Happy Halloween!

Here's a blast from the past that I do play every year around this time. Happy Samhain! The Witches' New Year!

Tis My Season

I'm out for my birthday weekend. Don't have too much fun without me!

Respect Your Readers

Writers will read the title of this post, and a zillion translations will zip through a zillion minds.

- But I change my story with every critique!

- But I hold contests and give them lots of freebies!

- But I throw parties at all the readers events I attend!

And so on . . .

That's not what I'm talking about. I mean when a single reader approaches you and says, "Oh, my gosh! I loved Galactic Sluts!"

Your writer group has put you down for that book. Or a critic gave you zero stars and called the worst piece of trash of the century. Or your parents sniff and say you had a nervous breakdown when people ask what you're doing these days.

So, the defensiveness you've built up over the time you've been writing spills out of you, and you say something like, "Uh, that's the worst thing I ever wrote."

Seriously, folks. I've seen best selling authors do exactly that. To me. As a reader.

And guess what? We've screwed up the courage to approach you, and what you just said makes us readers feel like shit. You've told us we have piss-poor taste. You've told us we're idiots for liking your work.

Look, I know that defensiveness, that self-deprecation comes from the insecurities deep inside all of us writers. Art of any kind is not respected in our society.

But that's no reason to piss on someone else. Especially since you have no idea what's going on in someone's life. Let me give you a couple of personal examples.

In February of 1998, I was living in a new city 1200 miles from my hometown where I knew very few people. I was going to law school full-time. And DH was literally half a world away for the entire month. Needless to say, I was stressed out and sad despite our dogs' best efforts to cheer me up. This was back when Harlequin novels were sold in the check-out lanes of grocery stores.

So, yeah, I'm in Gerland's, and Harlequin has recently launched their Love & Laughter line. I picked up Irresistible? by Stephanie Bond. Thank goodness it was Friday. I was up most of the night, laughing so hard I cried. And I did something I'd never done with a writer before. I sent her a fan letter. And to my surprise, I received a lovely thank you note from her.

A few years later, I attended a book signing by Sherrilyn McQueen (nee' Kenyon). Once again, I was in a rough place. I'd learned I wouldn't be able to have anymore kids after GK. I'd lost my law practice thanks to 9/11 and the two stock crashes of 2001. Frankly, I was struggling to keep my shit together.

I honestly can't remember the exact conversation I had with her when it was my turn to get my book signed. The thing that sticks in my mind was how she made me feel at the time. She's one of those people who really listens to you. She thanked me for buying her books, and she hoped I enjoyed the signed one she handed back to me.

And that's what I say to any reader who tells me they liked my book. Any one of my books.

To all my readers, thank you for buying my books. I really do hope they give you a chuckle and some hope in this crazy world.

I'm Still Alive

I have skipped writing blog posts lately for a couple of reasons. Yes, I've been writing my butt off on novels, trying to catch up after all the interruptions of the year. But thanks to the pandemic, most of my medical check-ups have moved from April and May to October and November.

For example, I had my eye exam yesterday. As I've gotten older, I have to ask the doctor to use a lesser strength of the drug administered to dilate the pupils. Otherwise, I end up with a nasty migraine. But even when the doctor uses the lesser concentration, it doesn't wear off as fast as it use to. I need to stay in a darkened room for eight to twelve hours. It kind of blows my whole day.

So, after DH drove me home yesterday, I sat in the family room and started putting together the shipping boxes for the rewards from the Soccer Moms of the Apocalypse Kickstarter campaign.

Also, DH is on vacation this week, and we finally feel comfortable enough to go to the movie theater. So, y'all will have some Monday Movie Mania to look forward to over the next week.

It finally feels like things are getting back to normal for us.

Music I've Been Listening to Lately

Let's end the Metallica portion of our posting with their best song!

Gaining Some Ground

After forcing myself to finish Chapter 6 and making a little headway into Chapter 7, I put aside Death in Double Mocha for this week and jumped into Invasion!

Why?

Because it still feels  peculiar mixing my feelings about my mother with Dani's feelings about hers. Normally, I can immerse myself in my POV character's emotions and beliefs. Yep, even Selene from the Bloodlines series. But right now, it's just too damn weird and disjointed.

So I worked on Invasion! this week. It wasn't a breath of fresh air. It was like hanging out with old friends.

To the point, I wrote more in the last five days than I have in the previous twenty-seven days.

I may not finish Death in Double Mocha before the end of this month, but I feel better about making headway on it over the next few weeks.

I Need Some Help Deciding on a Cover!

My cover artist came up with three versions of the cover for Queer Eye for the Super Guy. So I need a little help in picking one.

The first one, aka COVER A, is based on my original request. I told her I wanted two men and  rainbows because Jeremy, Leo, and the LGBT+ cast of the 888-555-HERO takes center stage in this story.

The second one, aka COVER B, has the title toned down a little bit, but still has lots of color.

The third cover, aka COVER C, takes the title down to an almost metallic silver color.

Tell me what you think in the comments below, or you can send me a private message through the CONTACT ME! tab above.

Thanks for your help!

Music I've Been Listening to Lately

If this song doesn't tear your heart out, you don't have a soul.

A Postcard form the Edge of the Continent

I like getting things in the mail. Call me old-fashioned, but I grew up in a time where if you lived in rural America, you depended on mail order through paper catalogs, most particularly the Sears & Roebuck one for us. Malls were only in the big cities back then.

To me, it didn't matter if it were underwear from Sears, postcards from my grandparents' travels, or books that I ordered from the back page of a previous paperback I'd bought (yes, there was a time when you could order books directly from the publisher), I loved getting something in the mail.

People got away from sending personal mail over the last fifty-plus years. Cell phones, the internet, heck, we've gone full circle from the telegraph to texting. Even the friends my age usually send me a text on my birthday. And I'm guilty of doing the same.

But today, I got a postcard from Christy Fifield, a writer whose Kickstarter I supported. She lives in the PNW, right on the coast. We met once, before the plague times. But the postcard of Redwood Highway 1 Christy sent gave me the warm fuzzies.

Why? I admit a little bit of it was nostalgia. A larger part was someone taking the time to write out a message, stick a stamp on the card, and putting it in the mail. It's a little more effort than typing an e-mail, and that effort makes me feel all warm and tingly inside.

So thanks for making my day, Christy!

Slowly Getting Back to Normal

I spent Saturday doing a variety of errands. Like picking up most of my October ornaments from the local Hallmark. The SNW Enterprise is on back order, but it should arrive before Christmas. Since Darling Husband went with me, I bought breakfast and coffee at Starbucks for us.

Princess Bella, DH, and I munched on the breakfast sandwiches while watching a couple of episodes of Macgyver (1985). We'd originally planned to install the medicine cabinets in the master bathroom, but we haven't had a Saturday off in a month. So, we went to the Spirit Halloween store instead.

I purchased a door mat and a journal. DH finally got the fog machine he's wanted. We didn't find any inflatables to join the Skeleton Dragon, but there's always next year.

When we got home, DH watched On Patrol on REELZ (what used to be Live PD on A&E) while I stuffed envelopes with stickers, bookmarks, and magnets for the last rounds of rewards to go out from the Soccer Moms of the Apocalypse Kickstarter. We topped off the evening by ordering pizza.

Yesterday, I wrote while DH watched football. It wasn't a whole lot. I'm still rotating among several manuscripts because I can't last more than a paragraph on Death in Double Mocha. Best I can do is try to finish it by the end of the month.

But this year's crap means I'll be more prepared the next time I do a Kickstarter. There's lessons in every life event.

Music I've Been Listening to Lately

I'm not usually in this weird of a mood, but burn-out is real, and Disney musicals just make it worse.

Tiny Steps

Last night, I stayed up to work on admin tasks that needed to be done. Little things like reconciling the business accounts, updating one of my websites, and trying to restructure my calendar for the rest of the year.

While looking at my projects, I opened one of the files for the manuscripts I need to finish this year. I told myself to write one sentence. No heavy guilt trip for not touching it over the last three weeks. Just one sentence.

I went through the other files. Just one sentence. By the time I went to bed, I'd typed 466 words between the four manuscripts I need to finish and a book of the  heart that probably won't see the light of day until 2024 or so. But those 466 words were progress, dammit. The last decent writing day I had was September 18th, the day I woke up with the dang sore throat.

Sometimes, life throws you some pretty hard rolls. It's okay not to want to write when you're laying under that heavy roll. You need to do what's right for you to recover from what hit you.

In my case, my imagination has always been my refuge when life got shitty. By giving myself permission to only write a sentence, I got a couple of pages written.

And last night, I dreamed of a space adventure. A fun dream for the first time in three weeks. Maybe my Conscious and Subconscious realize they need to work together to pull themselves out of the morass they've sunk into.

Taking a Step Back

Those of you who pre-ordered Death in Double Mocha through Amazon should have received a note from Amazon that the pre-order has been cancelled.

Amazon allows indie authors to only postpone a pre-order once a year. I'd already had to postpone one of my spring books when my father-in-law fell and broke his hip. I never dreamed both he and my mother would pass within a few months of each other. Between being sick and traveling back to my hometown for the funeral, I lost over two weeks of productive time, and I knew I wasn't finishing Death in Double Mocha in time for its pre-order's release date.

I spoke with an Amazon rep yesterday and explained my situation. She allowed an exception considering my situation, but I had to cancel the Death in Double Mocha pre-order and re-enter it in order to keep the other pre-orders alive. (Yes, it's weird, but the rep could have easily told me to go screw myself, so I'm counting my lucky stars she didn't.)

However, I'm not going to re-enter the pre-order until I finish the first draft of the book. I admit I've opened the file a few times since I got the text from my brother. Sometimes, the words come in little fits and spurts. Sometimes, I stare at the screen, and the black marks make no sense.

When this happens, I usually jump to another project to loosen the stranglehold my critical brain has on Subconscious. That's what I'll do today.

Because the last scene I wrote before I got that text was the one where Dani's mom comes back from the dead.

Yeah, I may have some issues. LOL

Music I've Been Listening to Lately

Metallica is an appropriate band to listen to while I pop off Barbie dolls' heads and remove their faces.