Hijinks, Hilarity and Heart
Five things I wouldn’t want to live without:
Books
Coffee
Spiral notebooks and purple pens
Time spent outdoors
Cheese
Speaking of cheese, this is my current fave:
IT’S SOOOO GOOD!!!
It may have inspired this line in the latest chapter of 1 Flew Over the Raven’s Nest
Tell me: What are some things you wouldn’t want to live without?
This is how the desk, where I do the bulk of my creative work, looks today.
(Natural light only, which is why the picture is so dark.).
Today my focus is on the first draft of the second Psychic Consignment Shop Mystery. It’s about a third done and housed in the purple “in progress” notebook.
And these are the tiny notebooks I use to track my current projects. Right now in addition to the Consignment Mystery, I’m working on the 21st and 22nd books in the CONFESSIONS OF A SLIGHTLY NEUROTIC HITWOMAN series.
I took this picture in the lull between my morning and afternoon pots of coffee. Hence, no coffee mug, lol.
Tell people you work from home and they inevitably have one of two reactions.
They’re both pretty accurate assessments.
Yes, I AM lucky. I pretty much get to set my own work schedule. (Except for those pesky deadline times when I’ve inevitably estimated incorrectly how long something is going to take me OR I’ve come up with a new, “brilliant” idea that I must incorporate into a work that was all but finished.) I’ve got no commute. Not only can I light as many candles as I want, I can refill my coffee as much as I desire without being judged. Not to mention, it’s perfectly acceptable, and way more comfortable, to not have to wear a bra or pants. 😉
If you follow my instagram, you know that I’m big on getting outside in the middle of the day (in the morning and evening too, lol) and my work set-up allows me to do that AND get to the beach to watch the sunset. So yes, I am really, really lucky.
But what you won’t see is that I offset my daily distractions and diversions by working strange hours. If I go to watch the sunset, I’ll most likely come home and work until ten or eleven at night. Or like today, I had a friend over for brunch and am just sitting down to work at three on a Sunday afternoon because I’m trying to finish a project before Wednesday. That takes some discipline. Some people can do it. Some people can’t.
It’s perfectly okay to know what you are capable of…and not.
Working from home is not for everyone. Neither is working for yourself, but that’s a whole other topic for another day.
I love my job…but…I hate starting to write.
Not because I hate writing, but because I am constantly trying to overcome my fear.
Most of the time I approach writing with a knot in my stomach, a distracted buzzing in my brain, and dread in my heart.
And yet, most days, I force myself to write. Most days I really enjoy it once I get into some kind of flow. Almost always, I end up feeling better for having done it.
My favorite Dorothy Parker quote is, “I hate writing, I love having written.”
It’s nice to know I’m not alone.
But you’d think, after all this time, the process would get easier. Instead it feels harder with the added pressure of trying to meet the expectations of readers.
Writing this post is a form of procrastination. It allows me to feel productive, when really I’m just avoiding writing new chapters. I guess that means I should go write now.
Or maybe I’ll take a nap…a nap might help.
Or maybe I’ll go for a walk…a walk could help.
Or maybe I’ll make some more coffee…coffee helps.
**I’m not JUST complaining today. I’m finishing up the copy edits for ONE WOMAN’S JUNK and later I’ll actually be adding words to Hitwoman 21…just no guarantees they’ll be “good” words. 😉
I’ve printed out the manuscript for ONE WOMAN’S JUNK in preparation to make the (hopefully) last pass of story edits.
I’ve put the pages in my big, shiny binder (after somehow massacring the job I did of three-hole-punching) and have started scribbling on them.
((Hmmm, the photo makes it look like sand, which is fitting for a book that’s set in a beach town, but in person it’s more like gold glitter.)
This is my process…gold glitter binder, paper and purple ink. Also hot pink Post-It notes with random questions and the occassional index card meant to remind me of why I’m doing what I’m doing.
I’d planned on taking the lot to my favorite coffee shop to work on, but it’s been raining for hours, so I stayed home and worked at my desk, where my view could only be described as dreary.
Also appropriate considering the book begins on a stormy night…..
Do you follow me on Instagram?
My feed is a lot like me….quirky and obsessed with coffee, dogs and nature, with the occasional book or WTF moment thrown in for good measure.
Here’s a sample of what you’ve missed:
A long time ago I had business cards which said, “I don’t care if the cup is half full or half empty, I just want to know if it’s regular or decaf!”
That still pretty much sums up my life motto, lol.
Needless to say, I’m a coffee drinker.
If you FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM you’ll see it’s one of my recurring themes and you’ll be able to see what else I enjoy in my 100 Days of Happy challenge.
“C” also reminds me of THE HITWOMAN AND THE CHUBBY CHERUB which opens with one of my favorite opening lines:
“You just know it’s going to be a bad day when you open an envelope filled with glitter. That shit gets everywhere.”
.
Love and Murder are in the air.
In years past, Maggie Lee has not been a fan of Valentine’s Day, but this year, the holiday has warped into its own special hell.
She’s stuck working at her aunt’s lingerie shop during the busiest (and cheesiest) time of the year, someone volunteered her to help with the Valentine’s Day party at her niece’s school, and there’s a hitman in town, known as the Cupid Killer.
Maggie is up to her eyeballs in declarations of love, sex toys, and candy hearts, when all she really wants is to chase down leads pertaining to her missing sister.
Can Maggie survive a guy with a bow and arrow, the pain in the butt parents of school kids, and a romantic proposal?
Or will she succumb to her favorite fantasy?
The one where she runs away with her pets.
I’m writing and rewriting and rewriting and rewriting and rewriting and rewriting a pivotal scene in the 20th story in the CONFESSIONS OF A SLIGHTLY NEUROTIC HITWOMAN series and I just cannot get it right.
The fact that I’m drinking too much coffee probably isn’t helping my writing process as much as I’d like to believe.
On the positive side, here’s Day 3 of my 100 Happy Days challenge….a friend just sent me the cutest socks. Obviously she knows me well, lol.
My sister gave me a great calendar because she knows I’m all about my coffee. I love looking at this every day.
WHAT IS IT THAT YOU CAN’T GET ENOUGH OF?
