author: Nicole J. LeBoeuf

You know what's the worst? Totally unscheduled days. No, really--you get up right on time, you do your first writing task, then you think, "I have all day to do the rest of my writing," and then you go bike all over town, take yourself out for lunch, run errands, take a long nap because you just biked all over town in the gloriously warm sun--and then suddenly it's late in the evening and there is not enough time in the world to get everything done.

Well, OK, maybe you don't. Maybe you're smart. I seem to not be very smart when it comes to managing totally unscheduled days. Hence, Saturday is the Friday, etc. etc., many apologies, check back tomorrow.

Meanwhile! New fiction. The new short story is proceeding slowly in a sort of NaNoWriMo-esque way. Not as regards word-count, though. As regards discovery. I only really know what happens in one scene, which makes the whole endeavor sort of scary--but, so what? Write that one scene. It is amazing what little details pop up when writing that one scene, and what guiding stars those details can be. For instance, when the main character noticed that the weird tree had oak bark but "five-fingered leaves that reminded me of my father's maple farm"--OK, that's a clumsy sentence that could use some revision, but shut up, that's not the point. The point is, now I know her Dad runs, or used to run, a maple syrup operation. Which in turn gives me a clue about where she might have grown up, what kind of activities she might have enjoyed as a child, and also the nature of her relationship with trees. The latter is more significant than you might think; the first scene depicts a tree transforming into a man right in front of her eyes.

We're back to E. L. Doctorow analogy of writing being "like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way." Some versions of the quote add the extra hazard of fog. Imagine a blizzard, too, if you like. The point of the analogy remains the same: The little chunk of road (story) that you see now enables you to drive into (write) the next chunk of road (story).

Anyway. Fictionette tomorrow. For serious. pMost of tomorrow afternoon is entirely unscheduled, after all...

Please excuse the radio silence. It was bout weekend. (No, we didn't win, but we gave 'em a darn good fight. We also picked up some good experience to help us prepare for our next bout in 6 weeks.)

Anyway, despite not blogging about it on Friday night, I did get last week's Friday Fictionette out on time. Barely. It's "Day-to-Day Invasions," and while it looks a bit like "The Magpie's Big Heist" only with a different type of bird, it's not, OK?

Meanwhile, there's the new short story to write. The freewriting session I chose as its source material is worryingly slight. I mean, there's a tree that turns into a man, and a woman who's turned into a bit of a hermit, and they absolutely positively do not fall in love at all. I've got that much. That's... not a lot to got, honestly. It's enough to make my resolve to Write A New Thing waver like the air over a hot road. I kind of want to run screaming back to my revision queue where I know all the stories back to front even if I'm not sure how to make them right.

When did "writing a new thing" become the scary part of this gig?

Anyway, I spent some time today babbling to myself about the possible plot points, thematic aspirations, potential pitfalls, and obvious literary allusions. There's actually a good deal of material available in that initial freewriting session, but it's like a collection of random jigsaw puzzle pieces which number somewhat less than the 2500 that the box promised and include too few edge pieces to be of use. Most of what I've got are middle pieces depicting things like blue sky and undifferentiated masses of tree leaves.

If this was actually a jigsaw puzzle, I'd probably throw it away. But the thing about writing, which is not a thing about jigsaw puzzles, is, you get to make up the missing pieces. Just invent them, out of your own head. No photo-printed cardboard nor scroll saws required!

So that's the rest of my week taken up. I hope yours is off to at least an equally good start.

So I'm not at derby tonight. It seemed unwise to skate six days out of the seven in a week culminating in a bout. "I'm saving myself for my Bombshells this week," I said, "'cause that's who I'm going to be on the track with this Saturday." Then, having decided to take the night off from All Stars practice, I promptly used that as an excuse to take the afternoon off from writing. Which means another late night trying to get all my hours in. I'm so smart, y'all.

Late or not, I am writing. Did all my daily gottas. Now I'm contemplating my next fiction project. This is not as easy as it sounds. When I'm in the middle of a project, it is my whole life. I am eating, breathing, sleeping it, and when I'm not, I'm feeling guilty about it. I never seem to think, "When I'm done this, I'll do that." No, instead I think, "THIS IS MY LIFE NOW." Then it's over, the story's finished and submitted, and I don't really know what to do with myself anymore.

I think I want to write something new, rather than digging something out of the revision queue and working on it. I mean, I have plenty of stories languishing in the revision queue, but I sort of need to remind myself I can write new stories.

Good thing I have this daily freewriting habit. Plenty of potential there. Every day, theoretically, I open up my "Daily Writing Idea" Scrivener project and create a new file, pull up a writing prompt or three, and fire away at that blank page for 25 minutes. Sometimes it's just 25 minutes of playing scales on the keyboard, but sometimes it turns out to be more. If I feel like I might want to come back and explore the story idea further, I slap a "to-do" status marker on the file to make it easier to dig up later. Later, as in, when I'm looking for an idea for a brand new story to write. Like now.

So the plan is, run a search on the "to-do" status marker, browse the results, see what nibbles. Start work on whatever that is tomorrow.

It's a good plan. Let's see if I can manage to stick to it.

Before getting to the blockade round-up, I'm afraid I have to share some sad news. While I was scanning the Puzzle Pirates forums, I came across Otherworld's announcement in Cerulean Parley that our fellow flag member, Darksidemoon, has passed away. She will be greatly missed. I know I'll miss her. Seems like we were just chatting on /fo not long ago.

On the Meridian Ocean, Spirit of Adventure is attacking Acanthaster Spits at 3:00 PM; their initial jobbing offer will be 3,000 Pieces of Eight per Segment (PoE/seg). Chapter Three is making a "semi-friendly" visit to Garden Cradle. (How friendly can it be when you're bringing a housewarming gift of BUNCHES OF CANNONBALLS?) Jobbing to start at 3K PoE/seg, intent being to lower dock prices and keep the island stocked.

Barely Dressed won their blockade on Hadrian Island last weekend; they plan to destroy the Black Market thereon and replace it with a Trading Post. Get your black boxes while you can!

On Emerald, in addition to a whole bunch of blockade action this weekend (much of it late drops for Sunday blockades between Bite the Pillow and This Means War), there's the scuttling of Ix Chel by Bite the Pillow. Their hope was for "a smaller, less experienced flag" to win the island, but the BK decided to make things difficult by turning it up to eleven. They're petitioning the Oceanmasters for a reduction in Finius's fleet strength. We'll see what happens next weekoend.

Also, it's a new month, so we have a new Seal o' Piracy to strive for. For February, your task is...

Completing 2 different expeditions (Imperial Outpost, Viking Defense, Buried Treasure Atoll, or Lost Shipwreck)

Much less labor intensive than last month--in theory. Don't save it 'til last minute, though.

Standard reminders: Schedule is given in Pirate Time, or U.S. Pacific. Player flags link to Yoweb information pages; Brigand King Flags link to Yppedia Brigand King pages. BK amassed power given in parenthetical numbers, like so: (14). For more info about jobbing contacts, jobber pay, and Event Blockade battle board configuration, check the Blockade tab of your ocean's Notice Board. To get hired, apply under the Voyages tab.

Doubloon Ocean Blockades

*** Saturday, February 6 ***

12:00 p.m. - Celesta Isle, Meridian Ocean
Brigand King attack!
Defender: Barely Dressed
Attacker: The All-Consuming Flame (6)

3:00 p.m. - Garden Cradle, Meridian Ocean
Defender: Blood Sweat and Beers
Attacker: Chapter Three

3:00 p.m. - Acanthaster Spits, Meridian Ocean
Defender: Blood Sweat and Beers
Attacker: Spirit of Adventure

8:52 p.m. - Tumult Island, Emerald Ocean
Defender: Black Dawn Brigade
Attacker: Wait For It

*** Sunday, February 7 ***

8:20 a.m. - The Lowland Hundred, Emerald Ocean
Event: 1 round, nonsinking
Hosted by: Illuminatti

10:32 a.m. - Nightshade Island, Meridian Ocean
Defender: Spirit of Adventure
Attacker: Blood Sweat and Beers

12:00 p.m. - Aimuari Island, Emerald Ocean
Defender: The Crazy Department
Attacker: This Means War

12:00 p.m. - Arakoua Island, Emerald Ocean
Defender: Bite the Pillow
Attacker: This Means War

12:00 p.m. - Scrimshaw Island, Emerald Ocean
Defender: This Means War
Attacker: Bite the Pillow

12:00 p.m. - Wissahickon Island, Emerald Ocean
Defender: Bite the Pillow
Attacker: This Means War

Subscription Ocean Blockades

*** Saturday, February 6 ***

4:00 p.m. - Winter Solstice, Cerulean Ocean
Brigand King attack!
Defender: Elements of Fear
Attacker: The All-Consuming Flame (6)

Saturday is once again the new Friday, because I cannot seem to keep my eyes open. All I have to do is create the cover art and upload the various permutations of the Friday Fictionette, but even that is so far beyond my current energy level, I can't even.

Which is a real disappointment given that February was going to be the month of All Caught Up and On Time!

I also haven't put the Fictionette Artifacts in the mail, mainly for lack of time to get to the post office. Both of these lacks will be rectified tomorrow.

On the bright side, "can't keep my eyes open" probably translates to a very good night of sound sleep starting very shortly. And given that the status was precipitated by several nights of not very good sleep at all and the last stand of a persistent head cold and going to all my roller derby activities since Wednesday night despite the sick and the sleep deprivation (practice on Wednesday, a late-night scrimmage Thursday up in Fort Collins against our good friends FoCo Girls Gone Derby--thanks for having us! Y'all rock!--and tonight's somewhat boozy and crowded fundraiser at sponsoring taphouse 300 Suns) well, this is kind of a "reaping what I sow" situation.

I keep hoping, every time I approach a weekend, that this time I'll hit the reset button, and everything will be awesome after that. I'm beginning to think that the very idea of a reset button is nothing more than a mirage.

Well. Blah. Tomorrow, the usual Puzzle Pirates Weekend Blockade round up at 1:00 PM or so, then, later that afternoon, I devoutly hope, all things Friday Fictionette for February Week 1.

But for now, in possibly less than a half hour, blessed unconsciousness.

This weekend started out awesome. I celebrated being all caught up by taking myself out Saturday to the Bohemian Biergarten for beef stroganoff, beer, and several hours of uninterrupted and guilt-free Puzzle Pirates fun. It was excellent. After all the scrambling to get on top of things throughout the week, it was entirely what the doctor ordered.

But then after I got home that evening I started developing this cough, and a post-nasal-drip-type sore throat, and next morning the cough was worse and accompanied by that "cold inhale" feeling at the back of my throat that I associate with running a low-grade fever, and I had to admit I'd come down sick. I'd been looking forward to practice, but as it turned out, spending most of Sunday and Monday in bed were also what the doctor ordered.

However! I am feeling much better now. I put in a full work day today, consisting of the daily "gottas" and what remained of the end-of-month Friday Fictionette stuff. By the way, the Fictionette Freebie for January 2016 is "The Wine Cellar That Wished" (PDF | MP3). I personally think it's kind of funny, but I'll admit its humor is on the grim side. That's what makes it a good free sample, though. Anyone who decides to subscribe based on that will know what they're sometimes going to be in for. (See also "The Metamorphosis of Anita Chaplain", which I also maintain is funny. Yes, there is probably something wrong with me.) So, yeah, a full work day, up and at it before noon, and an actual change of shirt which is more than I managed all weekend I am sorry to tell you. And now I'm having that peculiar run of sneezes that's my body's way of getting the last of everything yucky out of its system.

A derby friend stopped by with chicken and dumplings, and herbal tea, and an orange. She was not the only derby friend to offer sustenance and comfort upon hearing I was sick. I kind of wanted to yell "It's just a cold, jeez y'all, I'll be fine," but that's because we are typically not trained to accept kindness well. Roller derby leagues are made of kindness. There's also a formal meal train going on to help out a teammate who just got out of surgery, and less formal gestures of love and support go on all the time. There are a lot of things we don't seem to get trained in, from accepting kindness to accepting our bodies, from viewing our geeky never-done-sports selves as athletes to viewing other women as potential friends. Roller derby counteracts these toxic omissions. At least, with the right league--but I've never yet encountered a league that was wrong for this. I'm sure there are some out there somewhere, because leagues are made of people and people sometimes fail. But in my limited experience, roller derby is remedial training in self-esteem for, and interpersonal support among, women.

[And now, a brief pause to make two-handed "heart" gestures and to mutter about how dusty it suddenly got in here.]

Meanwhile! Writing things I didn't get to today but certainly will tomorrow, assuming I feel this well or better: Figuring out where to resubmitting the handful of stories that came back from their latest outings with encouraging rejection letters. Figuring out which piece of potentially salable fiction will be my next afternoon shift project. Figuring out how to figure things out. ARGH DECISIONS

Oh look! Herbal tea with orange peel. It's going to be all right.

Right now, right as we speak, Azarbad the Great is attacking Isla Spaniel on the Jade Ocean, and CORSARIOS DE POSEIDÓN are scrambling a defense! When I last checked, pay was 2500 pieces of eight per segment (PoE/seg). If that and a brigand king-free Spaniel is worth it to you, you know what to do!

Meridian and Emerald are the main stages for blockades this weekend--no surprises there. Barely Dressed are attacking Hadrian: "Still a bit unhappy about the paving of the wood spawns especially for a black market," says Camouflages. That won't be until 11:11 AM tomorrow morning, however. Well before that, Coming Soon will be making their move on Labyrinth Moors. They, too, are disgruntled: "We're not very happy with the amount of shoppes placed on Labby over the past few months so it's time to dust a few again," says Ever. Their attack begins at 3:44 PM. Bored before then? Why not help Radioactive defend Akhlys Island from the forces of evil?

On Emerald, things are just as busy. Deep Thought are 'kading against Kakraphoon's current owners! This Means War have posted yet another questionable intent video! Canon balls are flying! It's chaos down here, I tell you--chaos!

These are just the highlights. Scroll down for the full schedule...

But don't get distracted--this is your last weekend to acquire your Seal o' Piracy for January 2016! How's your pillage count coming along? I'm way short still, so I'll be heading online to do something about that right about now.

Standard reminders: Schedule is given in Pirate Time, or U.S. Pacific. Player flags link to Yoweb information pages; Brigand King Flags link to Yppedia Brigand King pages. BK amassed power given in parenthetical numbers, like so: (14). For more info about jobbing contacts, jobber pay, and Event Blockade battle board configuration, check the Blockade tab of your ocean's Notice Board. To get hired, apply under the Voyages tab.

Doubloon Ocean Blockades

*** Saturday, January 30 ***

12:00 p.m. - Isla Spaniel, Jade Ocean
Brigand King attack!
Defender: CORSARIOS DE POSEIDÓN
Attacker: La Llama que todo lo consume (1)

12:00 p.m. - Akhlys Island, Meridian Ocean
Brigand King attack!
Defender: Radioactive
Attacker: Black Veil (2)
Undeclared: Meuro il Culo

2:01 p.m. - Ansel Island, Meridian Ocean
Defender: Blood Sweat and Beers
Attacker: Quid Pro Quo

3:44 p.m. - Labyrinth Moors, Meridian Ocean
Defender: Fellowship of Friends
Attacker: Coming Soon

4:00 p.m. - Kakraphoon Island, Emerald Ocean
Defender: Keep the Peace
Attacker: Deep Thought

*** Sunday, January 31 ***

10:12 a.m. - Armstrong Island, Emerald Ocean
Defender: The Crazy Department
Attacker: This Means War

10:33 a.m. - Cryo Island, Emerald Ocean
Defender: Gunslingers
Attacker: Glorious Geeks

11:11 a.m. - Hadrian Island, Meridian Ocean
Defender: Alria
Attacker: Barely Dressed

11:35 a.m. - Aimuari Island, Emerald Ocean
Defender: This Means War
Attacker: The Crazy Department

11:37 a.m. - Albatross Island, Emerald Ocean
Defender: The Crazy Department
Attacker: This Means War

12:00 p.m. - Alkaid Island, Emerald Ocean
Defender: This Means War
Attacker: The Crazy Department

As promised--as hoped--here's the fourth Friday Fictionette for January, which was to have gone up on the 22nd but instead I present to you today: "Doors Do Swing Both Ways." It's got dragon puppies in it, so you know you want to read it. That link goes to the teaser excerpt; subscribers may read or listen to the whole thing (905 words) in PDF or MP3 formats depending on their pledge tier.

So that's it for new material in January! Over the weekend I'll release the Fictionette Freebie for January, then early next week I'll mail out the Fictionette Artifacts to the $5/month Patrons (you know who you are and I wuv you THIS MUCH), and then I'll be all caught up! ... until the first Friday in February. BUT I DO NOT INTEND TO GET BEHIND IN FEBRUARY.

Speaking of all things Friday Fictionette: 'Tis the season for authors to publish lists of their 2015 publications! Most of them, admittedly, do this because it's awards nomination season, and it's helpful to know what's eligible for 2015 awards. I am not going there in the slightest. I have not even bought the map to there. However, it seems like it might be useful to provide a hyperlinked list of all the Fictionette Freebies released in 2015, just to have them all in one place for your reading convenience. Thus:

• January: "The Metamorphosis of Anita Chaplain"
• February: "If on a Winter's Night Two Travellers..."
• March: "Please To Confirm Your Appointment with BRIGHT SMILES!"
• April: "The Hole in the Middle of the Block" (audio)
• May: "Because You Weren't There" (audio)
• June: "You Could Go a Long Way in Shoes Like Those" (audio)
• July: "And Did You Bring Enough for Everyone?" (audio)
• August: "How Featherkind Got Its Song" (audio)
• September: "The Celebrated Frog Forger of Clackamas County" (audio)
• October: "How the Lassie Didn't Go East of the Sun and West of the Moon" (audio)
• November: "In the Shadow of Next Tuesday" (audio)
• December: "The Thing with Feathers" (audio)

(In case you're wondering why there's no audio edition for January through March, well, I never managed to start producing them until April 2015. Eventually I will record MP3s for all the earlier fictionettes. For now, you got what you got.)

There! I'm more or less proud of them all. If you wind up reading them and enjoying them, great! And if you decide they're your kind of thing and you'd like four times as many of that sort of thing in your year, you know what to do.

This has been my shameless plug for the year.

In other news, I just discovered that the Whole Foods on Pearl Street will shuck you your choice of oysters on the half shell at a buck fifty per, and sometimes they run a buck-a-shuck special. Lunch today was amazing.

So January hasn't been going so well. Mentally and emotionally, I mean. Well, and also schedule-wise. Truth is, the stuff that went bad on Christmas Day, that stuck with me. It stuck with me hard. It struck resonances all up and down my family history, and that kind of thing is hard to shake. I've been doing a lot of sleeping late, either because the bad stuff's been keeping me up late, or because I'm so tired of having the bad stuff jangling around in my head that it's sometimes easier to just stay unconscious.

And then, as you know, I've been doing a reread and rework of Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way, which has exercises in it like "Describe three 'monsters' who had a detrimental effect on your creativity or self-esteem" and "Write a 'letter to the editor' in your defense regarding one of those monsters." Which dovetails a little too closely with the lingering bad stuff.

Now, sometimes writing the bad stuff down exorcises it, if only temporarily. But sometimes it just sticks a knife in the scar tissue and rips the old wound wide open again. I never know which way it's going to be until it's had its way with my brain, you know?

I've been trying to counter the re-wounding effect by following up the exercises with a ten-minute session of Headspace, an app for doing meditation. It's helping, but slowly, because slowly is how I learn new things. "Let the thoughts be there, but be at peace with them being there. Don't get caught up in either trying to stop them or chasing after them. Just let them be." That kind of stuff takes practice. Meanwhile, the bad stuff comes and goes in waves and sometimes I still go under.

The other night, trying to go to sleep, I thought about a dream I've had on-and-off throughout my life. In it, I would find myself exploring the walk-in attics on the upper floor of my parents' house. As a child I was always forbidden to play in there, so of course I did. I loved exploring, I wasn't unaffected by the allure of the forbidden, and I loved also that I could hide away up there and no one could find me. I even outfitted a little room in one hard-to-reach corner, with pillows and blankets and a bead curtain and candles. I figured no one would ever find it. And no one did, not until I was in my 30s at least.

But here's the thing in the dream: Sometimes I would find a little slit or hole in the pink insulation, just a little tiny claustrophobic tunnel which, if I was brave, I could crawl through it (spun glass not being a problem in dreams) and follow it down to where it turned to the right and opened up into a tiny little cave, just my size. And I could hide there for as long as I needed to until I felt safe coming out. It was my mousehole and no one could hurt me there.

Thinking about this the other night, I thought, "No one actually wants to go 'back to the womb,' not really. What one wants is a womb of one's own."

That's not the epiphany. That's just a bad Virginia Woolf pun.

Besides, it's of limited usefulness. Because trying to envision myself crawling into my little imaginary mousehole, telling myself "the tunnel is so narrow, it scrapes your memories right off, so you can hide from them too," somehow it just put me ears-deep in the bad stuff again. The walk-in attics of my parents' house were too much associated with all things family and all the painful things that the bad stuff woke up. I didn't get to sleep for hours, and I hardly managed to stay asleep for more than a couple hours at a time. (The bad stuff was conspiring with my bladder on that one. I swear, my body seems to think its main function while I'm asleep is making pee. The late thirties appear to be one prolonged battle between waking up dehydrated in the morning or waking up to pee all night long.)

The next night is when the epiphany happened. I had just finished rereading Diane Duane's The Wizard's Dilemma. Like most of the Young Wizard books, it ends with a scene in what's known as Timeheart. That's kind of like a non-stagnant Heaven, or a version of Narnia's "further up and further in" without the nasty implications in the ending of The Last Battle. What's loved lives on there in cityscapes and natural vistas of perfection that go on and on as far as the eye can see and the heart desires to explore. In a lesser author's hands, this might have given rise to some sort of hokey Moral of the Story ending. Duane is not a lesser author. The scene provides emotional closure, but it doesn't pretend there are easy answers. It just reassures the characters (and the reader) that their sacrifices were worthwhile, and that there's hope.

And I closed the book and thought, "I want to walk out into a big bright new day like that. So much better than hiding away in my mousehole. I'm tired of making myself small."

And that's what the epiphany was. Unpacked, it goes something like this:

Pain makes us small. Pain makes us make ourselves small. We make ourselves small so we can hide away from the pain, hide away from the rest of the world when we're in pain. An animal in pain hides. It makes itself small.

But making yourself small doesn't make the pain go away. So now you're so much smaller than you were born to be, and still in pain on top of it all. That sucks.

Worse, pain makes our desires small. It makes us want small things. When we're in pain, we bargain: "Just take the pain away, that's all I ask."

But we're not born to want small! We're born to want everything--love and long life and happiness and fulfillment and friends and comfort and safety and meaningful work and the ability to change the world for the better. Wanting big isn't a glitch or vice or something to be ashamed of. It's our goddamned birthright!

So I'm not going to make myself small in my head anymore. In my head, I'm going to make myself too big for the pain. It might still be there, it might still hurt, but it's not going to be my world, because my world is so much bigger than that. And I'm allowed to want it all.

So that was my epiphany the other night. Cheesy, huh? But it helps me keep the mental bad stuff at bay while I'm trying to sleep, so that's something. And eventually this thing will run its course and I'll be fine again.

Oh, and the belated January 22 fictionette is coming along nicely. It has dragons in it. Puppy dragons. Three of them. They are the best.

Well, hallelujah. It's a fictionette. This is the one that should have gone up on January 15. It's about as late as a fictionette's ever been. It's called "The Artist's Apprentice" (that's the teaser; subscribers click here for the whole thing in PDF and/or MP3) and it's a reinterpretation of the fairy tale "The Goosegirl." Now that I think of it, I sort of blundered in naming the characters. I forgot that the titular Goosegirl is in fact the genuine princess; it's her role in her betrothed's kingdom while her maid is pretending to be her. The impostor herself was never a goosegirl at all. But oh well. These things happen. I don't think the fictionette much suffers for it.

In fact, I'm kind of pleased with it. Which is surprising, given how much at a loss I was to even begin, back on the day when it was due. The original freewriting session turned out only a very verbose outline of the way the story should go, and not a single rough draft scene I could start from. I have a bad habit of babbling to myself about story ideas during half my freewriting time, like I'm trying to talk myself into finally diving in. It's not a bad way to get started on a larger project. It's a great way to make me cuss out my past self when it's time to start the week's fictionette.

Anyway, my hope is to have the belated January 22 fictionette out by the end of this week. I'd love to have it out tomorrow, but I know better than to make a rash promise like that, especially on a Wednesday. I'll be starting the thing from scratch, from the freewriting session output I selected to be the fictionette's bare bones. If I have it out by the month's fifth Friday, that'll be fantastic. Then I'll do all the end-of-month stuff over the weekend. And then I can start February fresh and new and perfectly on time.

That's the goal, anyway. We'll see how long it lasts.

Stay tuned for Wednesday night's blog post, which will be full of whining and excuses but also, quite probably, epiphanies. (I had a lightbulb moment last night which I'm sitting on until it can get a blog post of its very own.)