Thirteenth

[Note: Having trouble uploading the pics for this post. I’ll try to add them later]

Today is my thirteenth day in Australia. It’s the thirteenth of seventy-five days of summer, the thirteenth of seventy-five days to spend with my person, the thirteenth day of waking up and realizing I did it. I left the cozy security of home, I stepped onto the high wire, and now I’m teetering across the ravine that separates one chapter of my life from the next.

Day One: I fought jet lag and managed to go grocery shopping, I’ll count that as a victory. I fell asleep by eight.

Day Two: A national holiday, also, my birthday. Everyone should have fireworks on their birthday. I highly recommend it.

Day Three: The birthday continued with wishes from the other side of the world, a lovely dinner and a walk by the river shore where swans conveniently made themselves available for photo-ops.

Day Four: I love a good botanical garden and a nap on a lush green lawn beneath the broad leaves of a tree I don’t recognize. I really need to get a guide to the local Flora and Fauna.

Day Five: Monday. Monday’s are Monday’s everywhere. There’s no getting away from them. At least I managed to write.

Day Six: More writing and went to see the new Jumanji movie. I’m not ashamed to admit that I liked it. It wasn’t just that the cast was made up of some of my favorite comedians/action heroes/Doctor Who Alum, I thought it was funny and had some good things to say.

Day Seven: Not as productive as I’d hoped. I fell victim to an Arrow Binge. Still managed to complete my goal of finishing part one of my current WIP though, so yippee! Also, Super Blood Moon Lunar Eclipse! That was exciting. I even brought a camera good enough to photograph it. Be warned though, Australian mozzies are no joke, and they really like the flash. Bug-bitten hands = not fun.

Day Eight: I wrote. I swam. I taunted my snow-bound friends. Fun times.

Day Nine: I wrote. I think I see a pattern here.

Day Ten: Moving day. The person and I moved into our new apartment. I love it. It’s got the right balance of space, light, privacy, and walkability to coffee shops. That last one is very important. We also made our first foray to the Perth Fringe Festival where I saw my first live comedy show and found a bookstore (is anyone surprised?).

Day Eleven: Spent the day reading. Finished one of the books I found at the aforementioned bookstore. For anyone who enjoys dark, creepy, bone-chilling retellings of classic children’s stories I highly recommend Christina Henry’s Alice. Afterward, visited my person’s grandparents and had dinner with his parents. A lovely, family-oriented evening.

Day Twelve: Another Monday, but a productive Monday. I handwrote seventeen pages of my work in progress with translates to more than 2,000 words.

Day Thirteen: This is where I realize that today is actually the Fourteenth Day of my trip to Australia. Oops, but I’m not feeling diligent enough to go back and fix the beginning of this piece, so I hope you appreciate the humor of my mistake. I also finished the initial, very rough draft of part two of my WIP, twenty-two days ahead of schedule and blogged for the first time since November and went for a walk to try to get a picture of a swan butt. The mission was a success.

Day Fourteen: When I was preparing for this trip, I made myself a daily schedule so I wouldn’t spend the day in bed or binging on Netflix or forget to play my bass. In that plan, I was adamant about not starting to work before 10 am. Blogging’s not work, right? Anyway, today I’m dedicating to character sketches and set design because part two of my book is primarily dialogue and action scenes with very little description of people and places.

Thank you for Reading