An Odd Start to a New Month

May's been off to a bizarre start so far. I feel like it's been full of niggling irritations and lots of little things randomly going wrong. For instance, yesterday, some guy wrapped his pick-up truck around a pole outside the grocery store down the street. To the best of my knowledge, no one was hurt, including the driver. 

He did manage to knock the power out for at least a few blocks, though, including the power at our house. I knew something good and fucked up had just happened because I heard this loud, almost apocalyptic electric humming outside right before the power went out. Then, later, there was all this smoke in the sky that smelled like burnt wires and electricity. 

Thankfully, we have a gas stove, so I could still finish making dinner despite having to do it in semi-darkness. And I certainly thought we were going to be without power for a good long while, which put me in a pretty bad mood, but thankfully everything was back up and running by the time I was ready to fix everyone's plates. I had a tight deadline to meet for a client before I'd be able to go to bed that night, so it was a huge relief not to have to thumb out the last couple of articles I had to finish on my phone with what was left of my battery charge. 

The whole month of May so far, not to mention the last few days of April, have been kind of like that, though. Many annoying little setbacks you can't possibly plan for, like other people dropping the ball or clients expecting to drastically change the scope of projects without any notice -- that sort of thing. I feel woefully behind with a lot of the things I've wanted to do, especially when it comes to writing. I guess that's life, though -- a constant rotating game of "feast or famine."

........

I successfully completed my editing project for Camp NaNoWriMo last month and "won" the event. That's two significant NaNo firsts for me at this point -- my first NaNoWriMo project that I've not only completed but also edited from start to finish. All thirty stories are now publish-ready, so all that's left for me to do is figure out what to do with all of them. Considering how much trouble I've had finishing my creative writing projects in the past, I feel pretty good about myself right now for following through with this.

I did wind up publishing one of them with P.S. I Love You on Medium for the Fiction Friday showcase last week, so I can officially say I've started putting these stories out there. It didn't attract that much interest or attention, nor did I really expect it to, as fiction doesn't do all that well on Medium. It got a few reads, though, and I'm proud of myself for putting it out there in the first place. I'm also excited to share a little bit of this side of my writing personality with those who like my work and might want to see another side of it. Hopefully, it's the start of a really well-rounded approach to writing that does include creative output once in a while.