author: Nicole J. LeBoeuf

My blogging has been sparse these past two weeks, but my days have been rather full. As you know (Bob), I've been in the middle of several "sagas" for some time now. How much time? Oh, several weeks, or several months, or even a couple of years, depending on the saga. Or quest, as I like to think of it. As in, "No more quests! I do not need to embark on any more quests. I have enough quests in my life right now."

Well, significant progress has been made on all active quests recently. Here's the review!

The Quest to Move House! (since Aug. 2013) John is this close to being done repainting the kitchen. I am this close to being done refurbishing the living room closet door. The plan is to take pictures on Monday and officially list the place on Wednesday.

Yesterday we took a look at a condo unit about half a mile away from our current address, and fell rather in love with it. It's not "more house-like," as I had hoped; rather, it's like our current home but upgraded. There's 200 more square feet, which shows in the second bathroom, the spacious master bedroom with walk-in closet, the huge common area which communicates with a roomy kitchen over a sit-down countertop. Also a utility closet with washer and dryer, which would mean no more obsessing over quarters or dragging laundry up and down all those stairs.

Though the units are stacked in rows just like at our current place, the clever floor plan allows the master bedroom to receive lots of natural lighting through a west and a north window. The unit is on the "ground" floor, with nothing below us but underground parking accessible by elevator.

Also, forced air instead of radiant heating. Wood fireplace. Two sinks in the master bathroom. Half a block away from the Wonderland Path greenway trail. Across the street from a wee private lake. So many good things.

We fell in love with it and said, "Oh, if only this had come up next week instead of now!" The realtor said he'd contact the seller about timelines. The seller seems flexible. And, on top of everything, despite our place not yet being listed, we've a potential buyer coming to see it. Tomorrow. At noon.

The buyer reportedly doesn't mind that the place currently resembles a low-key construction zone, but I predict a flurry of house cleaning tomorrow around 8:30 AM.

The Quest to Get Back on Skates! (since Jan. 10, 2015) Last week Tuesday my physical therapist gave me homework that involves lateral movement. Have I mentioned this before? It's a big deal. Lateral movement was taboo up to that point.

Well, yesterday we hit another big deal: He had me do a few different jumping exercises to see how that felt. Jumping! It felt OK. A little tired-sore behind the recovering knee, but OK. He says he may give me some jumping homework after tomorrow's appointment.

Meanwhile we're spacing out my PT appointments. We started at twice a week, but we're taking next week off and then doing only one a week. I'm scheduled on the 17th, March 5, and finally March 12. Do I get to skate after that? I do not know. I can only hope, and do my PT exercises. Religiously.

The Quest to Revise That Damn Story! (since Sep. 2014) ...well, I'm getting to that. I haven't moved much on it since last week. Hopefully I manage to get it moving tonight and tomorrow. Returning to my strategy of small goals, I am setting myself the Small Goal of "Don't worry about getting it right; just get it down."

What I have before me is the task of re-homing a bit of key dialogue from the scene I'm cutting to the scene the story now starts with. "Getting it down" might simply consist of copying and pasting whole blocks of text from the previous draft. It might consist of a bunch of sentences in the style of "And then this happened and then that happened." What it doesn't consist of is creating the perfect micro-segue written with the perfect phrasing in the perfect final-draft way.

It's hard to come up with the right words on the first go. I get stuck when I try to put perfect words down on a blank page. But if I put so-so words down, and then I read them, I will then magically know what the perfect words should be. Or at least I'll know how to turn so-so words into better words, which can then be turned into even-better words, and finally into not-perfect-but-it'll-do words.

I know this. I've known this for a long time. But I keep having to learn it over again. My excuse this time is, "Well, I'm working on a revision for resubmission. I can be forgiven for thinking that what comes out my keyboard next had better by perfect." The moral of the story is, One Revision Ain't. Ain't "one" revision, I mean. Any work on a story at any stage in its life cycle involves iterations of micro-revision. There's no getting around it. I'm happier, and more productive, when I don't try to get around it.

So my goal is to get the bit I'm working on unstuck by giving myself permission to write it badly. I'll tell you tomorrow how it went.