I continue to be completely thrilled with my virtual assistant, Adriel. Not only is she taking over tasks that I can do—if I want to do them instead of write, but she’s also super organized, which is so awesome!!!

If you saw my office—which at the moment I’d call “reasonably tidy”—you might question my organizational abilities, and perhaps chuckle if I mentioned that I consider organizing one of my superpowers. 🙂 I’m organized in swaths, so I have very detailed (and colorful!) spreadsheets, my file cabinets are organized, and my books are ordered on the shelves. (Okay, so I have more books than shelves…but still.) I tend to take on too many things, or to procrastinate on a project I know will be a lot of work. For example, one of my projects is to scan piles and piles of paperwork so I can get rid of the hard copies. I’ve gotten rid of a lot of paper, but I’ve been working on this for I don’t know how many months. 🙂 And, of course, I only have so much time available, since in addition to writing and my publishing business I have a day job and two cute, fluffy border collies to entertain.

At the end of the day, while I may not appear super organized to the untrained eye, I actually am—at least in spots. 🙂 So seeing how organized Adriel is has not only made me happy, it’s also making it a lot easier to turn over tasks to her because I feel really comfortable with her. Yay!!!

Having an assistant is a time-saver, but it also means that I have to organize my files even more and write up how-tos for things where I have a specific approach I’d like followed. So there is a fair bit of time and effort on my part right now which is taking time away from other projects, but it’s a one-time investment, and is totally worthwhile.

Speaking of other projects, I just had a story accepted for the second issue of Vagabond Magazine, which is edited by Chuck Anderson and Jim LeMay of Mad Cow Press. 🙂 I wrote the first draft of this story about five years ago and have wanted to finish it ever since, but there was always another project that was higher priority. When Chuck and Jim said they were putting together an issue with an apocalypse theme, I got super excited, and I’m so happy I had an excuse to finally finish the edits on this story! I realize writing a post-apocalyptic story doesn’t sound like me, but hey—I’m full of surprises! 🙂

In addition to editing, writing how-to documents, and finishing yet another jigsaw puzzle (I think this is my 8th of the year…but it could be the 9th…), I’m studying Japanese! I’m going on a trip to Tokyo for my day job, which seems crazy, but there it is. I figured if I’m going to be in Japan for a week, I can at least learn how to ask questions that I won’t understand the answers to. 🙂 So far the most interesting thing has been that I’ve recognized some words and phrases as having been used in the television series The Man in the High Castle. This was quite a surprise because I didn’t know what the words meant when I last watched the show, and had no idea that they’d stuck enough in my memory enough for me to recognize them months afterward.

And last: in dog news, Jasper is getting massages and acupuncture on alternating weeks, and he’s been feeling his oats! An extra special thanks to our vet Lacey Jones (Jasper’s acupuncturist) and Mary Kennedy (Jasper’s massage therapist) for helping him feel so much better!!!