Miles to Go Before I Sleep

With all due respect to Robert Frost, I have a ton of writing to do on A Twist of Love before the weekend.

I hope everyone has a pleasant, quiet weekend. Enjoy the lovely summer weather while it lasts!

Car Rides, Breakfast, and Proofing

DH has the week off, but there's really no where to go or nothing he can without endangering lives, both others and his own. So far, he's managed to leave me to my work, which involves finishing A Twist of Love and a shit-ton of proofing.

Yesterday, we had to run a couple of errands, mailing GK's city tax return and pick up DH's drugs from the pharmacy. We also picked up a pizza on the way home because one of our menu delivery services never arrived.

Bella was quite put out that she had been left at home, but it was too hot for her to stay in the car during the errand running. Dogs love rides, and she is no exception.

DH had to go back to the pharmacy this morning because one of his prescriptions didn't arrive until this morning. So I offered to buy breakfast if we could take Bella for a ride. The gal at the Starbucks drive-thru even gave Bella her own little cup of whipped cream, which Bella LOVED! But she still expected me to share my bacon, egg, and gouda sandwich because, well, BACON!

So, we're back home. DH is loading the dishwasher. Bella's found a relatively cool place for a nap. And I need to get some words in before proofing a few more chapters of a paperback.

I think I can handle more days like this even if I have to wear a facemask.

Coronavirus Pandemic Day 138 - Americans Think They're Invulerable

We're seeing the fallout of the Fourth of July partying in our county. One of the prime culprits was a party at the local Amvet post. 200 people, inside, no masks.

*facepalm*

And as I typed the above paragraph, my father-in-law called DH. A COVID-19 case was documented at my father-in-law's assisted living facility. There goes the guys' carefully planned visit for this week.

So many people still believe this pandemic is a hoax. Or they do until someone they love catches it. Or they catch it themselves.

I have fucking cancer, and I still wouldn't wish COVID-19 on my worst enemy. I've seen friends who've survived it (via video calls). It ain't pretty in it's so-called flu form. Now, imagine if you or a loved ends up with holes in your lungs or blood clots that can and will cause heart attacks and strokes.

Yesterday, a good friend volunteered to go down to Texas with me to see GK. She's one of the smartest people I know, and I get that she's going stir crazy, but I'm not heading to Texas any time soon. Besides, GK's base is on lockdown. We couldn't see him if we wanted to, and I don't relish being shot by an MP while trying to enter the base in the middle of a lockdown. That's not even getting into the hotspot hell Texas is right now.

No one is invulnerable to this virus, people! We're probably going to top 150K dead by the end of the day. Yes, it sucks. It sucks for everyone. But it'll suck a lot worse if you don't use preventative measures.

So I'm sticking with my plan, hiding in my apartment, and doing the same writing and editing I've been doing for the last five months.

Y'all take care y'hear!

I Love the 90's!

When the Mamas and the Papas and the Beach Boys have babies...

Brain Power!

I overslept today. The alarm played P!nk's "Raise Your Glass". I turned it off and rolled on my back, contemplating everything I needed to do today and...

Next thing I know it's 11 a.m.

Oops!

However, sleep is a necessary component of keeping your brain strong, especially when you've been doing a lot of editing lately.

Another component is eating right, which DH and I have tried really hard to do since January. He's lost some pounds. I did, too!

Until the pandemic. All my old bad habits regarding stress eating came right back, and I put all the weight back on. ARGH!

But one of the things I'm learning over the pandemic is how to properly cook seafood. It's brain food, right?

I can roast catfish, bluegills, and bass over an open fire, but I had a tendency to overcook seafood on an indoor stove. I've tried salmon, scallops, and tilapia so far, and everything's turned out pretty good.

Living on a farm as a kid, I was so used to cooking the shit out of everything, especially pork. If you were in 4-H, you learned about all the potential parasites in your animal. And even though Dad helped with the medicines and our pigs were pretty darn healthy, the worm thing kind of sticks in your head.

And the real trick in cooking scallops is three minutes per side, else you end up eating hockey pucks.

Unfortunately, the scallops I was looking forward to for tonight's dinner will not arrive today. So I'm cooking with what I have in the refrigerator: bruchetta chicken, roasted asparagus, and bacon mashed potatoes. Those should get me through the editing I need to finish today!

Sales! I've Got Sales!

I've been rotating through each series and putting the first volume's ebook on sale. Hero De Facto is currently $0.99 and will be through Friday, July 24th.

A Question of Balance will go on sale for $0.99 on Friday.

In the meantime, I'm working on A Twist of Love which will be out August 14th. Some of you will love it. Some of you will hate it. And me. But I hope you'll trust me on Anthea's journey.

Also, I want to say a big thank you to everyone who picked up a copy of Snowfall and have already preordered Murder Most Fowl and The Sweetest Poison. It's fun writing Grandma Thalia's adventures, too!

Coronavirus Pandemic Day 131 - Sticking to a Schedule

While working from home for the last eight years, I already had a problem with the days being indistinguishable. I mean other than DH working a traditional job and having the weekends off. But the effect seems to be amplified with so much shut down or limited because of the coronavirus.

Even worse, DH was literally ordered to take some vacation time by not just his boss, but some other upper managers and executives at his company. I'm kind of glad because he's had a major case of the doldrums.

But by the same token, DH has been lecturing me about MY stress levels and taking the weekends off.

I admit I was very stressed since my return flight from Vegas right at the start of the pandemic. But things have eased a bit by sticking to a schedule. Getting up at a consistent time for the most part (gabbing on the phone until four in the morning did not help over the weekend). Setting how many words per day I need to reach thanks to the tools at Camp NaNoWriMo. Leaving the afternoons for editing. And taking breaks to watch Scorpion, Supernatural, and The Big Bang Theory.

I need some comfort watching right now, and it definitely helps.

Now, I need to finish A Twist of Love so I can read the latest volume of the Dresden Files, Peace Talks. DH finished it yesterday, and he was giggling a lot over the weekend.

I Love the 90's!

Before there was Queen Bey...

What To Include and What Not To

The COVID-19 pandemic is still raging across the United States, and the subject of whether to include it in our stories is raging across the internet.

The problem is we don't know how this will all shake out.

Take 9/11 for example. It took a little while for everything to shake out into the new normal. DH and I used to book last minute airline tickets, pack our overnight bags, and fly anywhere in the U.S. at a moment's notice. Five years later, things like taking off our shoes and no liquids in our bags had become normalized.

However, we only lost 2% of the people in those terrorist attacks than we've lost to COVID-19. And the numbers of dead are still rising (even if our president is deliberately hiding the numbers).

There's the safety gyrations we have to perform to limit our exposure to the virus. Masks. Soap. Hand sanitizer. Gloves. PPE.

We haven't been able to sit at a coffee shops for four months. We may never be able to meet at coffee shops again. Or until a vaccine is developed. We don't know.

I think that's why my fantasy books have been selling for the last four months. Things have been difficult for all of us, and we want to escape into different worlds, even for just a moment.

But when writing contemporary stories? It's difficult because we don't know what the new normal will be on the other side of the pandemic.

So, what am I doing?

I've been writing alternate fantasy worlds, of course. Alter Ego is writing some historical erotica for the rest of the year. Doing so keeps my mind off of now. Off the illogic of dinners at a fancy restaurant or going to a movie.

And if nothing else, writing in fictional worlds helps clear some mind space to deal with the real world.

Release Day!

"Snowfall" started life as my 2018 submission to Sword & Sorceress. I'd just found out I had breast cancer, and I really couldn't think of anything . So I went back to the Justice universe and wrote a little story about Thalia, Anthea's maternal grandmother.

The editor Elisabeth Waters ultimately rejected it. There were a lot of good stories submitted that year. I highly recommend you read Sword & Sorceress 33.

So I planned to publish the story here on my website in November of 2018. Except Ms. Waters e-mailed me and asked if the story was still available. She wanted to reconsider it for Sword & Sorceress 34, which would be the last volume in the long running series. Ultimately, she rejected it again.

I'm finally to the place where I can officially publish this story. It's live on Amazon, and I'll post additional links on The Justice Thalia Stories tab when they're active.

It'll remain at $0.99 until August 15th.

I hope you all like this little look at a character who has influenced quite a bit of the plot of the Justice series. The next Justice book A Twist of Love will be coming to you next month.

Amazon, all countries