What time I have for writing I have to steal from something else. That might be sleep, home chores, home business, day job, etc. Since around the first of October last year, the Time Crunch has been in effect. I first projected it would last until March this year, but right now I think it’s going to last longer.

However, having said that, I can actually see some light at the end of the tunnel. A few reasons for that are:

• Family finances are up to date, as of the Saturday just past. This is usually a major headache for me, keeping up with the checkbook, filing receipts, and budgeting. But all of those are up to date, and have been almost since the first of the year. I still have a task or two to do in these responsibilities, but that compares to normally having dozens of tasks. It feels good.
• Tax season is fast approaching, and for the first time in decades I’m actually ready for it. All receipts bearing on taxes are in a folder marked “2014 Taxes”. I have calculated profit and loss from our home business, which is stock trading. That’s subject to confirmation when the brokerage statement arrives, but normally I don’t get to that calculation till March. It feels good.
• Household chores are mostly up to date: upstairs, downstairs, and outside. I have a few things to do in each area, but the amount on the to do list is way, way down from normal. Four hours on a Saturday and I will be able to declare everything caught up in this area. It feels good.
• Miscellaneous writing chores not related to specific works, while not as caught up as other areas, are not in bad shape. The main thing I need to do is choose a new layout/theme for this blog and update it. I hesitate to do so for fear of doing something wrong and accidentally dumping the whole thing. Since I’ve never backed it up—because I don’t know how to back it up—that’s a concern. So my order of tasks are: learn how to back up my blog; back up my blog; search for a new layout/theme; install the new layout/theme; then consolidate my two blogs into one and say goodbye to An Arrow Through the Air. That will be hard, but it’s necessary. After that, I have some writing filing to do, and more culling/discarding. I did a bunch of that back in October, but I’m really not done yet.

So, what’s going on with writing? I have active three writing tasks in progress. I also have other writing tasks started, but I’m not working on them at present, so won’t list them here. What I’m working on are:

• Editing A Harmony of the Gospels. I have 60 pages of discontinuous text to go, about 10-12 days of reading at my current place. Edits will follow, followed by printing two copies, one each to keep at home and at work. That might take another month.
• Father Daughter Day for print publication. Actually, I’m on hold on this at present as I wait for the cover designer to do her thing. Once I get an acceptable cover, I’ll have a week of intense formatting/submitting to do.
• Expanding a genealogy book I wrote, Seth Boynton Cheney: Mystery Man of the West. I self-published this using company facilities back in 2006 and 2008. In preparation for a summer family reunion, it’s time to make this into a proper book, and expand it to include things left out of the original and revision. Today I merged most of the files I have, and it comes to 113 letter-size pages. That would probably be almost double that for publication size pages. That’s a little longer than I thought, but not bad.

So that’s where I’m at. Despite having had to put most writing away for at least half a year, I can’t say I’m really unhappy about things.