Well, my last post on “getting serious” turned out to be a bit of a farce! After beginning my pledge to write more, and more frequently, I spiraled back down into feeling ill and unmotivated again. So nothing got done! It’s now October and I haven’t so much as opened my Scrivener file for Roses For Margaret. I find it rather scary, thinking of logging into the laptop, looking through my many writing files, and loading up the book that has given me such difficulty.

Due to my health issues and a big road trip holiday in New England that was coming up at the time, I decided to have summer off to devote to relaxing, in preparation for an exhausting but exciting trip, and the idea that I would be working on bettering my projects non-stop come September.

The holiday was two weeks long, and I had an amazing time with my family, trying new things and seeing new places. I swam in the freezing cold ocean in Maine, attempting to jump over waves that came high above my head; stayed in a cottage on a farm with many animals, in a remote place in New Hampshire where there were two pet Newfoundlands whose scent kept the forest bears away; rowed down a river in Vermont on a raft, where there were millions of surrounding dragonflies flitting in every direction, and with the surrounding forest and crystal-clear mountain straight ahead; jumped in and swam in the same river fully clothed, spitting out the floating dragonflies and struggling along kept afloat by an awkwardly big life vest, loving the chilled but natural waters; searching through an antiques store in Connecticut as big as a palace, grandfather clocks clanging and chiming away the many hours spent in pursuit of a beautiful bargain, and coming across a late Victorian embroidered purse that would end up fervently admired and travelling across the Atlantic in my suitcase; standing on wooden fences on a Cape Cod beach, craning to get the best view of the amber and scarlet setting sun. It was all magical, and I was so active and thrilled for each day, yet falling asleep each night within minutes of laying my head on a pillow. No wonder it took about a month to recover!

But I think I’m finally back. I’m no longer anxious about logging into my laptop, and I’m just about getting to opening the dreaded Scrivener file. I have a couple of plans for Margaret, who has been proverbially sitting on the shelf for a while now – better dust off her blonde hair and iron her school dress. It is my gap year; or, thinking realistically, as I don’t think uni life is for me – me being the autistic, constantly ill, extremely family-orientated, drinking/party-scene-hating, naive, young-for-my-age, “square” kinda girl that I am – this “gap year” is probably going to be the rest of my life (not putting myself down, by the way, it’s a truthful description of my fuddy-duddy ways, and I say most of it with humor :)). So, it being my “gap year”, I want to focus intently on my future business endeavors. I’m coming up with many ideas, both for my novels, and my sewing/fashion/costuming and history-loving side of things. I’m going to learn whatever I can about these areas, and try to “perfect” my crafts as much as possible (after all, they say perfect is an unrealistic goal, so I’ll just do my best to practice, practice, practice, and gain experience).

To start this, I’m breaking out the old blogs. I have plans to move over to a different blog, maybe on a Blogger account, as I find the layout of that easier to use and more inspiring. The same goes for my tired and old Miss Morris blog, as I explained here. I’ll be setting up new accounts, for a fresh beginning.

Next, I’ll be reading over what I’ve written of Roses For Margaret, no matter how painfully tedious, as I’ve done it a million times before, the dozens of days that I thought to myself in a flash of surprisingly good intentions “oops! Better get back to Margaret and her bloody roses!” Some of it makes me ruminate about things, but I’m hoping that the frame of mind I’m in now will persevere and carry on forever, enabling me to get on with life. Whilst a little stressed at silly things like not being able to procure a perfect gluten-free bundt cake from the oven first try, or having an irksome experience with a rather nasty, shark-like shop-owner, my mood has been good, and I’m looking forward to every day, making plans, and being happy with what I have, and how things are.

One factor of this is probably that I’ve started a bullet journal. It helps me tremendously with planning for the day, week and month, and I can write down all my thoughts, ideas, and dreams, and detail how my mood and day has been. The beauty of the bullet journal is that you can create the structure yourself. If one thing doesn’t work that week, change it for the next week! At some point I’d like to make a post or video about bullet journalling and how it can help with writing and coming up with plans for the future. But there is another idea: YouTube videos! It will be interesting to try another outlet for explaining my ideas, but I’m shy, so we’ll see how that goes…

Anyway! The dogs are barking, it’s now a full house due to school and work finishing for the day, and everyone is rushing around trying to get more jobs done. And I still need to open that file and start whipping Margaret and all her associates into shape! Better get moving.