Hello friends. So you may have noticed, from time to time, we’ve missed a week here or there on the blog. Unfortunately, we’ve found, as a whole, that life in this new world is catching up with us and maintaining this little beastie of ours isn’t as easy as it was in the past.
But. We all still love this space and you dedicated readers who’ve stayed with us through the good and the bad, so we don’t want to give it up entirely.
That being said we are going to be posting less frequently. Instead of weekly posts we’re going to move to dedicated monthly posts and the occasional post when Something Important happens for any of us and we find we want to share it with you.
I know it seems strange to hear that we’re struggling with posting once a month each, but I think we can all understand that things are just different now and life really gets in the way. For example, I usually have my post written and scheduled at the very latest, the day before I’m scheduled, so this post should have gone live a couple of hours ago, but then a family emergency slammed into our day yesterday and stole all my mental bandwidth for the rest of the day and all thoughts of a planned blog post went right out the window. So I’m here now, trying to catch up.
We hope everyone understands our new approach. We’re not even sure how popular blogs are anymore thanks to other, more flashy social media platforms, but we do know that sometimes blogging helps us, so we aren’t quite ready to retire this little space yet. I imagine we’ll see how the next few months go and then re-evaluate things. But for now, we’re still here, we’re still writing, we hope you’re still reading.
That being said, to share something more book related, I was invited to post over at Shepherd to reminisce about my time writing World of Ash and what books inspired me. It was nice to get back to that time Before. If you’re looking for some new-to-you books in the apocalyptic, dystopia, post-apocalyptic genre, head over and have a read!
I don’t know about you, but I’m tired….and not just because Ed-the-dog has decided to sleep in our bedroom. Or, not-sleep, as the case may be. That’s Q2 hour wake-up calls for everyone. 😑
He’s a good boy but we’re headed to the vet to see what his issue is.
Beyond sleep deprivation, the list of things I’m tired of goes on pretty long. I’m tired of hearing the name of our former president who still seems determined to shit on our governmental norms and traditions. I’m tired of hearing the name of a certain virus that seems determined to take all the fun out of life. I’m tired of bad news, like Russian aggression, random shootings, and people camping on street corners because they have no place else to go.
If you can find a one-bedroom apartment in Seattle for less than $1000 a month, GRAB IT because the average rent is much higher.
((To clarify, I’m not mad at the people who have so few options they’re living in tents wherever they can find space. I’m angry that I live in a community/city/state/country where housing isn’t guaranteed, and where you can be arrested for being poor.))
Wow, Ranty-Ranterson! Tell us how you really feel.
But this isn’t about me, or I didn’t intend it to be. I’m worried about everyone around me. I’ve got yoga, my garden, my family and friends. A husband who’s fun to be around. Books to write. I’ve got so many resources I almost feel bad complaining about things.
I mean, it’s Australian Open season. I can watch as much tennis as I want…for research purposes, of course.
I can’t reach out and touch everyone who reads this post, but I can practice what my yoga teacher talked about. She said we should inhale caring for ourselves and exhale love for others.
So I am. Exhaling. For all of you.
I hope you’re finding ways to take care of yourself and that you unplug when you need to. Take a walk. Read a good book. Leave the doomscrolling for another day.
It’s summertime and I want to take it a little bit easier than normal. So, instead of slamming you with bits of hard-earned wisdom (see my post on Rhythm in Writing or Research for Writers or Promo for Authors for that), I’m going to share garden pix instead…
I’ve shared garden pix before. You can check out The Garden in Spring from 2020 or Summer in the Garden posted in 2018 if you’re curious. The thing that’s interesting to me is how much changes from season to season but how little changes from year to year.
And I have a short attention span, so the season-to-season change works for me. (lol!)
There’s one notable difference in the garden compared with past years. We got rid of the grass in our front yard, replacing it with something slate-adjacent. (You’d have to ask my husband for the specific name.) I’ve always liked our front yard, but now it’s our favorite place to hang out at the end of the day. The trees that surround it make it shady and cool and private. Just lovely.
These three pix show our new stone walkway. The picture in the middle – the one with the dog – is from the front gate and shows the stone birdbath. The other two are taken of the veggie bed, where the pumpkins have taken over everything. There are also beets, carrots, and onions in there, along with a grandiflora rose Lagerfield, which is super happy not to have to share space with other shrubs.
There’s a close-up of the lavender that wants to take over the world. You can’t get to the front door without brushing against it, and while it’s been suggested that I cut it back, I kinda love the scent. Behind the lavender there’s an espaliered apple tree, and there are a couple of tomato plants and basil hiding between them. The other pic is our raised bed with strawberries and herbs. There are also some cranesbill geraniums that I stuck in there to so the guys who laid the stone walkway wouldn’t step on them, and will eventually transplant…somewhere.
And there’s OREGANO. Did I mention the OREGANO? It’s fairly happy to spread every damned place – lol – and I’m starting to treat it like a weed.
We haven’t sorted out the back yard yet. The house is built on the side of a hill, so there’s an elevation difference between one end of the yard to the other. We’d thought about bringing in a backhoe and leveling it, then inviting our friendly stone-layer dudes to come back and lay a large patio. The problem is, there’s a 40-foot hemlock at the high end and we’d damage the tree by digging up the roots to level the yard. And if we managed to level it without pulling up the roots, they would eventually push the stones up and ruin our patio. So.
While we’re pondering, on the left there’s a picture of the big oakleaf hydrangea and on the right is a spirea up against a shrub rose with a determined bamboo in between. Those white hydrangea blossoms need to hold it together for a couple more weeks, b/c they’re going to go in the centerpieces at a friend’s wedding reception! And if you look close in the upper left corner of the spirea picture, you can see the chandelier my husband hung last year. Unfortunately, he ripped up the patio underneath it after I put my foot through one of the boards a couple months ago, but hopefully by next year we’ll be able to spend evenings under the fairy lights.
And here are some close-ups. The top row shows a daylily, a scented geranium, and a Seafoam rose, and the two big pix on the bottom are a squash blossom (with a neighborhood bee!) and a purple poppy. Every damn year I fall in love with that purple color.
So there you have it! A little glimpse at what this author does when I’m not tapping away on my laptop. Which reminds me…I should probably go water or weed or something. Happy summer!!
….and as long as you’re here, I’ve got a couple special deals to tell you about!
The Rainbow Readers Club on Facebook is running an Opposites Attract promo this week. If that’s one of your preferred tropes, join the page and check out the author chats and giveaways! Jump HERE to get to the Rainbow Readers Club!
….and!!
This is a fantastic collection of romances on SALE!! 70+, from contemporary to paranormal to historical. Need a beach read? You can find one here! HERE’S THE LINK to the sale page!
I’ve got AQUA FOLLIES on SALE!! Regular $4.99, now $0.99!!
Retirement: that far-off event that’ll change my whole life...
Let’s poke at that subtitle a little.
The change my whole life part is accurate – I mean, I’ll go from spending some 30 hours per week in a NICU to…not. No more NICU. Weird.
Still, it’s the far-off bit where I really need to adjust my thinking. Because honestly, I’m looking at three years before I can reasonably retire.
Three years!
I’ll only be 62, but I started my first retirement account thirty-four years ago, when I was twenty-five. I’ve literally been preparing myself for this most of my life.
Preparing for what, you might ask.
Well, it’s the “what” part that makes me nervous. I’ve always been a fairly goal-directed person. I mean, yeah it took me five years to earn an associates degree (lol!) but it was the ’80s. And I was in Honolulu. There were a lot (!) of distractions.
And I subsequently went on to earn a bachelors and then a masters, so things worked out okay.
Still, I’ve always sorta wondered what people do when they’re retired. I mean, shuffleboard’s not my bag, ya know? I guess I vaguely thought I’d travel some, and work in my garden, and just sorta go from one day to the next.
But golly that sounds pretty aimless. And kinda boring, if I’m honest.
On the other hand, after thirty-four years in the NICU, I’m ready for something new. Don’t get me wrong, I love working with babies and I take great pride in my work. It’s taken me a long time to get to the point where I can start an IV in just about anyone, any time, anywhere, and for me n’ my superpowered grey hair to be able to calm down a fractious family situation just by showing up.
But.
But…
Last spring my employer merged with another hospital and my group of Neonatal Nurse Practitioners found ourselves responsible for covering another unit. (Which is an extreme simplification, but it gets to the gist.) I ended up working a lot. Like 120 hours in a two-week pay period kind of A LOT. Those hours went on all through the summer and into the fall, so the point where I started joking that I was going to need a whole month off to recover.
And also to bring down my vacation hours so I wouldn’t lose any because I was over the limit.
Apparently I made the Month Off joke often enough that our lead and our scheduler gave me the green light. I’ve been on vacation since 4/2/21 and I don’t work again until the first weekend in May. (Okay, I covered 8 hours last weekend for a no-show but that won’t be repeated.)
Once I saw the official schedule with me officially not on it, I started calling April my Dress Rehearsal for Retirement Month. If I can’t handle a whole month off, what the hell am I going to do with the rest of my damn life?
(This is where the goal-directed piece comes in.)
I didn’t just walk out of the hospital on April 2nd without a plan. I committed to writing the first draft of the sequel to Soulmates, my m/m/m paranormal romance. My word count goal for the month is 80,000, and I’m at about 35k now with a couple thousand more in me today. Not exactly where I meant to be, but not bad, either.
I’ve also had time to sort through a particularly cluttered area of our basement and work in the garden and do yoga and walk the dogs and read for fun. It’s been pretty effing fantastic, to be honest. If this is what the rest of my life’s going to look like, sign me up.
I’ve reached this stage in life through a combination of luck, priviledge, talent, and hard work, and I don’t take one minute for granted. When it’s time for me to leave the NICU for good, I’ll do so with a lifetime of memories and a heart full of gratitude. Babies made me grow up and turned me into the person I am today.
Still, going forward, there’ll be books to write and veggies to grow and dogs to walk.
I’ve been watching a ridiculous amount of tennis. Might be a strange opening line for a writing-related blog, but hang with me for a minute. It’s Australian Open season, which is a great tournament for someone who works night shift because ESPN and the Tennis Channel broadcast the matches live. Given the 17-ish hour time difference between Seattle and Melbourne, I’ve watched some fantastic tennis at three am.
In part, I consider it research, because some day I’m going to write a tennis romance. If for no other reason than because I find Stefano Tsitsipas (above) to be so very inspiring.
Following an entire tournament if fun, too, because of all the different storylines. Early on there are so many players and so many matches. I can root for favorites, see who’s playing well and who’s fighting injury and who’s mental game has gone to Mars. Over the two weeks of the Open, the numbers drop, the tennis gets better, and the matches more intense.
Are there any young players on the men’s tour who can beat one of the Big Three (Federer, Nadal, & Djokovic)? Will Serena win her 24th major? Four of the final 16 women in the Aussie Open are American. How did we end up with so many fantastic players?
And what about Aslan Karatsev, the 27-year-old Russian qualifier who’s the first man in the Open era to reach the semi-finals of a Grand Slam tournament in his debut? Wouldn’t it be cool if he made the finals?!
The thing that fascinates me – and the element I find most intimidating when it comes to setting a story in the world of pro tennis – is the amount of focus and self-discipline it takes to reach that level. I can play tennis; well, I know which end of the racket to grab anyway, but I don’t think I’ve ever dedicated myself to anything so completely.
When I was a kid, I was on swim team, and I dreamt of making the US Olympic team. I worked my butt off in practice, but somewhere along the way (ahem, high school) I got distracted. Never made the Olympics, but I did do the Waikiki Roughwater Swim, which was a 2.8 mile race off Waikiki Beach. Finished in the top fifty women, too, so some of my discipline paid off.
Later, once I found my feet as an adult, I decided I wanted to sing. I studied voice and sang in choirs and with bands, everything from the blues and rock to Mozart and Gregorian chant. When I brought my oldest kid to the pediatrician for the first time, I asked about bringing a baby to band practice. I did, too, both kids, protecting their ears with wax earplugs held in place by headbands. I’ve also known the unique pleasure of stepping onto the church altar to sing a little Renaissance Christmas ditty with a trio, only to see my then-three-year-old engage in some experimental dance between the altar and the first row of church pews.
I might never have made the finals of American Idol, but over the years I learned a lot about myself, and a lot about music.
And for my next trick...
I always knew I wanted to be an author, and about ten years ago I decided I better get my act together or it was never gonna happen. You might have heard this story already, so I won’t go into too much detail. I started writing, studying how to write, going to conferences, taking classes, and connecting with other authors. I published my first book just about nine years ago and my next release – a novella I co-wrote with Irene Preston – will be number eighteen.
I might not have the level of dedication required to play tennis on an international stage, but making the New York Times bestseller list isn’t completely out of reach. Honestly, though, I seem to have put together a pretty decent life without actually getting what I think I want.
There’s probably a lesson in there somewhere...
This is my first blog post since August, and I’m SO happy to be back with the Scribes!! I’ve had two recent releases and Irene and I have a new one coming in early March, so I thought I’d share the pretty covers. Well, two pretty covers and a teaser.
It’s been a minute since we at the Spellbound Scribes’ Blog have crept into your web history, but all of us are happy to be back and are so grateful if you’ve come back to join us.
We each had reasons we needed the break when we closed the blog at the beginning of September and, when I wrote that post, I was in a very dark place, myself. Things in mine and my partner’s lives had been turned upside down and we were kind of drowning at the time. I didn’t know what was going to happen, but I could see into the different timelines, depending on which way things went, and so many of them were very scary and stressful. Sadly and not sadly, I was right and we went through some of the toughest months of our lives.
We lost our home, nearly lost our business, lost family members, all while trying to avoid the actual plague our world is fighting.
But. Five months to the day that we got the news our world was turned upside down, we landed on our feet. Or we swam up out of the abyss. Broke through the rubble and climbed to the top. Take whatever imagery you like, we made it to the other side. And, if I’m being honest, there’s a very good chance that this might have been one of the best things to happen to us. Check back with me in a year and we’ll see if that prediction comes true.
Imbolc is a time of renewal, the celebration of making it through the darkness and the light returning back to the world. It is so appropriate for our situation to finally be settled right as this moment turns on the wheel.
I know this is supposed to be a writing blog and me talking about my life and our world finally finding some normalcy doesn’t seem appropriate, but we’re all people first and I think it’s important to know that we all go through troubles. When we’re seeing people’s lives or careers online, it can look like their world is perfect and we have no idea what’s going on behind the screen. And it makes us question our own lives, comparing ourselves to what we see and feeling like a failure. I had to completely shut down my online presence to get through the last couple of months and it wasn’t because I didn’t want people to not know things aren’t always perfect for me and mine. It was a survival tactic. But I was so touched to have friends reach out to me to find out where I’d gone and wanting to know if I was okay.
And now I really am doing okay. In fact, I’ve even opened up the manuscript I started working on for NaNo ’19 that I’d shelved when the pandemic started and you know what? I don’t hate it. I might actually start writing again and finish the damn thing. I cannot tell you what a monumental moment that was for me to realize I might want to start writing again so soon. But I do.
If you’ve been around for a while you know that I’ve posted about how many words I’ve written over the course of my writing career. So maybe you thought I was able to write through all the turmoil. Maybe you thought I could just push through the chaos and keep working. I mean, that’s what it probably looked like. You saw people posting like their lives and quarantines were going great, right? All sourdough starters and puppy adoptions. But there you are in your tattered sweatpants not getting a damn thing done. Because you were depressed. Because you were tired. Because you were scared. Because you were uninspired. Because. Because. Because. Whatever it was. And how many times did you see that meme about what Shakespeare got done during his apocalypse?
You know what?
Fuck all that noise.
Maybe you wrote your life-changing project. Maybe you did jack all like most some of us. Either way, you did exactly what you were supposed to.
I didn’t get anything written and I’m okay with that. I’m going to start again. I’ve done it before so I know I can do it again. And so can you. If you’re not ready yet, that’s okay too. The words will always be waiting.
And I’m so glad you were waiting for us. We’re here for you once again.
Think back to the Before Times – you know, like last February. Did any of these terms and hashtags resonate? #BlackLivesMatter is the only one I’d heard of, but now we have this whole new vocabulary.
And it’s….awkward.
I know many authors are struggling to get words on the page, and others who are no longer struggling, because they’ve given up. It’s just too hard to tap into their creativity when it feels like the world is falling in around them. I’ve also seen debates on social media about the appropriateness of writing quickie quarantine romances to try to capitalize on our new reality.
Kinda gives the “forced proximity” trope a whole different spin.
For discussion’s sake, let’s say you do have the spoons to write, but you’re wondering how much of our current quagmire should make it on the page. As a first step, it might be worth considering what people want to read. Maybe they do want that quickie quarantine romance. Or maybe they want Shauna’s fantastic dystopian Ash & Ruin series or any of the books on this Goodreads list of Current Events Fiction.
Or maybe they want something as far from reality as possible. (How ’bout hot&naughty elves? Kasia Bacon‘s Order series – starting with The Mutt – is a whole lot of fun.)
Keep them (current events) fresh and meaningful long after they’ve passed in the same way you keep any events in your fiction fresh and meaningful: Lash them with urgency to the experience of one or more characters.
For example, I found one of the best descriptions of New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath in Royal Street, the first book in Suzanne Johnson‘s Sentinels of New Orleans urban fantasy series. Not only did the author nail the details – she lived in NOLA during Katrina – but her characters had a life or death stake in the events, which made for a real page-turner.
One thing to consider, though, is that Royal Street was published in 2012, about seven years after Katrina. I’ve never asked, but I’d imagine it took Suzanne some time to organize her reactions to the disaster in a way that made sense. In a WaPo article that speculates on what post-pandemic fiction will look like, Chris Bohjalian makes a useful comparison with post-9/11 fiction. He points out that it was 2005 before the serious novels dealing with 9/11 began to be published.
….it took novelists a little more time to shape the nightmare into a story. After all, how do you make something up when the truth is so unspeakable? So wrenching?
Good questions.
The pandemic, with the horrific costs associated with it, is at least as profound an event as 9/11, with arguably greater consequences. The concurrent shifting social paradigms around race and racism are equally significant, though I’d caution all writers who want to explore those issues to make sure the story is theirs to tell. It’s going to take years for creatives to wrap their arms around this phase in our history, and there may be some who’ll never be able to revisit this time, even in fiction.
Is there territory between a quickie something-something that grabs the headlines and runs, and a deep and thoughtful examination of our lived experience? I’d argue that there is. One of the series I’m co-writing with Irene Preston features a character who used to be a cop but quit the force. In part because of that character, I’ve made an effort to read about the whole #DefundThePolice movement and those ideas are definitely influencing his backstory.
Times are hard, and I’ve got it better than most. The stress, the isolation, and the endless conflict have to color what we’re able to create, if not squash our creativity all together. Take care. Be gentle with yourself. Use the grist of these days in any way that makes sense to you.
We maintain this blog to talk about the art and craft and work of writing. You, presumably, come here to read about that. But today I’m going to talk to you about when you’re not writing.
A lot of time, no matter how far you may be into your writing career, we often feel guilty when we take time off of writing. And no matter how often we tell each other that taking time off is not only okay, it’s necessary, we struggle to take that to heart when it applies to us. I can tell my writing friends they deserve time off, that we all need to decompress, go get yourself a little water for that well, but when I’m taking time off I have to keep saying, “It’s okay. You deserve this.”
But I don’t always feel like that’s true.
It is true. It’s as true for me as it is for you. But my guilt doesn’t care about true and fairness.
So, if you struggle with that as much as I do, when you do take time off from writing, make it worth it. Have it fill your well. Your well is that source of creativity inside of you–your well of inspiration. Think of it as a literal well from which you drink, but it doesn’t have a natural source refilling it–you have to refill it from time to time.
I’ve made no secret of the fact that I have been struggling to work on my new project and I finally accepted the fact that I needed to step away from it and reconsider what I’m going to do. But I needed to do something creative to fill the space not writing has left.
So, over the last 3-4 weeks, I’ve been working with my hands. My husband and I have been doing a major (for us) landscaping project. We have limited outdoor space and we’ve been trying over the years to make it into something that we can really enjoy but, because of the odd placement, the way the sun hits it, a bunch of other factors, everything we’ve tried has eventually failed. It’s succumbed to poor planning, weeds, the drought, etc.
We decided this time we were going to do it right. I knew the reason we hadn’t done it “right” before was because it was going to be so hard. Like, physically hard. Hard, back breaking work. And I was right; it has been painfully hard.
We’ve torn down the termite damaged wooden structure. Shoveled at least a dozen wheel-barrels full of dirt. Dug out massive, hidden chunks of cement. Built garden boxes. Dug a 3.5 foot post hole and cemented a new post in. Spent long hours into last Saturday night laying out 35 sixty pound pavers. And we’re still not done. The good news is, we’re done with the heavy labor. The stuff that made my back and hands ache for days, it’s all done. We’re down to small things, like making it pretty, and building a bench to finish it. Not easy, necessarily, but not 35 sixty pound pavers either.
I made it a point to pull equal weight to my husband–not leaving all the hard, heavy things for him to do. Yes, he definitely lifted more pavers than I did, but I made sure I shoveled more dirt than he did. I wanted this to be an even division of labor. When I sit out there with a cup of coffee and my outline, I want to feel the same amount of accomplishment as he will.
And, Sunday morning, when we woke up and walked outside to get a good look at what we’d finished the night before in the light of day, I finally felt relief. We’d done something and we could actually see the progress finally. It was the same feeling I get when I get hit the 3/4 mark in a manuscript. It’s not quite done, but damn, I have made it through the difficult parts and the end is in sight. And, if I focus, I know I can finish the last couple of chapters fast and furiously.
We did hit a roadblock and an idea we had to make it pretty completely crashed and burned. And I was really upset about it. It wasn’t an expensive letdown but it was something we’d put a lot of time into and it just didn’t workout and all I could think about was all that time and energy wasted. But that’s something we face in writing all the time. Sometimes you write a whole book only to realize at the end, that book isn’t going to be published. It wasn’t right or good or something. But we have to put it in a drawer and let it go and start something new. So I let that frustration go, tossed the ruined materials and marched back down to the hardware store today and got new supplies. And you know what? This is going to be 100% better than that scrapped idea and now I know that. In all actuality, I couldn’t have known our first idea wasn’t going to work until we tried it. Which, again, is a lot like figuring out a book. All you can do is try and fail and try again until you figure it out and get it right.
I don’t know for sure, but something in my gut is telling me, when this project is done, I might be able to get back to the book. I’ve been thinking about it more and more and with less dread and disappointment. Maybe doing something creative and difficult that wasn’t writing was just the thing I needed to unblock my water source. Maybe my well is filling back up. Or maybe I needed to be reminded that I can create things from scratch so I can do it again.
So if you’re stuck, maybe do something else with your creativity. Create something else, watch it form from your hands, and remember you’re an amazing artist who deserves time away from the pages and keys and voices. Quell that guilt.
(And yes, I have been taking progress pictures, I just haven’t posted them. I want the whole thing done before I post anything so you really get the full effect of the transformation.)
So, I’ve got a funny story for you. You know last December, when my Scribes post listed all the things I meant to accomplish in 2019? I can proudly report that…
I might not have done so well.
Or at least I’ve been telling myself I didn’t accomplish much. Getting ready for this post, though, I looked over the list from last year – you can find it here if you’re curious – and I didn’t entirely suck.
I didn’t write another book for my agent to send out on submission, but I did self-publish Lost & Found (previously known as L’Ami Mysteriuex), so I get partial credit for this one.
Last January I’d written ~ 1120 #PostcardsToVoters, and today I’m at ~ 1850, which means I’ve averaged ~ 15 postcards per week. My goal was 20. Close enough.
I said I’d spend 15 minutes a day teaching myself French. HAHAHAHA.
I meant to write another Trevor story. He’s the hero in The Clockwork Monk & The Christmas Prince (which is still a free download for the next week or so), and while he’ll get another story, it didn’t happen this year.
Next was rewriting the Creepy Doll story. Funny thing, that. I started a rewrite, changing the time period from 1940 to 1900. Then I cut the vampire. Then I moved the location from New Orleans to Seattle. Then…uh…I cut the doll. And then I had to admit I was writing an entirely different book, but it was my NaNo project and I’m about 10k words shy of finishing the first draft.
I promised to keep my senators on speed dial, and I have.
I didn’t get back into Weight Watchers, but I’ve been going to a weekly spin class and taking yoga a couple times of week, so I’m going to count this as a win, too.
Looking back, there were only two resolutions I really did no work towards (and yes, Babbel, I’m looking at you). Here I thought I was going to write a 500-word mea culpa, but in reality, I did pretty good.
Go me!
Now I guess I should figure out what to do to capitalize on this success. A clever person might make another list of resolutions and since I’m nothing if not clever, here goes…
I hereby resolve to use my planner.
Guess you could say I’m aiming to quit while I’m ahead. I do have a mental list of what I want to accomplish, and tbh, using a planner is a pretty big step that will allow me to translate my mental list to action. I’ll let you know how it goes!
I hope your holidays were happy, however you chose to celebrate. Thank you so much for reading along!!
It started with a tweet (I think). A tweet that, as of this evening, has 22.5 thousand likes. I couldn’t coax twitter into showing me the number of responses, but quite a few of my friends tweeted their accomplishments, and it’s even filtered over onto Facebook. People are sharing what’s mattered most to them since 2010.
So, uh, I decided to use the tweet as a point of departure for this blog post.
So, without further ado, here’s a brief summary of what I’ve done since 2010.
The husband and I got two kids into and out of high school. They’re both in college now. The house is quiet. I’m beyond proud of them.
We brought Burnsie home about seven years ago. Ed-the-dog joined him about three years later. I discovered I’ve secretly been a dog person all along.
I left the employer I’d been with for 20+ years to go to work for UWMC. They think I’ve been with them ten years; I’m pretty sure it’s only nine. Either way, I still love taking care of babies.
I transitioned from church musician & front person for a cover band to author. I decided I’d sung all the songs I needed to sing – although if you wanna go to karaoke some night, I’m down.
At the risk of turning myself into a stereotype, I have discovered a deep-seated belief in democracy. Unfortunate that it took an existential threat to prompt this discovery. If you need me, I’m writing #postcardstovoters or getting ready for another demonstration.
I always knew I was going to be a writer when I grew up, and while it took me almost 50 years, I published my first novella in January of 2012. Since then, I’ve published six novels, five novellas, and nine or ten short stories. Two of the novels and two of the novellas were co-written with Irene Preston, and I’d count her friendship as another accomplishment all on its own.
I’ve lived in the same house with the same husband for over twenty years now, and we’re ready for many, many more. I’m a lucky girl.
ETA….I also changed hair color rather substantially… (A couple years ago I wrote a post about letting my hair go gray. Here’s a link.)
In the interest of getting back to my NaNoWriMo project, I’m going to end here. I hope you enjoy the last few weeks of 2019, and that the ’20s give you all the reasons to dance!
Spellbound Scribes 