Weekly Round Up - October 23

My Writing Week

This week was limited to honestly this post and this post only. I tried to dive into the story while working from the hotel after various workshops this week, but after long days on the production floor followed by even longer sessions in the conference rooms working with the customers, my brain was mush. To top it off, all the travel and timezone hopping I've done over the last few weeks has crushed my sleep and it's caught up with me in the form of a gnarly cold.

Life will Life

With said cold knocking me on my butt a bit, this weekend will be all about spending time with the family and resting as much as possible. Weather here in North Carolina is great, finally having turned into Fall, so Saturday or Sunday will be filled with pumpkin patches and pumpkin carving as we get ready for Halloween next weekend. At the behest of the 4yr-old, we will all be Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, with his little brother obviously Raphael because as my 4yo says, "He's such a cheeky hot-head." The other thing I am trying to get going again is refocusing on my health journey. From April until October, I had lost about 17 pounds through improved eating habits and exercise. Well, that's gone to shit over the month and my body is feeling it. I'm much more tired and sluggish than I have been recently, with an overall feeling of blah, so working to not undo all of that work will be paramount.

What I'm Enjoying

I am almost done with SOLITARY AGENTS and loving it. I expect I'll finish it tonight after we watch GREAT BRITISH BAKE OFF, a fall Friday tradition that gets us excited for the colder months. The other thing we have been devouring is THE DIPLOMAT on Netflix. The plot can get a bit absurd some times but damn if it's not just one of the most entertaining series on TV right now.

What's Next

Getting my life back in order. With travel done for the foreseeable future (though I am sure something will pop up between now and the end of the year), I am working to get some normalcy and routine back. And that's not just in my work/writing life. I was watching the Gordan Ramsay documentary on Netflix a few weeks back (it's fine, very glossy, doesn't go beyond surface level topics). But in one of the episodes he calls out how with all of his travel, the when he comes back home, he has to work to assimilate and get back in the flow of the family routine and I get that. With me being gone so much this month (an anomaly for sure, but still), my wife did an amazing job of keeping life going here. Now that I am back, I don't want to come in like a wrecking ball and break that, so I am working to meld myself back into the day-to-day. So I am looking forward to not having to be on the road for a while and just getting to be husband and Dad again. With less travel also comes a bit more mental breathing room, so I am hopeful that will help me to get back into some kind of writing rhythm. Will report back on that one.