Dear Etherfriends,

My autumn thus far can be summarized by something that happened to me one recent date night. At a soon-to-close distillery, I lifted a whiskey sidecar for the third time. The body of the glass rose. The base of the glass did not. The cocktail hesitated, then flooded the table. The pool of alcohol stopped about a quarter of an inch from my phone.

It was unexpected. It was weird. It was alarming. It meant I had to do more cleanup than I’d expected. But I was fine.

And that’s how this season is going for me. There’s a lot going on, much of which makes me feel insecure and unprepared. But I’m alright. And will most likely continue to be.

I hope you’re alright too.

Life Notes

I. Squirrel!

• No, not Yuri… Just distraction. I’ve been sucker-punched by Yet Another Adderall Shortage and have barely been able to think for the last month.
  • I cannot explain to the neurotypical exactly how much this sucks. But here’s an attempt:
    
    How My ADHD Feels
    (Or Why Andy Needs Meds)
    
    It’s a little like
    if every time you tried to drive to work,
    you wound up dodging bullets
    on the target side of a shooting range
    with no idea how you got there
    and without being able to get people to stop shooting.
    
    Then you feel compelled to stop running around
    and reflect on your feelings on fifteenth century architecture.
    
    Then you get shot.
    
    Then your phone goes off
    and your boss demands to know where you are
    and why she doesn’t have the Stanley Report.
    And all you can think is, “Who the rot is Stanley?
    And since when does my job involve writing reports?”
    
    Then you get shot again.
    
    ***
    
• My pharmacy has NO IDEA when this ‘factory shortage’ is going to end.
• None of the pharmacies my dear Bama called for me had a clue when they might get any either.

II. Lots of changes for the Brokaws.

• My beloved Jimmy is no longer managing the ski school I work for in winter.
  • Not going to get into why.
  • Don’t know what he’ll move on to ultimately, but he’ll be teaching with me this season.

III. We got enough snow the other day I had to remove it from the driveway.

• I was going to do a promo day for First Snow, but it got pre-empted by a family emergency.
• It wasn’t really enough to feel like real snowfall anyway.
• The slopes are nowhere near skiable yet.

Progress Notes

I. Miraculously, I have completed Act II of A Melody of Shining Stars!

• It was almost completely rewritten.
• It’s 67,326 words long. Which if the book comes out around 140k to match Harmony, is right on target. 

II. I failed to meet my word count and work hours goals this month.

• But between the lack of Adderall, the family emergencies, and the background anxiety I’m dealing with, it seems more remarkable that I came close.
• So I’m actually not mad at myself about it. For once.

III. I have a solid outline for Act III…

• I may even stick to it.
• Whether I deviate from the outline or not, I’m optimistic I’ll wrap it up in November.

Planning Notes

Overall Goals

1. Keep calm.
2. Carry on.

Melody Goals

1. Rewrite Act III. (Should be about 35k.)
2. Make the tweaks I have notes for.
3. Possibly reach out for beta readers.

Blog Goals

1. Unless the blog breaks again, postpone all the stressful pondering of replacing the blog until after I’ve finished Act 3.
2. Review another book.
3. Post one other thing in addition to that and the repeat of this. Another Conversation with My Writing seems appropriate. (Same as it would have been last month…)

Closing Notes

Things are strange for me right now.

This is not the closing I sent in the mailed newsletter. I forgot to copy-paste this month’s closing so it went out with last month’s. Although it’s still valid, so I can’t be too upset about it. I never actually wrote anything for this month’s anyway, apart from the single line above this paragraph. The single line works well.

Have an image I made of the ADHD quote for Bluesky, which only alows short burst and won’t fit the entire quote. (One of the reasons I prefer Mastodon. Basically the only thing Bluesky has going for it over Mastodon is more people are on it. Sigh.)