Yesterday, Friday, I felt as though I’d back-slid, in terms of this cold. No brain, more congested, achy, etc.

However, this morning (Saturday) I’m felling much better again, probably back to where I was on Thursday morning before I left Las Vegas. I am vaguely optimistic that come Monday, I will be back to writing fiction. (Actually had a couple of fiction thoughts this morning while I was laying in bed.) I will be able to put together a newsletter this afternoon, something else I was unable to do yesterday. (And yes, it’s REALLY late. My bad.)

The snow is slowly melting on the property. I can even drive my car down the driveway now! I’m looking forward to doing that shortly.

Last fall, over next to the tiny house, I dug out a bunch of the grass and planted bulbs. Wherever the snow has melted over the garden patch, I’ve seen points of flowers poking out, like the daffodils and the crocuses. Sometime this weekend, I’ll remove the snow from the entire garden so the flowers can start their spring thing.

While I didn’t get much of anything done yesterday (which, as my sweetie likes to tell me, was kind of the point) I did get a lot more reading done for the mystery workshop that I’ll go to in Vegas come April. And honestly, that was important work. Absorbing story. The problem is that I’m not a fast reader, so it will take me a lot of time to get through all of it.

I’m currently signed up for the SF workshop next January. I figure it will be fine to attend that, but I’m still going to be cautious about it.

The background: When I first discovered the workshops in Lincoln City with Kris and Dean, I signed up for both the Character, Setting, and Voice in person workshop with Dean, as well as the short story workshop with Kris. They were very closely spaced – perhaps only a month apart.

I seriously hurt my writer brain by doing that, by taking such intensive, in-depth workshops so closely together. It took me about three months to recover my writer brain. I will not consciously hurt myself like that again, and I know that Kris and Dean don’t want me to hurt myself either.

I figure that although the mystery workshop is only five weeks after the anthology workshop, that won’t hurt my writer brain. The SF workshop is nine months after the mystery workshop, and I assume I’ll be recovered enough by then. But I’m going to be paying close attention. If the reading list for the SF workshop (which should arrive in Sept) shows up and my brain screams, “NO!!!” I’ll cancel. I will not hurt myself. Nor should I.

So what are you up to this Saturday? Any grand and glorious plans? I have a newsletter to write, as well as more mysteries to read. And a purring kitty who is demanding a lot of attention, since I’ve been gone for so long.