Returned To The Wintry North

All good things come to an end… including Florida beach holidays…

[Sanibel Island, Florida, December 17, 2021. Photo by me.]

We flew back here to upstate New York on Saturday…

[About to fly. Fort Myers, Florida, December 18, 2021 Photo by me.]

…to be reminded there are no palm trees here. LOL!…

[Windham, New York, December 19, 2021. Photo by me.]

And to be reminded also this morning that it can get SERIOUSLY COLD here in December…

[On the roof at about 3 AM this morning. 9F is nearly -13C. Brrh. Photo by me.]

Up very early New York time today because we are living again on UK time (five hours ahead of New York) for my wife’s Zoom meetings with people across the Atlantic.

I need a cup of coffee… definitely…

[Coffee cup. Photo by me. December 2021.]

And I continue to work to pull together the latest novel…

…even now, at 3 o’clock in the mornings.

I spent quite a lot of time on it while we were in Florida. This is what I consider the WORST time for me as I write: the end. There is always – SOMEHOW – a missed “the” in a sentence or something.

It takes a great deal of EFFORT to write something that is EASY to read. I have been at this latest ~~massive historical romantic extravaganza~~ manuscript now for nearly two years and it has been – as my manuscripts in progress always are – a huge part of my daily life. I suppose that fact unsurprisingly now and then even “bleeds” unexpectedly into my ordinary doings.

For example, we had a long day back on Saturday: the predictable airport travel stuff leaving Florida, then two flights (including nearly a missed connection due to bad weather in Charlotte, North Carolina) to Albany, annoying airport stuff on arrival in Albany, and then a snowy and foggy hour’s drive back here to the Catskills. So when we woke up Sunday morning, my wife asked me how I had slept – given I had been unconscious for about 9 hours. “I had a bit of a necessary sleep,” I told her.

“That sounds like something out of your books,” she laughed.