Sadly, this beginning of the summer update doesn't contain much writing updates, but rather all of the other things that have been going on to understand why there are not many updates about writing. However, the good news is - even though life has totally taken over, I am still now in a novel group where I am required to make progress on my revisions to submit large word counts every other month. It took me a year and a half to find this kind of support, and finally have a small group who will be reading the whole MS through. Even though on the surface, it looks like there is not much happening, I think this kind of consistency will finally help me get where I want to be, which is a completed second draft, identifying what still needs work in the third draft, being able to send it out to beta readers, etc. Now for what has been going on in life. If you follow me on Twitter, I had posted throughout the winter battling my graduate studies applications. Since the fall I was planning on starting a graduate program this coming October, and only found out at the end of March that it has been completely cancelled due to the war in Ukraine. I tried transferring to other departments, with no success, then have been totally focused on my job search. With the exception of the new dog which arrived from Romania, I mentioned in a previous post. That has also been a lot to handle. Dragu was hit by a car, according to foster mom, Alex Woodroe, but when she was helping him recover, his personality was muted by the pain. When he arrived to me fully healed, and in the throws of puberty, it has been more than I bargained for. My first dog has a similar story. When she was four months old, she was attacked by a pack of vicious dogs on the side of the road, and some good people passing by intervened to rescue her, but not before she received deep wounds and lost an eye. When she came to me, she had some behaviour issues - submission was an issue I was able to diagnose and find ways to address in things I could do to reenforce confidence building. She also obviously had a lot to learn and had a little bit of wanderlust I was never able to cure to let her off-leash with me. However, none of that prepared me for this guy - I will say I have never had a boy dog before, so it's new territory.
Part of the problem that added to this issue is the lack of support that I needed to help address the issues he has. I had an animal doctor who was full of roundabout bullshit excuses and just laughing at how cute and uncontrollable he was instead of seeing that I was drowning. I have even been working with a life coach who has been helping me focus and feel more confident about the job search, who wanted me to take the dog to a shelter. Instead, I found a new animal doctor who recognised the behaviour problems, recommended a vet, and observed that neutering him by castration will enable the training to work. However, without that, the training will not be able to have a real impact because he is so distracted and lacks any control or focus. Alex and I have been rounds discussing these frustrations. The puppy is a sweet, intelligent dog, without a violent bone in his body, so everyone agrees he is a nice dog that shows a lot of potential. We hope some of these new steps will help him get there.
However, the support didn't happen before he managed to break my laptop, and require it to be sent for a repairs while I am in the middle of job applications! Seriously bad timing. Thankfully I already had a few interviews for one application underway, and was able to secure one job offer despite his best attempts to prevent me from getting a new job. Hopefully things will go more smoothly getting the bureaucratic pieces in place and starting this new job. It is not my dream job, so the job search will continue, but it will allow me to have some income. The dog has also increased my activity level exponentially, and I am tired frequently from that adjustment, but my mental and physical health are improving finally after years of the pandemic.
It is unlikely there will be any more short stories from me for the foreseeable future but hopefully this means I am getting closer to my goals with my novel. I had picked up my second novel and was working with group motivation and feedback, but everyone in the groups have fizzled out, so that's disappointing. I am definitely interested in some online more consistent small groups committed to finishing books together, and I haven't found that. I welcome recommendations.
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