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.
This post comes out of a couple different places. One, I’ve been pondering my goals for next year. Two, I made more money from book sales this year than I ever have before. (I also spent more this year, and after almost ten years of publishing, have yet to break even.) And three, I’ve expended a whole lot of time and energy over the last couple weeks making Christmas presents.
See, secretly I’m an embroidery nerd. I’ve done cross stitch, crewelwork, needlepoint, black work, and hardanger embroidery, and to a limited extent, I’ve designed my own projects. Needlework was my main hobby in my 40s, until I blew up a disc in my back and couldn’t sit for long periods of time. I couldn’t sit and stitch, but I could lay on my belly and write. I started with journaling to keep from going crazy, moved on to short stories, and voila! A writer was born!
I also crochet, but that’s more of an addiction than anything else. It keeps my hands busy and it’s less toxic than smoking cigarettes.
This morning as I was putting the finishing touches on some hardanger embroidery ornaments – here’s the link to hardanger’s Wikipedia page in case you’re unfamiliar with the style – I started thinking about how much time it had taken to make each one. The two smaller ones took about four hours each. The larger ones took….longer. The materials don’t cost a whole lot, but even so, for me to earn at least minimum wage, I’d have to sell the small ones for around $75.
The large ones would be…more. Which is why I’m giving them as gifts and not trying to sell them on Etsy.
You can find hardanger ornaments on Etsy, though, and for a lot less than I’d charge. (This one is pretty.And so it this one.) Which means either I’m slow (probably) or the market won’t support what the sellers’ time is really worth.
I mean, if you’re selling a hand-made ornament for $10, either you can finish one in 30 minutes or you’re earning what was minimum wage when I first entered the job market – $3.35/hour.
Which brings me back to publishing. I honestly don’t know how many hours it takes me to write a book, but for the sake of discussion, I can use last month’s NaNoWriMo challenge. I wrote 50,000 words in November, or a little under 1700 words a day. It takes me about 2 hours to write 1700 words, longer if I’m distracted.
My best selling book this year, Soulmates, is about 75,000 words long. Rather than challenge you with a story problem, I’ll just say that, assuming I write 1700 words in 2 hours, it took me 90 hours to write 75,000 words. Cool. I made decent money, if I only count the writing time. That hourly rate gets lower when I add in the editing, with all the false starts and rewrites that went into the final draft.
And after I back out the cost of the editor, the cover artist, and promotion, I’m lucky if I’m making minimum wage….for 1976. ($3.35/hour!)
So why do it? Why spend all the time and thought and energy on a project with little hope of financial reward? We’re only allotted so many hours in this life, and given that I’ll turn 60 on my next birthday….well, you do the math. Is publishing where I want to spend my time?
I’ve talked about retiring from my hospital job in the next couple years, with an eye toward earning enough in book royalties so I won’t have to tap my retirement accounts right away. To do that, I’d need to do more than break even, an elusive goal so far. It means I’d need to keep up the 4-books-a-year pace, and I’d need to pay more attention to the ‘Zon categories so that my upcoming projects align with what’s selling well.
I’d also need to layer on the butter. (See 7 Figure Fiction by T. Taylor for how to use Universal Fantasies, what she calls butter, to sell books.)
But do I want to do all that? I’m still pondering. Over the last ten years, I’ve invested a lot of my time – my self, my spirit, my creative drive – in this publishing project, and I’d like to see it pay off. Or maybe it already has paid off, in the satisfaction I feel knowing I sent some really good stories out into the world.
If you need me, I’m the one with the crochet hook and the wild eyes…
This is not me. This is a photo by Oksana Trajan from Unsplash.
Today’s post is going to be short(ish) because it’s NaNoWriMo and I have words to write. For those of you who haven’t seen the acronym before, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month, when writers of all levels all over the world set a goal for the month of November. Traditionally the goal is 50,000 words, which will give people who’ve always wanted to write a novel a good start on one.
It’s also fantastic for those of us who’ve written more than one book but just need a little (or a large) push to crank out the next one.
You can set any goal for the month, and there’s a bajillion ways to connect with other authors while you’re working to meet that goal. That’s the thing that makes NaNo fun! There are groups you can join through the NaNoWriMo website, or you can connect with people through the #NaNoWriMo hashtag on twitter and pretty much any other social media platform.
So how is all this like yoga?
For those of us who’ve committed to the 50k word goal, that works out to a little over 1600 words a day. Every day. All month long. I find that even when I’m not writing, I’m thinking about what I will be writing or what I’ve just written and how those pieces fit together. I find that the process of living and breathing the story forces me to get out of my own way.
And that’s how I connected it to yoga.
I took my first yoga class in about 1990, and have practiced off and on ever since. Since the pandemic started, though, I’ve been practicing much more regularly, mostly by streaming classes from Sun Yoga in Honolulu. In a recent class, the teacher said something that really resonated with me. She said that part of yoga was learning to breathe in uncomfortable positions. For me, that idea highlighted how, at its essence, yoga is about developing a connection to the breath. (Even when you’re curled in a ball trying to get your forehead to your knee.)
Yoga is about the process, and NaNoWriMo is about the process. Yoga connects you to your breath, and writing regularly is a way of developing a connection to the words (or to your creativity, or fill in whatever concept works for you.) And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a couple thousand words to write.
Hang on…as long as I’m here, I figure I’ll share the links to a couple of promos I’m involved with….
Over 40 great holiday romances by some of the best in the business! And they’re all ON SALE!
Katie Ledecky, winner of 7 Olympic and 15 world championship gold medals.
When my youngest kid was in middle school, he had knee problems. He couldn’t play football, but all that energy needed to go somewhere, so I signed him up for swim team. He went to one regional swim meet and I was impressed (confused? befuddled?) by the sheer number of kids who were rotating in and out of the water. His coaches reinforced the message that the kids weren’t racing each other as much as they were racing themselves. Winning gold was nice, but getting a personal best time was better.
That philosophy fits pretty well with an idea I’ve run across more than once in writing classes, often in terms of inspiration and motivation. We’re told that rather than waste time in jealousy or envy for another author’s success, each author needs to define success for themselves. For example, in a master class at last weekend’s Emerald City Writers’ Conference, Angela James started her presentation by asking each of us to describe what success looks like, and then leave a comment in the chat (we were on zoom) sharing some aspect of it.
People piped right up with comments like, “I’ve figured out what success looks like for three months, six months, and a year.” Which, okay then. LOL. I was happy for them – sincerely – yet there I was, still parsing the question.
See, if you ask me to list my goals for whatever time increment, I can do that, no problem. Weekly, monthly, one year, five year? I got this. (Well, five years might be a little vague.) And generally, I’m pretty good at accomplishing the goals I set for myself – or coming up with a damned good reason why I haven’t.
However, I’m not sure meeting goals and “success” are the same thing.
Clearly they’re related concepts. Checking things off a list feels good, whether it’s this week’s Trello to-do list or January’s goal to publish 4 books this year. And you know, according to the dictionary, that’s success.
So why am I balking? Why do I think success is bigger than just checking things off a list? Why don’t I feel like a success?
I think it’s because whenever I meet a goal, in the next breath I’m already planning the next one. Published 4 books this year? Good for me. What’s on deck for 2022? Pulled off a successful writing conference? Cool. When’s the next one?
I swear if I ever hit the New York Times bestseller list, I’ll immediately start figuring out how to raise the bar.
The thing about goals is they need to be concrete, measurable, and within my control. I’d argue that success is none of those things – unless it’s only about meeting goals. To me, it’s bigger than that. Success is satisfaction and happiness and pride, a complicated emotion that isn’t easily quantified.
I also think that defining success depends on where you focus your lens. The second bullet point in the dictionary definition is “the attainment of fame, wealth, or social status.”
And all of those values are relative.
Like, in my day(night) job, I’m a nurse practitioner in the NICU of a major university medical center with a national reputation. Does that make me famous? Probably not, although pretty much everyone in the world of neonatology has heard of my unit. (And if you google the name that’s on my ARNP license, you almost certainly won’t come up with hits about vampire romance. LOL)
Am I a success? Well, this gig is seriously my dream job, the reason I went back to school for a masters degree, and after working in a couple different places, I can honestly say its be the best utilization of the NNP role that I’ve found.
But it’s still a job, and I still have to pump myself up to go to work every night.
My husband and I have owned a house for over 20 years. To someone who’s worried about making rent every month, that might look like success. To me, it looks like unfinished projects and the garden needs work. I’m planning on taking early retirement at age 62, which might look like success, but it’ll only work if I write more books.
And….that might sound like a whole lot of bellyaching, like my cup’s half empty. It’s not. I’m very fortunate and very grateful. In thinking all this through, though, I have reached one conclusion.
If I’m not going to define writing success by meeting goals, there needs to be another way of looking at it. If I take away the goals – the yearly plan, the Trello to-do lists, the orange banners from Amazon – what’s left? The dictionary would say it’s wealth, and yeah, there’s the money, the number of books I sell minus what I spend on production and promotion.
But do I really write books to make money? Maybe a little, although I’m leery of picking a dollar amount to define success, because I can’t truly control how many books I sell. I can put together a good product and do my best to let buyers know it’s available, but I can’t make them buy.
So if I’m not successful because I meet my goals and it’s not about how much money I make, what’s left?
I think for me to be a successful author, it’s about the writing. It’s about being engaged in the process, the nitty-gritty draft and edit and read and learn and polish. It’s bringing characters to life and exploring the world through them, and it’s readers who tell me they love my work. It’s the alchemy of creativity and craft, organizing words into thoughts and recording them with care and attention so they’re telling the story’s truth.
I may not have an Olympic gold medal – or an NYT best seller – but I am writing. And by that measure, I’ve been a lot more successful than I realized.
This post is a spin-off of last month’s post, “So many spinning plates! An Author’s Life“. You don’t have to have read that post – I’ll recap the high points here – but if you want to jump over to it, I’ll be here when you get back. 🙂
Here’s the deal. I had a book release on September 4th and I’ll have another one September 23rd. I’m helping organize the Emerald City Writers’ Conference in October, and I’ve also stepped in as president of the Rainbow Romance Writers chapter of RWA. (And tbh, I believe in what the the organization is trying to do, but right now supporting RWA is exhausting.)
Also, also, I’m trying to plot the next book in the Soulmates series, and I’ve got research to do – like, two books to read, for starters – for The Pirate’s Vampire (sequel to The Vampire’s Pirate that released last week). And any day now Irene will be sending me the next scene for Benedictus, Book 3 in our Hours of the Night series.
That’s…a lot. (If you have read last month’s post, you might notice I haven’t mentioned the 1950s murder mystery I had on my list. I’ve decided to keep it on the back burner in the interest of honing in on my brand – vampires/paranormal – which is in itself a good subject for a blog post. Maybe I’ll do branding next month.)
You might be wondering how I’m keeping up with it all. Heh. I’m wondering that, myself. There are probably as many ways to stay organized as there are writers, you know? The way I see it, though, a successful approach has to include both the big picture and the daily work in a way that makes sense.
I’ve tried a couple different strategies that didn’t work particularly well. For years, every January I’d come up with a list of goals. I’d use Word or Excel and try to block out what I wanted to get done when.
And then I’d ignore those lists and spend most of the year jumping from thing to thing.
Then 3-ish years ago, I joined a Facebook group dedicated to the use of planners for authors. I bought a pretty, spiral bound notebook planner and actually used it, more or less. I liked that I could make weekly to-do lists, but it still didn’t give me a fluid way of connecting my annual goals to what was happening on a week-to-week basis.
I’m pretty sure that someone in that Facebook group first mentioned Trello. It’s a project management app, and while I probably use about 1/10th of its functionality, that 1/10th is exactly what I need. There are a kajillion different templates for all kinds of business and educational applications, but I use a series of very simple boards.
This is my board for 2021. The far left column is my goals for the year, and I made a column for each month where I broke down those major goals into smaller bites. Scrolling to the right, I can easily see what I’ve accomplished every month and what’s coming up.
I also made a board for each quarter, using the monthly columns in the 2021 plan to come up with the to-do list. I *LOVE* moving cards from the “Doing” column to the “Done” column!
The cards are key! I’ve managed to discipline myself to take time every weekend to come up with a to-do list for the week, breaking up my big goals into smaller and smaller bites.
I don’t know why Trello works for me. Maybe it’s the pretty pictures or the way I can change things with a couple of clicks, but I’ve been more successful using it than any other organization tool I’ve come across. For sure, the phone app makes it easy for me to add to my to-do list when I remember something random and to check things off when I’m not at my laptop. Trello is the easiest way I’ve found to translate goals into action, and I’m pretty danged proud of what I’ve accomplished this year.
If you’ve got a cool organizational tool, leave me a comment. I’m still open to learning something new!
Yesterday I saw a “What are you working on?” query on FB and responded with “I’ve got this, and this, and this, and this in progress.”
And those are just my actual writing projects. I’m also involved in two different chapters of RWA (for Reasons) and both have ongoing projects and then there’s the day(night) job, which has apparently decided to seek revenge for the month I took off in April.
It’s all good stuff, but I’m a bit fried.
For today’s post, I thought it would be fun to run through my spinning plates, so you know what’s on the horizon…
Dáire Malone has been undead for over 200 years when he is summoned to the home of a would-be queen, a vampiress who possesses an unnatural potency. She declares that Malone will not leave without giving her a pledge of loyalty.
He’s been held in thrall before and would rather face his final death than let another have power over him.
Thomas Clifton is a pirate, or rather, a privateer. He too is summoned to the vampiress’s home and commanded to pledge his fealty to her. Clifton’s allegiance lies only with the man he sees in the mirror, and his first impulse is to run.
But Dáire Malone’s aura of mystery and his melancholy beauty appeal to Clifton, and Malone won’t leave until they destroy the source of the vampiress’s magic. Caught between opposing impulses, Clifton must choose.
Leave, and lose Malone, or stay and risk his freedom…and his life.
First up, THE VAMPIRE’S PIRATE! A sweet little novella that poses the question, “what if Bridgerton had vampires?” Actually, PIRATE is set in 1805 New Orleans, so the time period similar to Bridgerton, even if the location is different. This book’ll be available FREE as part of a multi-author giveaway that starts tomorrow – Friday, 8/20/21. Here’s the link to the promo so you can bookmark it. The giveaway runs until 9/3/21 and after that, PIRATE will be available at all ebook retailers.
There’s no easy way to come back from the dead…
…and Connor MacPherson is living with the consequences. He may be back in Trajan’s life – and in his bed – but the trust they once shared is gone.
Some days it feels like David is the only thing holding their threesome together.
When Trajan and David stumble over a murdered kitsune, Connor is drawn into the investigation. He uses that murder to cover a second inquiry, one he’s bound by his oath to the Elites to keep secret – specifically from Trajan.
Then David uncovers his covert search, and if Connor’s own internal conflict is painful, seeing how it hurts David makes it even worse.
But they don’t know the secret Trajan’s keeping, a command that could destroy everything. Trajan’s maker has ordered him to kill, and if they don’t rebuild their damaged trust, this time death will be permanent.
TESTED is book 2 in my Soulmates series (m/m/m paranormal romance), and I’m busily editing the manuscript so it’ll be ready for a 9/23/21 release date. The official cover reveal will be on JoyfullyJay‘s blog 9/2/21. I’m sooooo excited for this one!
The next spinning plate doesn’t have an official cover yet. Heck, it doesn’t even have an official title. I’ve been working with The Blue Sky Murders, although that title is subject to change. Basically, the BSM is the start of a mystery series set in 1950 Seattle, about a PI who was an MP in the second World War. He’s hired to follow a young man who just inherited a whole bunch of money and he shows up just in time to see the young man get murdered. He then spends the rest of the book solving the crime and fighting his own demons. Fun stuff! I’ll be (hopefully) pitching it to a couple of publishers this fall. (Also, a red Cadillac plays a key role, so pretend the Mustang is a Caddy.)
And finally…
The project I’m arguably the most excited about, is BENEDICTUS, book 3 in the Hours of the Night series I co-write with Irene Preston. We started this book in 2017, y’all, but life has a way of messing with even the best plans. At any rate, here we are, four years older and four years wiser, with four years more experience as writers which’ll hopefully pay off as we bring Thaddeus and Sara their happily every after.
But first we’re going to mess with them in a big way!
Just a couple other bullet points to share. One of the bigger projects I’m working on is the Emerald City Writers’ Conference, put on by the Greater Seattle Chapter of RWA. The ECWC will by 10/15- 10/17, and it’s on-line only this year. Registration is $150, and we have a fantastic line-up of presenters, as well as agents and editors who want to hear your pitches!
And FINALLY – for reals, this time – if you’re in the Seattle area, the Shanty Tavern is having their grand reopening on Friday, September 10th. The Shanty’s over on Lake City Way, one of the last survivors of the days when Lake City was it’s own place. The Shanty only opens Friday nights and there’s always live music of both kinds – country and western. (Random Blues Brothers reference…lol…) At any rate, for their first post-pandemic show, my husband’s band The Fentons will open for the 1Uppers, so if you’re in the ‘hood, come say hi!
UPDATE: My Instagram is locked out too since FB owns them. Lovely.
To say I am not a happy camper today is an understatement. I woke up to a message on Facebook saying that my account has been disabled. This means I can’t use my profile, page or messenger.Â
After verifying this was real, I tried to follow the recovery steps, which because Facebook is such a caring company, consist of three forms that don’t let you explain, provide much information, or really do anything. One wants a copy of your driver’s license or other ID, which makes me feel squicky, but I tried to submit it anyway. (What good it would do since I write under a pen name is questionable. It may even raise FB’s red flags that I don’t represent my true self – but we’ll fight that fight if we have to.)
Anyway, I couldn’t submit any of the recovery forms. Apparently, some hacker submitted fake “identity” information for me. This is what pops up when I try:
God only knows what they got on my “behalf.” Um, I’m almost 42, you morons. And if it was due to something else that someone reported, I don’t know what it is.
I am posting this here because Facebook is my most active social media and I obviously have no way of letting people know what is going on. So if anything weird or gross or whatever has been on my account, please know that I didn’t do it. And if you get any FB requests from me until I tell you this is resolved, please don’t accept them.
I realize FB uses bots and stuff like that instead of employing real people and that any one of my friends or a hacker could have reported me for something stupid. And that really disappoints and angers me. I don’t post inappropriate things, yet hate groups and people who post porn and violent stuff are left to tiptoe through the tulips.
Libby Hawker, I can hear you now, “This is why I left Facebook.” And you aren’t wrong. But I’ve worked for years to build my friend and fanbase and I really don’t want to lose it especially since I dislike Twitter with the vehemence of a thousand suns and Insta isn’t the same.
I noticed yesterday that someone had been trying to access my website and this may or may not be related. I’ve changed all of my passwords on my website and on social and am posting notices on all of my social media accounts. There is nothing else I can do but wait.
If some of you can post this on FB so that people know what is going on, I’d appreciate it. Maybe FB will pay attention if we raise a ruckus, but I doubt it because people more famous than me have fought this battle.
I have no idea how long this is going to last. Let’s just hope I don’t lose the account I’ve worked so hard to cultivate and really enjoy using.
I am over-the-moon excited! I’m finally a hybrid author! This has been a long time coming and I am so excited to write these books. Here’s a little more about them:
Not the real cover.
Sex and the City: A Cultural History This book will provide cultural context and analysis of the famous show, both how it affected cultural as it aired and also how it looks now 20+ years later. Some topics include:
Looking at what it means to relate to each of the girls (ala, Are you a Carrie? A Samantha? A Miranda? A Charlotte?)
What the men in the show illustrate about masculinity and what that means about the kind of men women are attracted to.
Issues like diversity or lack thereof, treatment of sex and sexuality, LGBTQIA portrayal.
How the show made New York a character, built brands, influenced fashion and reflected third wave feminism.
And a lot more!
I have an end of year deadline, so hopefully the book will come out around the time the reboot, And Just Like That, airs.
Fierce Females in Television: A Cultural History
Not the real cover.
This book will briefly discuss the nature of physically strong women on TV from the 1950s-1980s, but will focus specifically on the 1990s to today because that is when we saw a major ramp up in the portrayal of these kinds of women.
Shows covered include: Xena: Warrior Princess (1995-2001), Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003), Charmed (1998-2006), Alias (2001-2006), Nikita (2010-2013), Agent Carter (2015-2016), Jessica Jones (2015-2019), Game of Thrones (2011-2019), and Homeland (2011-2020).
Some of the topics include:
An analysis of the main female characters on each show.
The meaning of female strength and friendships/family.
The influence of third- and fourth-wave feminism on the shows and their characters.
Treatment of sex and diversity.
The role of redemption narratives and change in female lives.
And more!
This book will be out sometime in 2023/24.
Between these, the League of Women Voters book (due Oct. 4) and at least one work of historical fiction, you know what my next few months and even my 2022 will look like!
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!!
Spellbound Scribes 