters.  I did, however, only allot myself the same amount of time to edit this book as I did with all the other books, so we'll see how well that goes...  Of course, a recent turn of events means I'll actually have more time to work soon...

So, the past year has been crazy.  Every time we think we have reached a good point in our lives, some terrible shit pops us and punches us in the face.  I thought after the holidays, things would settle and I could get back into a routine, but then my in-laws, who watch my son two days out of the week ended up spending a month in Japan.  So that ruined my chances of regaining my routine.  However, last week they came back and we thought, now, now we will get back into the swing of things and everything will be right in the world.  Except last Friday we were shocked to find out my son's preschool will be closing mid February.

I spent all of last year doing everything in my power to get my life back on track after having a baby.  I love my son, but my mental health depends on me having a personal identity outside of being a mother.  So we sold our house and moved into a new house to be closer to my husband's work so I didn't have to spend so much time alone with our son.  Then, we squeezed our budget as tight as we could to find the money to get him into preschool a couple days out of the week.  With my in-laws watching him two days as well, that meant that I only had to watch him one day a week and life started to get back on track.  So losing the preschool was a huge blow to my sanity.  Fortunately, after a few painful days of stress and searching, we found a school, that just happened to have an opening coming up in mid-February.  Not only that, but it's cheaper and so we can actually have my son in school three days a week.  Which means, I can work full time!

It's just been one trial after another after another, and I've been burned too many times to get hopeful at this point that maybe we can finally have some peace.  But for now it seems we've dodged another bullet and can at least attempt to move forward for awhile.