Amygdalia's Blog

Where has Mumsy been?

I've been AWOL from writing.com for several months. Life, writing, and work have all exploded for me ... mostly in a good way! I was hard at work, editing Like It or Not, when a Facebook friend posted that her independent author services company was looking for proofreaders and beta readers. Wait ... what!? Get paid for doing what I love? So I applied, and was asked to complete two samples--one for proofreading, and one for beta reading. After looking at the samples, she offered me a job doing developmental editing, which is like a dream come true for me! They don't get too many dev edit projects, so I've been  doing beta reading in between dev edits, but I'm absolutely LOVING my work! My editing has taken a bit of a back seat, as I have a tough time balancing everything. I'm between jobs right now, and I've been trying to get Like It or Not finished, after getting a beta read from my friend who co-owns the company I work for.

Soooo ... LesCourt Author Services specializes in gay romance, so that's how I've been spending my days.

In my personal life, I passed a milestone birthday that left me feeling off-kilter. It was mitigated somewhat by the sense of accomplishment I feel from my work, but it brought up a lot of anxiety. So I let it pass without marking it in any way. I've become very involved with our local Shakespeare Festival. Not on stage, though I did have a cameo in The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) [revised] this summer. That has been amazing for building community, and is just a ton of fun.


My kids are ... whew! Growing up! Dr B has a wonderful boyfriend and is making plans to move with him sometime in the next several months. Goldilocks is at our local community college, studying early childhood development. She's matured so much over the last few years. Her explosive emotional meltdowns are gone, though emotional moments and anxiety still bubble up. She's finally driving (yesssss!) and also has a part-time job at a frozen yogurt shop. Her goal is to transfer to a 4 year school in another year or so. Slow going, but she needed to get her feet under her, get her emotions under control, and learn how to be a successful student. Monkey has his driver's permit!!! He's so freaking grown up I can't stand it! He's a sophomore in high school, goes to the gym regularly, and is thinking about doing pre-med in college. His first choice is MIT (not aiming too high!) and then UCLA. He needs to get his own social/emotional drama under control if he wants to have any chance at that, but we'll see. I honestly was NOT expecting the social drama from him but ... wheeeeeew! I think he's been worse (or at least more consistently emotionally wrought) than Dr B or Goldi ever were!

What else? Oh! We got a cat. We were not getting a cat. But last summer a mama cat had kittens under a bush in our friends' yard. I took the kids over to see them, because Monkey is cat crazy. And I fell in love. I was having anxiety attacks over not seeing this kitten again. His name is Oliver (he came to us with the name Speedy) and he's a partially long-haired tabby. I don't know why the photo I tried to upload keeps uploading upside down, so no photo for now because I'm out of time!


And Dareng has been living with us since November. He moved back out here for a job, and is still working on getting his feet under him. We love having him here. Of course!