A Time For Everything

 

I'm writing again, I'm writing again! Well--revising ^ this ^ book. It's been amazing, and it's felt really good to be creative in this way. My goal is to get the book out in the world by my dad's birthday in mid-June. So that's four months to get everything done. That should be plenty of time.

* * * * *

So I got addicted to a stupid tablet game. It's one of those "merge games" where you merge items together to create a new advanced item and then you combine and combine and combine to create items that customers want. The customer buys them for coins and then you use the coins to buy things for the main point of the game. In my case, it's to decorate rooms. At this point, I could care less about decorating the rooms.

But there are a handful of things I don't like about this game and so I started musing--if I were to create my own merge-type game, what would I change? Add? Get rid of? What would be the purpose of the player merging items to sell to earn the currency? So over the course of the last week, ideas have been percolating and I've come up with something I think would be fun.

Now, will all this time and imagination ever produce something? Who knows. But it's a fun way to exercise your imagination, which is never a waste of time.

* * * * *

Victory+

So you may remember that there had been a whole kerfuffle with Diamond Sports who owned Bally Sports which provided the on-air TV programming or at least the air time. I don't understand all the details, but it was a mess and teams from all sports leagues were getting screwed or something.

So in a surprising turn of events, my beloved Dallas Stars--well the organization, not the players, who I'm usually talking about--created their own streaming platform called Victory+. Along with Stars games and related content, the Anaheim Ducks also signed on. Eventually, baseball's Texas Rangers also joined the platform. Rangers fans have to subscribe, but hockey fans can watch either team for free. :0)

But all that to say, back in 2016 / 2017 / 2018, DD and I were always scrambling to find a way to watch games. We didn't have the correct cable package to watch the aforementioned Fox Sports & Bally Sports. And any other platform required a subscription. Eventually we upgraded our cable package to include Fox Sports & Bally Sports and were happy campers.

And now we have this free-to-hockey-fans platform, but these days, DD and I watch less hockey than ever before. Life can be funny, can't it?

* * * * *

Image courtesy of www.chewy.com.

Rascal has finally been fully accepted by DD. She bought him a bed last week.The one above that looks like a slipper. :0) That is not Rascal, although it looks like him.

He loves to curl up inside and under blankets when it's super cold, as it was last week, so...another cozier bed for the Rascal-meister.

* * * * *

And that's it for me. I'll catch you--hopefully--in a couple of weeks. I've been struggling to come up with any interesting tidbits to share. :(

Take care and STAY WARM!

 

 

Image courtesy of Goodreads.

My Year in Books via Goodreads!

At the beginning of 2024, I pledged to read fifty-five books in the Goodreads Challenge. I'd completed fifty-eight books or 105% when Goodreads decided to send my Year in Books Review & graphics to go with.

The above graphic was one of the graphics and I was curious as to what that actually meant, so I Googled it. :0) There were multiple ways to qualify, but I knew exactly how I made the cut:

"High Review Volume: You consistently review a large number of books across various genres."

Now, to be honest, I don't write reviews but I do give them all a star rating.

In addition to those fifty-nine books, I read a boat-load of hockey articles.

Now, if you go look at my Goodreads Challenge Book List, be aware that I did not actually read all of the titles listed. That's not to say I didn't read fifty-eight (or more) books. I know I've mentioned this in previous years, but I read a lot of fan fiction. So some of the titles listed, like Gone With the Wind, are placeholders for a piece of fan fiction. I try to choose place-holder books that have roughly the same amount of pages/words as a given piece of fanfic. I'm not reading a 500-word fic and then using GWTW as the place-holder.

* * * * *

The New Guy

Is working out great. He's smart and he learns quickly, which has been awesome. So a month + in and we're still very happy with our choice.

* * * * *

Pain Management

I have good news and bad news.

Good News: I finally had my appointment with the rheumatologist.

Good Bad News: I don't have rheumatoid arthritis requiring life-long medicating. What I do have is osteo-arthritis--which the rheumatologist said just means "I'm feeling my age." (boooo!)

Good News: My primary care doctor put me on some pain meds back in October for the right hip / bursitis I can't seem to heal.

Bad News: the meds didn't seem to help

Good News: according to the rheumatologist, the meds I was given are very slow acting, so they should start to work any time now (thank goodness, lol)

Good News: this pain med is also a mild anti-depressant, so I've been a little more upbeat even though the pain hasn't quite been eliminated.

I also had a bone-density scan done to check on...well...my bone density and take corrective action if needed. I'll meet with the rheumatologist again at the beginning of January to go over all the results.

* * * * *

Image courtesy of IMGBIN.

Book Binge

So I've started another book binge. I didn't mean to do it, but one thing led to another and, well, here we are. :0)

I've dipped my toe into some genres outside my usual purview of romance such as a police procedural, a cozy mystery series, some general fiction, and some self-help.

Didn't pay full price for any of it.

I suppose, as an author myself, I shouldn't be so pleased about that, but between the online library and some recent sales, and books just offered at $0, I'm set for books for at least a good month.

I'm currently reading a fictionalized version of Julia's Child's early career working for the government.

I've developed an appreciation of Mrs. Child after watching the dramedy "Julia" on HBO, which, sadly, was canceled after two seasons.

* * * * *

Well, friends--this is it until the new year. Hope your holidays are filled with family, friends, food, and fun.

See you in 2025.

 

 

I recently read this book and it spoke quite strongly to me in regards to making sure that the last two or three decades of my life are as I want them to be. Namely--me being fairly independent, able to care for myself, healthy (physically & mentally), active, stable, flexible, and doing the things I want to do.

Dr. Attia firmly believes that the best thing we can do for ourselves to protect and prevent (as is much as humanly possible) us from succumbing to any of the Four Horsemen, as he calls them, is exercise. He has specific ideas and recommendations as to what kind of exercise, of course, but exercise none the less.

The Four Horsemen, according to Dr. Attia, are heart disease, type two diabetes, cancer, and neurogenerative disease.

Right now, medicine in general (Medicine 2.0) tends to respond to things that are wrong with people rather than work on preventative actions (Medicine 3.0). Sometimes the responses come too late, such as with cancers.

Anyway, it's a very informative book and I highly recommend it to everyone.

* * * * *

As a fan of the original Twister (released 1996!), DD and I were very excited to learn that a contemporary version was coming to theaters. We went to see it as a family a week ago yesterday and ...

DD and I both loved it. So much so that we decided to see it in the theater a second time. I decided to wear my earbuds during my second viewing to dampen the sound a bit as volume seemed super loud in the IMAX theater. However, the regular theater volume was fine and I took them out halways through the film.

There were several call backs to the original, but the plot line was original unto itself. We highly recommend it, but see it soon as it won't be in theaters long. DD saw it an additional two times on her own, but could not explain what about it has exactly tickled her fancy.

* * * * *

Image courtesy of Google Maps.

Speaking of exercise...

My annual road trip home is a month or so out. I debated flying because I've reached a point that sitting for extended periods of time does my body no good, leaving me feeling stiff and achy--two things I try to avoid on a daily basis by getting up and moving around hourly.

But the cost of flights (plus checked luggage fees) and the lack of freedom while I'm visiting my family was prohibitive this year. I'll need to start checking flight prices sooner next summer.

To combat my bodily grievances, I'm seriously considering stopping at Walmart Supercenters (chosen for safety reasons) at two-ish hour intervals in order to take a stroll around the store. I can also use their restrooms and buy better food at cheaper prices than at gas stations.

I've scoped out the relevant store locations already and will ponder this course of action for the next several weeks before making a definite decision.

* * * * *

Hope you are well! My trip to Austin will happen the weekend before we meet again, so I may postpone posting so as to have time to write about my experiences.

Be well and take care...

 

 

Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston

About four months ago (April of 2023) I came across this book in the online library and immediately borrowed it.

I fell in love with this book. It was chock full of emotion and jam-packed with the internal narrative of each character that really fed that emotional resonance.

Imagine my surprise and delight when I saw that it'd been made into a full-length movie. I looked forward to plopping myself into my recliner and really enjoying this film.

However, knowing a screenwriter, I've learned that it's harder than it looks to convert a book to a screenplay to a movie script.

While I enjoyed the movie, it didn't bring me near the satisfaction as the book did when I reached the end.

I might have chosen different scenes from the book to showcase the characters' journeys, but I'd have to re-read the book to make that determination--and I just might because I enjoyed the book that much.

But it's well worth a watch if male/male romance is up your alley. And FYI, it's rated R for a sex scene. And while it isn't super explicit in my opinion--in that doesn't show the body parts--it's still very clear what's going on and who's doing what to whom. But for all that I think it's well done.

 

Hello again...

Two games into the Western Conference Final and the Stars are down two games. :0( The series comes to Dallas and the next two games are here: Tuesday and Thursday. I can't image the Stars losing two games at home, but the losses in Vegas were the first back to back losses they've had so far this playoffs. It's a whole new ball game. We're playing a team that is more our match than our first two opponents. It's going to a long series, even if it's a short one. *sigh*

*

On a completely different train of thought...don't you just love it when the universe converges on you in a good way? I've been reading some books and working on some things. I'm not sure which came first, but they're intermingled and completely related.

And this fascinating phenomena is happening; the more I work on a thing or think about a thing, the more the universe feeds me more information on that thing. And most of the non-fiction books that I've read this say that this very thing could / would happen.

And it's amazing.

And the books that I've read (or plan to) have been recommended by different people in different tracks of my life.

And speaking of books... so this latest recommendation... I clicked the link that took me to Amazon. The Kindle version is $12.99--way more than I'm inclined to pay for an ebook--but the hardback version is only $6.49 or thereabouts. And so I was considering this, although I'm not keen on physical books that much anymore.

But then--lightning strikes. I have the online library remember--with not one, but two library systems now at my disposal. (hee hee) So I open up that library app and search for this book, and--lo and behold--it's available for virtual checkout! Not right away, mind, there's a four week wait, but I put a hold on it. And that's fine because I'm in the middle of another book I want to finish first. So it all worked out.

But man--there's the universe looking out for me again.

I finally finished one of the other non-fiction books I'd picked out and that was a slog, but more on that book later.

*

I thought I had more to share today, but I guess I don't, so I'll sign off for now.

Have a great week.

 

 

Image courtesy of IMGBIN.

Do you remember that one of my goals for this year is to read six non-fiction books over the course of the year?

Yeah, well, I'm just about halfway there and we're almost 1/4 of the way through the year, and I already have three more books lined up. Somehow, I don't think I'm going to have a problem completing this goal.

This is what I've read so far... 

The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason

This book was mentioned by a dear friend who used this book when homeschooling her three kids. She and they all have their financial poop in a group, so I figured "Why not?" It certainly couldn't hurt.

And it certainly didn't.

I learned a couple of new principles and have endeavored to put them into practice...

First, I'm gonna share the Five Laws of Gold:

1. Put aside no less than 1/10 of your earnings.
2. Put your money to work for you.
3. Follow the teachings of wise rich people.
4. Don't invest in things about which you know nothing.
5. Maintain realistic expectations.

In addition to the those five laws, here are The Seven Cures to Fatten Your Purse:

1. Spend 90%, save 10%.
2. Expenses grow to equal income, so budget down to 90% of your income.
3. Make the gold multiply. (seek wisdom/learning before investing)
4. Guard your treasure from loss. (again: seek wisdom/learning before investing)
5. Make your dwelling a profitable investment. (own your own home)
6. Insure a future income. (seek wisdom; accept opportunity; work your way up)
7. Increase your ability to earn. (seek wisdom; accept opportunity; work your way up)

There are overlaps, as you can see, but I take that to mean those points are especially important.

* * * * *

The second book I read is...

Behind the Bench: Inside the Minds of Hockey's Greatest Coaches by Craig Custance

Obviously, this is not a personal improvement book like the rest of them... I received it for Mother's Day last year after having it on my Giftster list for several years.

It took me a while to get into it--there's nothing wrong with the book. I wasn't in the right headspace because of my mom-- But the author is someone I now sorta kinda know.

"Know" in the sense that Craig is one of my favorite pod casters and we do occasionally have exchanges via the comments sections of the podcast he co-hosts. We are also "friends" on Goodreads...for whatever that's worth. I think it's cool. Your mileage may vary. :0)

FYI, Craig--if you ever see this--your book was recommended by Greg Wyshinski. For those playing along at home, Greg is one of my other favorite pod casters. And is, in fact, my first pod caster...

* * * * *

I've just started the third non-fiction book...

Eats Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation! by Lynne Truss

I'm reading this to hone my skills as a copy editor / proofreader as I'm fixin' to hustle more business in order to reduce debt and increase savings / investments.

As you can probably glean--it's about punctuation. I may or may not bore you later with any surprising insights I find. However, it's turning out to be harder to get into than I expected. There's just been a few too many anecdotes up front.

* * * * *

And last but not, officially, least--a book I read at the tail end of last year and which I might have mentioned at some point this year:

Atomic Habits by James Clear

I meant to post the whole write up for this book, but other topics came along and it got pushed and got pushed, sooo... I've lumped it in here and created a page with that review, so you can go read about my thoughts on this book if you're so inclined.

Since I read this last year, it doesn't count for this year, but it's close enough that I at least wanted to mention it and share what I learned.

More book reports to come at some point. I do still have those Strengths books to get to!

Take care. Have a great week.

 

Ms. Easton and Ms. North are my absolute faves and I've read several of their books this year, but I did branch out into a few other genres as you can see, although I still primarily read romance.

I did have to fudge the truth on Goodreads a little-- I still read A LOT of fan fiction. Individual stories, of course, aren't going to be listed as books. So I spent some time looking up the approximate word counts of a few classics. Moby Dick, To Kill a Mockingbird, Anna Karenina, etc, so that I could use them as proxies for the fan fic I read. I want credit for those words, dang it!

Now, unlike the woman in the image at the top of this post, I don't actually read physical books anymore. Once in a great while for reasons, but mostly I like that I can amass vast amount of books but not have them piled all over my house. My e-reader of choice is my phone, using the Kindle app for commercial fiction, and the plain old browser to access my favorite fan fiction repository.

What about you--are you a reader? Physical books or e-books? Fiction or non-fiction?

Hope you have a great week!!

Since the whole cookie book incident--I'm calling it that because the whole thing has really rankled me--I haven't felt much like writing or editing. The Dallas Stars schedule is not helping matters.

Regardless of my excuses, I really need to get to work. Instead...

I'm reading. A lot. Also--sleeping. See the aforementioned hockey schedule... I know, I know. I don't have to watch or go to hockey games. But I paid for the tickets, so I sorta do have to go, unless they get sold.

I probably won't get much work done between now and Tuesday since DD and I are going on a road trip this weekend. Once I'm back, it's back to work.

Back to a lot of things.

While I have been cooking healthy meals for dinner for DH, I'm otherwise eating a lot of stuff I shouldn't a not exercising much.

So...better eating habits, better exercise habits, better writerly habits.

Sometimes, though, you need a mental health break.

Hope you're having a great week.

 

DD's pumpkin turned out rather well. Sadly the middle part so heavy, it began to droop and sag almost immediately. But she had fun doing it, and I had fun watching her.

I spent a lot of extra time on the book this weekend and I made a huge dent in the necessary tweaks. My editor has everything up until where I was stuck and she's almost done, so we should be able to trade halves this week. I'm hoping by Wednesday or Thursday at the latest to have my issues sorted.

My due date to upload to one specific retailer is November 8th--Sunday. I should be able to get the completed if not fully edited document uploaded. Then I can upload the final version a few days prior to the go-live date.

I'm cutting it close, I know, and I was this | | close to postponing the launch, but after the progress this weekend, I feel confident enough to stay the course.

And for the first time ever, I'm seriously considering a written plan for my writing / publishing goals for 2021 with milestones and due dates. Because I saved money not going to my conference in October, I'm "splurging" on a couple of book covers for the historicals I've had in my back pocket. One is complete, the other is almost done, so I'm hoping a deadline will get me across the finish line.

Anywho...have a great week.

 

 

Well, I'm in several businesses of my own, but what I meant was...

I got my writing app back on my laptop!! I can write and/or edit again, although that's probably not happening until the weekend.

In other news, my ninth book is on pre-sale and will be released on May 1st...



I don't have much else besides work going on, so we won't belabor the post. :0)

Hope you're well.

The conference was busy and fun and here I am at one of the author book signings...




The main doors were just to my left, so I got a good spot. This is my view of the rest of the room...




And for a nice change of pace, ballrooms with windows...!




Going to these things is always a marketing-learning opportunity. How are other authors presenting their books? What kinds of swag do they offer? How do they present themselves? I made a few notes.

Next year's con will be in St. Louis. I was hoping it was someplace too far away and that I didn't want to go to, but then they had to pick a city I could drive to again (it's 10.5 hours) and more compellingly--a city with a hockey team. The home of this year's Stanley Cup champions, no less. So I guess I'm going.

The question becomes--do I want to be a featured author rather than just a supporting author. The difference is about $100 and two additional opportunities to get in front of potential new readers. I have until February when registration opens to decide...

Hope you've had a great weekend. I did. I'll share pics of my adventures around Albuquerque on Wednesday...

So I participated in my first Facebook Takeover Event to celebrate the release of the anthology I participated in. The book is 99 cents for purchase with proceeds going to Pets for Vets.


I'd never done a Facebook Takeover Event, but the gist is you takeover someone else's FB page or a group page for some allotted time period. I hung out all day trying to support the other authors, but they were thin on the ground during time slots not their own and so were the other 220+ members of that group. What a shame.

I did learn how to do one though, so there's a bonus. I learned what would lure people to participate and what wouldn't. GIFs of celebrity crushes for the win; hockey talk, not so much, lol...

Anyway, that's it for today. Catch you on Friday.

"Darn," you're thinking, right? Y'all finally got a break from my hockey obsession and here we are again.

I just want to express my disappointment in the San Jose Sharks--who I'm sure are way more disappointed in themselves than I truly am--but I digress.

The Sharks were supposed to win the third round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs and send the St. Louis Blues home laden with disappointment. The Blues, you remember, won over my Dallas Stars in the second round of said playoffs and sent my boys home laden with that disappointment.

Instead, the Blues are moving on to the Stanley Cup Finals, playing the Boston Bruins. I hate the Bruins and I hate the Blues this year, so I don't know who'd I'd prefer to win. Not that it matters since it's not the Stars, the Golden Knights, or the Penguins.

 Now back to whatever I was originally going to ramble on about... Um... No, seriously, blog topics are a crap shoot. Did I think of something and forget because I didn't make a note somewhere? Did something happen in the world that I have an opinion on? Is there anything exciting going on in my life that rates coverage? No, no, and no.

Let me roll the metaphorical dice and see what occurs to me...

Okay, so...

I used to think life was busy with kids and that once they'd all grown up and moved away, life would be less busy, but that's not the case. It's not a bad thing, but anyone who has reached a certain age (it's different for everyone, I think) knows that time starts to pass faster. I do think you have to be at least 50 years old, though, yeah?

One of our speakers at writers group this past weekend talked about business plans. Now, several years ago, I put one together. It wasn't nearly as detailed as this person's but it served its purpose at the time.

Something she said struck a chord and is something I'd heard or considered before, but didn't really put into practice. Fast forward to two and a half months ago when an opportunity to participate in an anthology was passed along to me. I wanted to do it, but with all the hockey going on, could I pull it off?

I had to consider the deadlines, the scope of the project, if I could even come up with characters and a plot line, and how many days I'd be out of commission to write in the early morning because of a late night of hockey. I spent a weekend on characters and plot before I joined. If I didn't have that, there was no point. Then I figured up how many days were available to me and how many of them would be writing days. After that, I calculated how many words a day I had to write.

One of the woman's points when drawing up the business plan was how many books a year do you plan to write and or publish. You've obviously got to factor in your real life (day job, children, travel, etc) as well as how fast a writer are you.

It was a concept I'd considered previously but didn't do much with it, but I probably won't have the two books I wanted to publish out in the world this year. I will have the anthology I just mentioned and possibly another little volume of very short "coffee reads"--they're short enough to read while consuming a single cup of coffee--but not the two longer books I have despite both of them being half written.

The fact that they're both half-written and I can't seem to get them done maybe speaks to other issues. I'm trying to sort those...

Anyway. I need to try the approach of deciding on how many books to publish, how long they're going to be, plot and plan them, set deadlines maybe, sort daily word counts, and then--as Nike says--JUST DO IT.

Yeah, some of that ain't so easy. The plotting gets me every time.

Anyway, back to work. Have a great rest of your week.

As you know, I'm going to a conference in October. You also know I've been trying to get physical copies of my books to have available...

It took three tries to get everything sorted for book one...the third print proof copy looked great. I was happy with it. So I clicked the "go live" button within my Kindle Direct Publishing account and upon review by Amazon I have two issues to resolve...

But, but, but... my print proof looked great. There were no issues with the cover or the numbering within the book, so how is there now a problem??

I sent a query to Kindle/Amazon and they are going to research and get back to me by end-of-day Friday.

Time is of the essence now for getting the physical copies ordered.

Keep your fingers crossed!

Have a great rest of your week.

It definitely needs some tweaking, both the cover and the innards, but I was more excited about seeing it, warts and all, than I expected to be. The print proof of book two should land in my mailbox in the next few days.

As I've mentioned, I hadn't planned on offering print books before each book's 1st birthday, but because I went for supporting author status at the conference I'm going to in October, I have to have physical copies for at least a couple of books. I decided to start with two. If I can get them tweaked easily enough, then I might attempt getting book 3 and maybe 4 done as well. But we'll see. I also have to keep costs in mind...

Anyway--YAY--so cool!!

Finally took some time to look at any other projects currently floating around in my files and found a pair of books (a duet, linked together by siblings) that I can convert from male/female (that's how old they are) to male/male romances...and do something with.

I'll be at a local writers gathering/retreat this weekend and will spend some quality alone time with these books. I'd already started the conversion process of one book, so YAY. The other one will be a lot more tricky since there's an unplanned pregnancy that's an integral part of the plot. I'll have to figure out how everyone can/should be related now and reduce the unplanned pregnancy to a sub-plot...

Now that I have something concrete to work on, I'm looking more forward to this weekend and hoping I can make a lot of progress.

But the next two days are gonna be busy, PUCK SOUP LIVE PODCAST (I'm SOOO excited!!!) event on Thursday night and NHL Draft event on Friday. I might just want to sleep all weekend.

Have a great rest of your week...

I might have something posted Friday, I might not. Just depends. I'll be back Monday for sure.

So I finished watching The Astronauts Wives Club, a ten-part tv mini-series, based on the book of the same name, chronicling the story of the wives of the Mercury Seven astronauts. It covers a span of approximately ten years.


The thing I loved about the series is the look into history of the time just before and just after I was born. The clothes, the hair, the seeming simplicity of life, especially for women. The only degree a woman was expected to get was her MRS. Of course, things were beginning to change during the 60s. Women and blacks were experiencing awful oppression and changes were simmering.

It really hit home how gender biased the time period was when one of the wives of an Apollo astronaut decided to get a divorce as her husband had basically abandoned her and their children (one of whom had Down's Syndrome and leukemia and eventually died at four-years-old). She was told even by her own attorney that she was better off staying married because it was so difficult for a woman to obtain a divorce at that time. One scene depicts her access to bank accounts being ended. Her saving grace was that her husband wanted the divorce to marry someone else. As an aside, only seven of fifty marriages (of all 60s era space program astronauts) didn't end in divorce.

Watching some of the women attempt to pursue their own dreams and being put in their place over and over was painful. I know we've still got a long way to go for women and for people of color and for people of other religions and faiths as well as for people of all sexualities, but thank goodness it's still not that...

It might not be a show for everyone, but I really enjoyed the look into the past and liked the show for what it was. I like that it didn't try whitewash or ignore the issues the book brought to light like how much pressure NASA put on the wives to keep all troubles away from the husbands when they were home. The struggles the wives went through, depression and alcoholism. The attempted cover-up of the real reason why three men died in a fire.

Anyone else watched this? What did you think?

Really.

I have books to write. Well, one book at the moment. Book 7 of my series. I've started it. I'm just shy of 15K words with a projected goal of 32.5K words.

What's the problem you ask?

Well, if I knew, I think it probably would be less of a problem. I love both the heroes, I still like the premise, I like the series, but I'm just not feeling...something.

But I want to write. I have the desire to sit, open up Scrivener, and put words to page, but when I think about opening the book 7 file, I just feel meh.

So I'm working on other things. I've a got another anthology in the works with a group of writer friends and there's always fanfic--I do have a fic hanging out in the world that need to be finished.

At least I'll be writing and being productive, right? And maybe the other thing will work itself out or I'll skip it and switch book 7 with book 8 and work on 8 instead.

And Happy Hump Day...

Have a great rest of your week.

Book six is (mostly)(probably) done and off to my lovely proofreader.

About three months late. Since I'm planning to indie publish, the fact that it's late doesn't have a whole lot of consequences, it just means that my whole publishing schedule was postponed. Potential money earning postponed too. That's the worst consequence.

My plan had been to have book six done and in the proofer's hands in June and that I would start publishing the previous books in the series around that time.

But I wanted book six done before I started down the publishing road.

Unfortunately, I struggled and struggled with that story for some reason--I still don't really know why. Writing it was still mostly a chore when I finally just put my nose to the grindstone and made it happen. I have no idea if it's as good as the others or if it makes sense or if there's some major plot hole that's so large I just can't see it. My proofreader will definitely let me know.

BUT

It's finally done and out of my hair for the time being. Now I can turn my attention to...you guessed it...book seven.

Hope you're having a great week. Mine is looking up. :0)

So it took me a while to get on the smart phone train, and even then I had to be thrown on. DH forced me to upgrade for business reasons.


But I have one and I use it. It's bigger around than my old little slider and I can't work it one-handed without both eyes on my hand and the phone. So absolutely no driving/phone anything.

But other than that, it's a like having a personal assistant in your pocket. I can write notes or I can dictate notes!! I've downloaded a few apps, including a couple of games, as well as my favorite social media platform. Of course it lets me text the kiddos. I get weather alerts when something's going on within 25 miles of me. And I have access to all my email...

I don't have a lot of alerts turned on, so I'm not being barraged by sound every time something comes through--only text messages and the weather--and when I'm out with people, the phone is in my purse like it's always been. I never wanted to be that person, and I'll be vigilant to never becoming that person.

But at home, when I take the dog out in the yard...I can text my kids, or heck even TALK to them if I want, check email, surf the web, read a book, listen to music, or make notes about my plots and characters... I've fallen to the dark side. :)