Good advice...if you can take it...

I am going to try, once again, to simplify my life. At least some. Since I'm so close to being done with A Place of Safety and know what little more must be dealt with, concerning it -- basically, shifting the three volumes into paperback format and setting them up to be published -- I'd like to tone down all the other crap I've been dealing with.

There isn't much I really have to do, anymore. My youngest brother, Kelly, doesn't need me to help him with rent and food; he's got a steady income from SSI. And I doubt any changes the bastard MAGAts want to implement in it will take effect till the beginning of 2026. For either him or myself.

I won't be writing anything that requires massive research like APoS did. If I work on Dair's Window, I've got all the information I need for that. I'll just have to re-familiarize myself with it.

If I continue with Blood Angel, except for the part dealing with Léonidès turning Franz into a vampire I have that pretty much written up to WW2...hell, into New Orleans after Katrina. So that would be fairly straightforward to finish. 

Looking at the expenses I'll have coming up -- taxes to pay, ISBNs to buy, changes in my Medicare gap insurance -- I'm mainly in need of trimming my outgo.

I have all the DVDs I want. I have lots of books still to read...though I do find it awkward reading someone else's writing, because I'm often wondering why they chose to form a sentence this way instead of another way. Like I'm editing it. It's been so long since I've really gotten caught up in a novel...

And I'm pulling back from social media, except to push APoS. The animals have taken over Xitter and are weaving their way into Instagram and Facebook. I'll still support Ukraine as best I can, but I don't have the money to do it, anymore.

So I'm regressing into what Voltaire suggested at the end of Candide: "But let us cultivate our own garden." It's good advice in a time of complete chaos...as we are now sliding into. May even help my blood pressure, most of which is politics-driven.

That'd be a nice benefit of cocooning.