Words/Time: An hour and a half doing all sorts of various tasks. Part of it was going through a chapter of a Sims story/fanfiction my sister wrote and asked me to beta-read before she was ready to post it. I wasn’t sure if I should count it, but working on revision for someone else’s writing is still writing work, right? It’s nice to get a break from my own story(ies) for a while, and could even give me insight into my own writing. In fact, it already has some, because the rest of the time was spent researching character voice, writer voice, filter words, and other things that have come up as I’ve tried to help her with what she feels are problem areas in her own writing.

For anyone who’s paying attention to my daily check-in posts, I’ve been slacking off a lot lately. Originally, that was due to a planned short hiatus as my church had its annual week-long VBS program, which I was a helper for. I knew I’d be exhausted all week, and I was. Though I did actually get some work done early in the week. Then as I was trying to work back into normal days again, my 5-year-old came down sick. We still don’t know what she has, but she had high fevers for days (even up to 106° a couple of times). All day and even a lot of the night, all she wanted to do was be near me, which led to another week of not only having no time, but no energy to work on writing. Even now, her fever’s mostly gone, but she’s starting to have coughing fits that leave her distraught. I say all of this not because I think anyone is going to require a “absence note,” but because in the past, I have taken days, weeks, even months off of what I try to make daily work. This time, though, it’s not just me being lazy, it was life legitimately getting in the way. Today, as I think ahead to my next “Write Every Day” post, and as I help my sister as she tries to be a better writer, it’s fortunately bringing me back to my own writing work. That’s good, because after a few weeks off, it would be far too easy to just keep going and let it go for longer. (Though Camp NaNoWriMo is coming up in less than two weeks, which could keep me from ignoring my work for too long, but it’s not a miracle worker.)