Catching Up and the Moxie Mug

I need to catch up on my life. I've been behind on so many things for so long that I sometimes feel as though I'll never get them all done. Today I took one kid to a Girl Scout thing and then found when I got there that I'd forgotten some forms I was supposed to fill out. I had to go home and get the forms, then go back to the meeting, and by this time there was no time left for me to go and do the activity that I had envisioned for myself for the evening. The kid was painting at a ceramics studio with her troop, and I was going to go paint at a different ceramics studio and finish a coffee mug I'd started a few days ago. But things just didn't work out for that to happen. Oh, well.

The mug is one of a set of four that I designed for my writing critique group, the Moxie Quartet, otherwise known as Moxie 4. Two Christmases ago--that's right, two--I decided to make a set of mugs for our crit group. They're blue with an open book on the front under the words "Moxie 4" in black and with each person's name in black on the inside of the cup, just where you'd see it as you lift it up to drink. They turned out pretty well, and the ladies seemed to like them, which is the most important thing. But I didn't get one. The ceramics place only had three mugs when I came in to do them, and somehow after I'd made them, time just got away from me and I never got back to make my own. So finally on Sunday after the family and I got out of the matinee of the new Star Wars movie, I decided that I'd had it with unfinished things hanging over my head. I mean, Lucas finished his project, finally. I have no excuse for being perpetually too busy for all these things I really want to finish. I went into the studio and lo and behold they had one mug like the ones I'd painted for the Moxie. One. Like fate. So I had them put my name on it, came back later without the family and painted like mad for the two hours left of studio time that day. It's almost done; all it needs are my name and the moxie logo, and I finally get my mug after a year and a half.

As for the rewrite of Shadows of Memory, I finished going over Chapter 11, and Chapter 12 is just one big battle scene, so we'll see where I can cut and tighten it. That's over halfway through the book, though I had expected to be much farther along at this point. I HATE being behind! But if the book turns out as well as I think it will, it will be worth it. It has to be worth it. I've put too much into it for it not to be worth it.

Sometimes I hear Gold Leader's voice in my head from Star Wars, A New Hope: "Stay on target...stay on target...." Don't even start with the "Use the Force" comments!