Be careful what you wish for …

A much needed break … 

I needed a break, a summer vacation if you will. The universe heard me and did not qualify the words … did not distinguish the difference from a summer vacation wherein we frolic and enjoy fun in the sun, carefree days and lazy nights from a break from something you actually wanted to do … or from … someone you wanted to spend time with.

I meant to be alone for a few days, a couple of weeks … okay … I wanted to be in peace for the end of summer at least. Time to read and edit and plan for my next submission, send sample chapters to readers, catch up on my indie project, redesign my blog format, upload new pictures and wallow in wonderful drafts and plots … devilish villains and delightful red herrings. I intended to cross genre myself into nirvana.

Be careful what you wish for …

All I wished for was a vacation from the blog, from commenting on other blogs, from social networking and the internet.

And the universe in its infinite wisdom sent me a break from all things modern and electronic. My computer died … again.

While my daughter chastised me in stereo for being a lame brain and not having the proper protection (you want to talk role reversal with your kids?) I spent my hard-earned vacation dollars on “geeks” from a squad of kids young enough to be my grandchildren … from techies who live twelve thousand miles from my solitary work space … and I shelled out more time and worries.

The days rushed by in a struggle to catch up with my journals and those dozen or more books lined up to be read … the deadline of September 25, 2013 and my triumphant return to fOIS In The City loomed overhead like a specter … a bird circling road kill.

Because I failed to provide the universe specific and copious details it is now five-fifty-one in the am EST and the four Fall posts meant for your reading enjoyment were never written.

Those Christmas listings that were to begin in June and be completed by September to dazzle my on-line shoppers are half done. The second half is, of course, the hardest part and waits for my in the garden shed and craft closet.

Only four of my dozen books were read and the first selection for our October book club, which I forgot to order from the library, awaits my undivided attention.

What happens next …

If I only knew then what I know now. Well get over it. You don’t get a do-over in life. You mess up, you pay. Often, when you do good, you pay more.

And as the man said (in the longest prose chapters I have ever read) … you can’t go home again so you might as well move down the road to your next adventure.

Trust that all those screw-ups taught you something. Or at least learn enough to not mess with the universe and for the love of Hannah … learn to ask proper questions.

I learned a couple-few-things on my blog vacation. It’s not only important to learn and ask the proper questions, it is most important to listen to the answer.

And there you have it my trusted readers, you are the few, the brave, those who weathered each storm with me for four years …

I call myself  fOIS In The City :  I am a writer of women’s fiction and mysteries in several sub genres. My stories are about NYC women on the edge of discovery, danger and fun.

In the thirteen weeks before Christmas I will dazzle you with my flash fiction, city scapes and more of my fractured wisdom.

What say you? What have you been up to while I was on vacation?

And what questions do you send out to the universe?

___________________

The graphics are from a series of google-searches for Fifties advertising and have been culled from a dozen or more internet sites.