Spinning Plates

Sometimes I feel like a plate spinner in a circus...I have so much I'm doing, and each thing I do requires so much of my attention...and if I forget what I'm doing, the plates start wobbling and then, of course, disaster strikes!

I have a mountain of books I want to read- stacks of books on and underneath the coffee table, stacks of books on the end table, piles of books in the dining room, on the bookcase and the floor in the bedroom, plus file boxes of books I really need to get to. I don't know if I have enough lifetime left to read all the books I've accumulated to read when I get old!

I am currently in the process of writing the fourth book in the Black King Takes White Queen series, and then in the midst of that, I started Ezra's story when he's twenty-three and meets the young woman he's destined to marry and make his princess. And I still have Garnet and Quella impatiently waiting for me to turn my attention back to their story and finally get it done! There is Spindrift and another couple of almost finished novels gathering dust in the dining room, too. Thus, plate 1, spinning and getting nowhere.

Plate 2- I started drawing in pen and ink again back in September 2018. This was a passion of mine when I was in high school and college. I taught myself after we sampled all sorts of art materials in high school- like acrylics, charcoal, pastels, pencil, pen & ink, oils, scratchboard, etc. The pen & ink spoke to the Victorian in my heart. I just loved the dip pens, bottles of ink, and the lines I could make, the dots (stippling), the cross hatching, etc. I drew a teddy bear napping when Kelly was a baby then my pen & ink materials were packed away. I took them out again last September to draw some more realistic black squirrels (having drawn the original black squirrel silhouette in pen & ink in 2000). I ended up drawing 18 different squirrels. Then I drew Kip, the fox kit that plays a role in The Worth of a Woman, that was published in late September last year. Then I began drawing other wildlife pictures and then birds. Suddenly  found myself being asked to draw people's dogs after I drew my office manager's four dogs for her for Christmas. Suddenly I was drawing way more than I was writing. Plate 2 spinning wildly, plate 1 beginning to wobble.

Work---plate 3...I need to keep that one going because it funds my writing and drawing hobbies. I tend to give away a lot of my work which probably isn't such a good idea since the materials cost me a small fortune, but it makes me happy to make other people happy...therefore, I must spin plate 3 hard!

Plate 4...health issues. This plate spins and looks great, but it's prone to suddenly develop a bad wobble out of the blue. Since the beginning of this year I have had a series of health issues to cope with while keeping the other three plates spinning. Gastritis, a nasty upper respiratory virus, an RA flare, and chronic fatigue. I have to drag myself out of bed in the morning. The back deck stairs up to the kitchen door look like the Himalayas at the end of the day. I tend to burn the midnight oil because I am a night owl by nature. Morning person, I am not! Yet, I get up at 6AM every morning to get ready for work as my bathroom time is squeezed between Kelly's and John's since they both have a longer drive to their workplaces in CT than I have (5 mils down the road) to mine.

Desert Plate 5- the cats...they are needy after being home alone all day. They have each other, but they need their human companions at the end of the day, plus treats and attention, and a little play time.

It mystifies me how I keep all the plates spinning without falling over from sheer dizziness!

I guess I just like what I do. I'm not sick of it by any means. My writing and my art are my happy places. I want to stay happy! So, I'll keep spinning the plates for as long as I can!