What’s new in my left-handed life? Although it’s slowed me down, it hasn’t stopped me! In the past couple weeks:

Learning and reading:
– reading personal essays in various journals such as The New Quarterly, Glimmer Train Stories, and Geist magazine, and ordered a book about writing personal essays, because it’s a genre I enjoy writing, and I want to improve my skills
– Read and post about the book, Weinberg on Writing: The Fieldstone Method, by Gerald M. Weinberg (taking book notes with left-handed writing…)
– Read a recent issue of Yes! magazine
– Read Susan Musgrave’s cookbook, A Taste of Haida Gwaii, which my sister Marilyn gave me for my birthday.
– Catch up reading Writer’s Digest magazine issues from April, June, July, September … and just as I finished them, the October issue has arrived!
– do some research on possibly using Evernote as a way to collect and organize notes for my writing projects.
– finish reading an ebook about WordPress for writers.
– Read You Write, They Pay (3rd ed) by Susan Anderson.
– reorganize my binder of ideas for this summer (which got kind of waylaid due to my elbow fracture) and make a new to-do list for the month of summer that’s left…
– list all the books I still need to read on my Kobo and Kindle apps … egad! How did I get so many lined up but not read?
– read a variety of articles and PDFs I’d bookmarked this spring to save for summer reading .. like “How to Launch a Self-Hosted WordPress Blog (by Michael Hyatt), “7 Signs You’ve Found Your Calling” (by Jeff Goins), “Shave 10 Hous off Your Work Week” (Michael Hyatt), “Getting Things Done Productively,” “Eliminating Distractions and Practicing Deep Work,” and “The Beginners Guide To Building An Audience”
– Read 102 Ways to Earn Money Writing 1,500 Words or Less by I.J. Schecter.
– Read Write and Publish Your Non-Fiction Book by Nancy Hendrickson

Writing:
– keep practicing my left-handed writing, as well as practicing using Windows Speech Recognition software, and use it to dictate blog posts, book notes, etc.
– write Facebook posts on various pages, such as my Pen and Paper Mama Services page, the Okanagan Valley Writers’ Festival page, and the BC Writers, Authors and Editors Page.
– Write personal emails to friends.
– Write posts for this blog about various topics, and for a couple other of my blogs (you can find out more about my varios blogs at my Pen and Paper Mama website).
– I updated my “writing” resume in preparation for updating my websites and my LinkedIn account
– Update the

Editing:
– Edit the new issue of Archivos magazine (Okanagan Archive Trust Society‘s quarterly journal featuring South Okanagan historical articles and stories … in fact, the new issue includes a story I wrote about Summerland’s old Rotary Beach)
– Update information on the PWAP (Penticton Writers) website.
– Edit several chapters of a new chapter book for children by Yasmin John-Thorpe.
– I have also received, today, a request to edit a children’s book by another author, and to do some editing for a First Nations publishing company I have edited for in the past.
– I updated my list of books and projects I have edited in the past, as well as workshops I have given.

And of course I have been enjoying the pleasant summer weather here, hanging out at the beach, spending time with the grandkids, celebrating my 61st birthday, watching old Star Trek episodes (Voyager and Deep Space Nine series), and letting my hubby spoil me due to my fractured elbow! Oh and I attended a couple meetings, one in person (strata council) and one by Skype (BC Home Learners Assn. board meeting). Never a dull moment!

(And if you’re wondering why I’m recording all these writing activities here … it’s a lot easier than trying to hand write them into my usual writer’s calendar, not to mention it’s a good way to keep me publicly “at it” instead of spending the rest of the summer slacking off!)