Sunday Update - 2026 Week :shrug:

 Hey all.  I just got back inside from tending to the greenhouse and now I'm sweaty, dirty, and tired.  I'll take a shower in a minute, don't rush me.  That pretty much sapped my motivation for the day.

Writing went pretty well this week.  7665 words during 5 days where I wrote.  Not great, but not bad.  Those two off days were necessary to my existence.  Anyway, OM is up to 23331 words as of last night.  I'm pleased with where I am and where it's going, so yay.

No marketing.  No sales.  Blerg.  Okay, fine, I'll so something markety this week.  Maybe.  We'll see.

I was baking this week.  So was Hubs.  I made pizza and a loaf of banana raisin bread.  Hubs made cake cookies.  Considering the impending furnace, I doubt I'll bake this week.  But hey, it was like 99F when I made the BR bread, so take that stupid heat.

Activity?  Well... it's hot.  Mostly, I tended the greenhouse by watering every other day.  I did some grocery shopping.  I vacuumed.  But I haven't weighed myself, so meh.  Again, it's hot and I am unmotivated.

As for gardening, like I said, I water everything every two days.  Today, I also harvest potatoes - mostly to get them out of my way.  I came up with about a half-dozen fingerlings, which is better than nothing.  And I replanted about 4 tiny potatoes that had started to grow roots themselves.  I'm hoping for a fall harvest.  The peppers are doing good.  A couple of the tomatoes are, against all odds and the heat, flowering.  Fingers crossed for those.  

Other than that, I mostly laid around in the AC.  Hell, the day I went grocery shopping was the coolest day and I still got it done early so I wouldn't broil.  Bake, yes; broil, no.  

The deer and the fawns are mostly doing well.  There's a dead doe about a quarter mile down the road.  I stopped the car and got out to see if I could recognize her.  I couldn't.  I know it's not Lumpy - she was here in the yard later that day.  It might be Lily.  Or it was that one skinny doe I saw last week.  I don't know if she was hit by a car or died because she was sick or the heat got to her.  Her body had already been fairly wrecked by the vultures, so no real clue.  Nature really is a bitch sometimes.

Anyway, I need to pour some more coffee down my gullet, have a smoke, and then take a shower.  Have a great day and stay cool*.  Peace out.

*That reminds me of when I was in middle school and everyone seemed to write 'stay cool' in everyone else's yearbooks.  Heh.

Thursday This n That

First off, I'm up to 4421 words. Not bad for two days work.  Secondly, my hands hurt.  I think the two might be connected.  ;o)

I never thought I'd reach a day where I was happy my hands hurt.

Yesterday, I went out to water the plants in the greenhouse and discovered the last time I went out to the greenhouse, I forgot to 'close' the door.  Usually, I unzip the floppy plastic door and, rather than mess with rolling it up and tying the roll, I flip the whole thing up over the top of the greenhouse.  Then when I'm done, I pull it back into place and zip it all up.  It was still all flipped up on top, and everything inside was super dry.  Drat.  I watered everything and now I'm crossing my fingers my tomatoes can recover, because the grape tomato and the Early Girl looked like crap. Derp.

I found a new place to get gardening videos.  The guy is calling himself The Millennial Gardener and he's pretty awesome.  Now that I finally figured out how to get YouTube on my Roku, it's super easy to watch videos like these.  I wonder how many other things I can learn.

We've been seeing Lumpy with a fawn.  Now, we were and still are sure she wasn't pregnant.  She doesn't have visible teats either.  So, we're wondering whether she kidnapped someone else's fawn or whether she's babysitting for Sissy.  I hope it's the latter because, like I said, she doesn't have milk and the fawn is young enough to still need a occasional boost from its mom.  One thing I know is that she will protect that fawn like nobody else could and being a grandma gives her something to do.  

I stayed up late writing last night.  Finn generously took it upon himself to make sure I didn't sleep too late.  Yay Finn. :grumble grumble grumble:

During my trip to Wallyworld, I accidentally bought decaf coffee.  I don't know about you, but for me, decaf is a crime against nature.  The bag is sitting on the counter, judging me.  Still, I'm thinking about keeping it.  Maybe I could drink coffee in the afternoons again.  Then again, why not drink regular?  I'm not sleeping well anyway.

Okay, time for me to get doing stuff.  Have a great day, wherever you are and whatever you're doing.  :waves: bu-bye.

Progress

Okay, so if you read yesterday's post, you saw that I got really excited about a new story idea.  I hit the ground running.  I did three writing sessions and wound up the day with 2780 new words.  

I'm loving this new character - Lynette - and the story is flowing out around her.  I decided first person POV was the best.  I don't know where her story is going - which actually works best for me - but I feel good about it.  

Heh, I'm walking around the house with the song Strange Magic stuck in my head.  I also caught a bit of the song Abracadabra for a while.  (I'd link to those, but I currently have marketing copy on my clipboard and I don't want to have to go copy that again.)  I'm taking this as a good sign.

Anyway, I stayed up late writing, woke up on time for a change at around 5:30, and I'm feeling pretty good about life in general.  If this is wrong, I don't want to be right.  LOL

"If the story feels good, baby baby let me hear you say... ah, ah, baby."

Yes, I do feel kind of manic.  Maybe I should change the name of the blog to The Manic Depressive Writer, but people who actually have that might get their undies in a wad about it.  And truly, it's all part of the spectacle of writing, isn't it?  I'll be depressed again later.  Trust me.

Speaking of depressing, I got an email from someone claiming to be an editor at Harper One (an imprint of Harper Collins), implying that they read and loved Accidental Death, and want to publish it.  It was a really positive email, gushing about the awesomeness of my book.  The depressing part is that it had to be AI and a spammer because editors at big publishing houses and their imprints don't reach out to authors.  :shrug:  At this point, I'm not sure if I'd want a big publishing house to publish any of my work anyway.  Liberal bastards that they are, doncha know.  I can't imagine what they'd try to do to my books.  

Anyway... I'm in a good place right now.  The words are flowing like they haven't flowed in years and for the first time in a long time, I feel like a writer again.  :happy sigh:

The Deck Garden

Since I just finished moving all the plants back outside, after we had a cold snap and they spent more time inside, I thought I'd talk about my deck garden.  As of right now...

My deck garden:
3 x-large - potatoes
4 large - carrots
2 small cedars, 1 medium cedar (Clyde), 1 large cedar (Cecil)
3 dogwood
6 redbud
1 oak
1 buckthorn
2 hickory
1 black cherry
1 unidentified tree/bush

Plus, I still have 4 green peppers in the spare room that need to go into larger pots and go outside. I'm not even counting the tomatoes because I haven't bought the seedlings yet, but there'll probably be 6 of those. Woot.

The carrots are bursting up out of the soil, so yay. Those will need to be thinned soon. No sign of potatoes yet. If I don't see movement soon, I'll buy more taters and replant.

Of the trees, most of them are showing some signs of life after overwintering in the garage. The ones that aren't showing sings yet are one hickory, one redbud, and one dogwood. Those all might be dead. We'll see. The oak has the cutest, teeny-tiny leaves. If it had cheeks, I'd want to pinch them. (If you weren't already aware that I'm weird, you must be new here.)

The black cherry is actually three tiny trunks that I dug up together and planted together, not knowing what they were. When fall came, the leaves turned a pale peachy pink, which made me think they're black cherry trees. And now with their spring leaves, I'm like 95% certain of the species. Yay. I'll repot those into a bigger container and they'll spend another year being babied before they go into the yard.

Cecil the Cedar is the one I transplanted as an inch-high seedling I found in the garden back in 2021. That means he's probably 5 years old, maybe 6 if I consider he probably started growing in the garden in late 2020. (He had a pot-mate - Cedric - but it died.) Cecil is gorgeous and will go in the yard next month. Clyde was transplanted from where he was growing under the deck. He's kind of retarded, but I love him. He'll go into the woods to thrive there.

One of the redbuds and one of the dogwoods will go in the yard somewhere either this year or next. The rest will be transplanted into the woods. I need to put some out there sooner rather than later because I need their pots for tomatoes. Or I'll just buy more pots and nurture them for another year. I'm goofy that way. I'm trying not to be a helicopter parent to my trees, but after I lost Elmer the Elm to ravenous deer, I'm being more protective of my little trees. We'll see how it goes.

Anyway, those are the garden stats right now. I'll post more as things develop. Have a great rest of your day!

2026 - Books Read

Well, it's time again to create another Books Read post.  This will be my 18th year of doing this on this blog, so I expect my regular followers to know the drill.  For everyone else, here's how it goes:

The books are listed from oldest read at the bottom to newest read at the top.  There'll be Title by Author (Date) - Genre.  Title only, no series info because I'm lazy.  The title will mostly be linked to the book's Goodreads page.  If there's then an asterisk, it's an ebook.  If it's new to me and underappreciated (less than 50 ratings/reviews), I'll put a hashtag.  

I set my reading goal at 35, because I was such a toad of a reader last year.

Okay, so here goes:

4) How to Carve Wood by Richard Butz (2/28/26) - NF

3) The Complete Starter Guide to Whittling by Wood Carving Illustrated (2/26/26) - NF

2) The Night Manager by John LeCarre (2/8/26) - Thriller

1) The Dead Will Beckon by Jason Chapman (1/4/26) - Suspense*#

Sunday Update - 2025 Week 52

Time to wrap up the last week of the year.  All in all it was a good week, so here goes...

Writing:  Last night, I finished the first draft of DN3.  Yay!  It's just under 49K words right now, but I expect to add a bunch in editing.  And I hate the end, so I'm guessing it'll have a rewrite.  I also came up with a title last night when I was supposed to be falling asleep.  How does Duke Noble, P.I.: The Deepest Cut strike you?  :half-shrug:  I loved it last night.  Now I'm not so sure. (Updated 8:20pm - The phrase 'the first cut is the deepest' wasn't coined until way past when this book is set, so NOPE.  Back to the drawing board.)

I did marketing.  Thicker Than Water (DN2) was on the block.  I moved 129 free copies, one full price copy after the freebie, and someone read it in KU.  Here's hoping that those freebies turn into sales of Rumor Has It (DN1) 

I did reading.  I finished my first book of the year.  (And I totally forgot to add it in Goodreads, or make a 2026 goal for the year, so don't go looking over there.)  It wasn't bad.  Actually, it was pretty good.  Different.  And not what it was billed as... hard boiled crime? Not.  Anyway, it was good, so that's a win.

In baking news, I made stuffed pork chops yesterday.  Those were yummy, so yay.

On the activity front, I did 3 days of woods work - hauling deadfall and cutting it up and raking it up - for about 2.75 hours.  I haven't weighed myself to start the year yet.  I'm a little leery because I've been noshing quite a lot lately. (ETA: I did it.  Weight: 177.4 - well, at least there's a starting point to go down from.)

Speaking of woods work, the big fallen black cherry tree is mostly cut up now and all the top branches/twigs have been moved to a pile that's out of the way.  So yay.  We have several stacks of firewood laying out there that have to be moved, but they'll be fine out there for the time being.  We're both feeling pretty good considering what we've done and our respective ages, so we've got that going for us.

My Christmas tree is still up.  I have to take that down and get back to normal.  

I located my 2026 day-planner.  I bought it in early December and put it somewhere I wouldn't lose it (and the cats wouldn't eat it), then promptly forgot where that was.  I looked in all the obvious places, but nope.  Then I noted a spiral binding peeking out from the top row of books on one of my bookshelves.  Huzzah!  

Since I was a total spazz last month, I didn't get my spreadsheets prepared for the coming year, so I did a lot of those last week.  I still have a couple of personal ones to do, but those can keep.  

Other than that... Welcome to 2026!  May it be a banner year for us all.

How was your final week of 2025?

2025 Books Read

Here we are with my 2025 Books Read post.  I started it a little later than usual this year because it took me a while to finish that first book.  

If you haven't been following along all these years, here's how this post goes.  The books I read are in reverse order - newest first.  * means ebook.  # means 'new to me and underappreciated'.  If there's a number at the end, it's where the book's at in a series.  The links go to Goodreads where I may or may not have written a review.  (Check back on Saturdays for my weekly Reading Wrap-up to see reviews.)

I set my goal for this year's reading at 70.  We'll see how that goes.  (Updated: On 11/27/25, I changed my goal to 40 books.  I'm not sure if I'll eve hit that, but it's a goal.)

Okay, with that out of the way, let's begin...

35) Stellar Ranger by Steve Perry (12/27/25) - SF/Western/Noir

34) The Martian by Andy Weir (11/25/25) - SF

33) Dream of Orchids by Phyllis A. Whitney (10/9/25) - romantic suspense

32) Cat Among the Pigeons by Agatha Christie (9/18/25) - mystery

31) Tales from the 'White Hart' by Arthur C. Clarke (9/11/25) - SF

30) Primordial Threat by MA Rothman (8/28/25) - SF*

29) Five Complete Hercule Poirot Novels (8/18/25) - mystery

28) The Devil's Angel by Margaret Bernard (7/26/25) - UF*#

27) Space Academy Dropouts by Phipps & Suttkus (7/6/25) - SF humor*#

26) Sweet Harmony by Noel Bailey (6/25/25) - magical romance*#

25) The Danger by Dick Francis (6/15/25) - thriller

0) Novella by Name Withheld (6/9/25) - SF*

24) The Face in the Water by Kathleen Pennell (6/8/25) - mystery*#

23) Blade Runner (or Do Androids Dream Electric Sheep) by Philip K Dick (6/5/25) - dystopian

22) You Only Live Twice by Ian Fleming (5/29/25) - action/hard-boiled crime

21) On Her Majesty's Secret Service by Ian Fleming (5/24/25) - action/hard-boiled crime

20) The Singing Stones by Phyllis A. Whitney (5/17/25) - romantic suspense

19) Evil Under the Sun by Agatha Christie (5/15/25) - mystery

18) Bill and the Last Cup of Coffee by Lance Lassen (5/8/25) - dystopian action/humor* (I read the ebook, but this is the link to the paperback. In the time between now and when I downloaded the book, the ebook page has been removed and the paperback was set to 'out of print'. :sadface:)

17) Goldfinger by Ian Fleming (5/5/25) - action/hard boiled crime

16) In Plain Sight by Dan Willis (4/27/25) - magical hard-boiled crime*

15) Dr. No by Ian Fleming (4/26/25) - action/hard boiled crime

14) Scarlet by Marissa Meyer (4/20/25) - dystopian

13) Diamonds are Forever by Ian Fleming (4/16/25) - action/hard boiled crime

12) Islands in the Sky by Arthur C. Clarke (4/11/25) -  science fiction

11) Murder by the Script by Lisa Pevey (4/8/25) - cozy mystery*

10) Festive Fonts and Fowl Murder by Lisa Pevey (4/7/25) - cozy mystery*

9) The Modigliani Scandal by Ken Follett (4/6/25) - suspense

8) A Murder in Cursive by Lisa Pevey (4/3/25) - cozy mystery*

7) The Ebony Swan by Phyllis Whitney (4/1/25) - romantic suspense

6) The Riddle-Master of Hed by Patricia McKillip (3/29/25) - fantasy

5) Murder by the Letter by Lisa Pevey (3/27/25) - cozy mystery*

4) Some Buried Caesar by Rex Stout (3/26/25) - noir crime

3) Moonstruck: Retribution by Silver James (3/20/25) - paranormal romantic suspense*

2) President Fu Manchu by Sax Rohmer (3/14/25) - noir crime

1) Child Star by Shirley Temple Black (1/8/25) - autobiography

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you enjoy this reading journey with me.

Sunday Update - 2025 Week 42

Well, another week has passed and I'm having a hard time getting revved up to do anything this morning, which is why this post is later than I usually post one of these.  

Writing was accomplished. It took me two more days to finish the read-through of DN3, and then I added new words for two days.  1781 words to be exact.  Not a huge amount, but it's something, eh?  DN3 is now up to 24920 words/87 pages.  Woot.  I would like to have this in your hands by the end of the year. We'll see how that works out.

I did marketing.  I moved 59 free copies of Dying Embers.  I also sold one after the sale was over.  No page reads yet, which is :sadtrombone:, but it's early yet.  Tomorrow, Rumor Has It goes on freebie.

Reading was slow.  I did DNF that Victoria Holt yesterday, but I haven't started anything else.

In baking news, I made a pizza yesterday - pepperoni, ham, mushrooms, black olives, and red bell pepper.  Yum.

On the activity front, I walked two days and spent three other days working on washing windows in the smoking porch.  I'm up to 64.25 miles on the walking.  The window washing?  Yuck.  But I'll finish that project today.  I just have to finish the doors.  Then I'll start the project of washing the other windows in the house.  (We have a lot of windows, so I have to break it up a little.)  Weight: 174.0 - I guess washing windows isn't really the calorie-burning event I wish it would be.  

As for gardening, I have 10 tomatoes out there ripening.  Well, I had 10 yesterday.  We had storms overnight, so we'll see what's left.  I have a ripe tomato in the fridge and I had to throw one out because it was funked up.  :shrug:  Not the Master Gardener of all time, but it's better than last time I tried this.  Next year will be even better.  I hope.  Maybe.

Yesterday, Hubs and I watched a good movie - Hostage starring Bruce Willis.  Not the most well-written thing, but certainly thrilling.  It was very intense.  But good guys win and bad guys die, so I'm satisfied.

As usual, life is pretty boring here.  Sorry about that.  How are things in your life?

Sunday Update - Week 33

This week... Well, it was HOT.  And I was a toad.  Okay, I wasn't entirely a toad all week.

I wrote Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday for 3182 words.  Then I lost track of where I was going next and turned back into a toad.  I'll try to get untoaded today.

Marketing was done.  Rumor Has It was free and I moved 57 copies - 40 of which went on Friday.  Not sure why the spike that day, but there it is.  Also, someone read Unequal this week and someone else is working on Dying Embers, so I am seeing some fundage for this month.  Not sure which book will be up for free this week.  Stay tuned.

Reading occurred.  I didn't bother doing a post yesterday because TOAD.  We'll see what I can accomplish next Saturday.  

No baking because HOT.

No activity because HOT.  Weight: 172.0

I'm still watering my deck garden.  My first tomato got picked.  We had it sliced up on hamburgers and it was yummy.  My second tomato got some kind of funk and turned gray from the bottom.  (It's not touching anything, so not sure what the hell happened there.)  In happier news, I have a third tomato.  It's tiny yet, but it's there.  And one of the tomato plants is still flowering, so there's hope for more.  Something ate all the leaves off one of my dogwood trees.  I think it was a grasshopper, because a discarded grasshopper exoskeleton is laying in the pot.  Did I ever mention how much I hate grasshoppers?  Filthy little bastards.  The rest of the trees are doing okay.  So are the green peppers, but those will never make it to big enough for fruit before the end of the growing season.  :shrug:  They were an experiment anyway, so no big loss.

The fawns are growing.  Sissy's fawn is a pretty big little guy.  (Assuming buck fawn because it's big, but I haven't seen nubs yet, so not sure.)  The twins are thriving.  Life is good.  Hubs is making sure they have fresh water once, if not twice, a day.

In family news, one of my extended family was attacked by a pitbull.  He was out running - he does marathons, so he was training - minding his own business, and some numbnuts was walking his pit without a leash.  He saw the dog and gave it a wide berth.  It didn't matter.  The pit went after him anyway, ruinating his left hand and then, after the owner and the guy got the dog off, it came back for more and attached to his right arm.  He's had surgery to repair the damage, so now it's a waiting game to see how much function he'll regain.  I'm pissed, to say the least.  Poor dude can't work now and who knows when he'll be able to work again.  He's freakin' IT, so all his work is hands.  And he's the nicest guy ever.

Okay, I think that's all the excitement I can take for one day.  Have a great day, wherever you are.  (And if you're walking/running, watch out for dogs with stupid owners.)  

What I Did

Despite the risk of jinxing this, I'm going to tell y'all what I did yesterday.

I wrote words.  1558 of them to be exact.  Which puts Duke Noble #3 at just over 3000 words.  It's a start.  No promises.  No judging.  Just write the words.  Every day.

I also exercised.  Not walked... exercised.  5 minutes dancing (which freaked the cats out... like 'eek! hide! mama's having a spastic fit' or something), 4 minutes doing regular exercises, 4 minutes more dancing and then walking around the house to get my heart rate back to normal*.

I told you all I just needed to give myself a good talking to.

Now, I just have to keep it up.  I'm shooting for 1500 words a day but any words will do.  And I'm aiming at ramping up the exercising until I'm back to my old stamina - walk = 1.6 miles 3 or 4 times a week, exercise = 20/10/20 on the days I'm not walking.

No excuses.  I need this for both my mental and my physical health.  Lord knows, I'm not getting any younger.  If I don't want to end up as an old lady sitting in a chair watching the world go by, or drooling on myself in a corner, I have to do something to make that not happen.  This is it.  

Join me, if you're able.  

*Safer than just stopping on the exercise.  You've got to ease your heart up and then ease it back down again.  

Sunday Update - 2025 Week 11

Well, hello again.  I almost forgot it's Sunday and time for my weekly update.  (Yes, I did forget yesterday was Saturday and even though I did have stuff for a Reading Wrap-up, I didn't post one.  Oops.)

So, this past week, I finally finished the edits for Duke Noble #2 (Thicker Than Water... Secrets and Lies... Whatever Title I Think is Better Than Those Two).  It's been sent out to readers.  If you did not receive a copy and you were expecting one, email me.  Right now, it's just about 63000 words.  I don't expect that to change overly much.  That's about 2K less than the first book, but it is what it is.  I could shove more words into it but they'd just be filler.  :shrug:

I did marketing for Cinder Ugly.  Not great turnout, but I didn't push it nearly as much as I should've, so I only have myself to blame.  I need to figure out which book is up for marketing this week.  Stay tuned for that.  It'll be a surprise for tomorrow's Marketing Monday post.

I finally read another book.  Woot.  I'm also about halfway through a third book. Also woot.

In baking news, I made pizza this past week.  It turned out really yummy, so yay.  The plan today is to make carrot cake again.  I still have loads of carrots left and why the hell not?  LOL

On the activity front, I did something active on 4 days, but two of those days had multiple activities.  It was mostly outside/gardening stuff.  No weight update.  I'm chunky and I'm okay with it.

Ah, gardening... I finished the south bed that runs along the garage and 1) put all the irises and lilies back, 2) planted new gladiolas.  Then I worked on cleaning up the other beds for Spring.  On a happy note, not all of my grape hyacinths died in the neglectful times.  They're not blooming, but also not dead.  I still have a lot of work to do to bring my gardens back to nice, but I'll get there.  Oh, another thing I did this past week was pot the dogwoods that germinated in my fridge over the winter.  I ran out of pots, though, so I didn't plant them all.  Now I have new pots, so I'll be planting the remainder of the dogwoods this week, along with the buckthorns.  Everything I planted previously - redbuds and spicebushes - have been watered.  I think this was the week where I also potted a volunteer cedar.  I've named him Clyde.  Fingers crossed everything survives and thrives.

We had weather go through, but it was mostly wind.  No storms and no swirlies.  We lost some dead branches.  Nothing major and nothing damaging to anything else.  We barely got any rain.

I think that's it.  Oh crap, I just remembered a project I was supposed to be working on for the pay-job.  One that I said I'd have ready for them on Monday. Guess what I'll be doing today?  :shrug:  I'll make cake tomorrow.  

Anyway, have a great day.  Peace out.

Thursday This n That

 I started this an hour ago and then got distracted by social media.  There are some really interesting things out there.  And some really awful things.  Some days I can't handle wading through the awful to get to the interesting.  There are also a boatload of ludicrous things.  I was also supposed to do marketing and I woke up in plenty of time, but the time I have left before I call Mom is running out.  I guess I'll market after I talk to Mom.

Yes, I call my mom almost every morning.  She gets Friday and Sunday off from me.  We talk about everything... and nothing.  Sometimes we talk about the same things over and over.  Sometimes we gripe about stuff over and over.  I don't care.  She's not getting any younger and eventually there will come a day when I can't talk to her ever again, so I'm grateful for every word now.  

I need to cut Hubs' hair again.  It's been a while and he's starting to look shaggy.  Plus, it's driving him nuts.  Maybe this afternoon I'll finally get 'er done.  I would've done it yesterday, but my wrist was giving me trouble after Tuesday's pizza kneading.  

I love making pizza, but it's hell on the wrists.  Oo, that reminds me... I'm out of cinnamon rolls.  Lucky for me, those don't require a lot of kneading.  

Oh, I finished the 5th draft of my manuscript last night.  And I sent it off to my first reader.  I need to contact others to see if they're still willing and able to read for me.  I'm still torn about the title, so for ease's sake, let's just call it DN2.  Now that it's off to be read, I need to work on cover art.  And maybe get back to writing again.  But not today.  Today is a day of rest.  And reading other people's books.

Tra la la.

Okay, I need to go use the little writer's room, fill my coffee mug, and get ready to call Ma.  Have a great day out there, folks.  And leave a comment if you're so inclined.  Thanks!

Thursday This n That

Wow.  I mean, just... wow.  The freebie thing for DYING EMBERS shot off like a freakin' rocket this week.  When I checked the stats this morning, my orders said 777.  705 of that is DE.  (71 was from last weeks freebie of PH. And I sold one FG.)  I've never moved that many copies of anything at one time.  Hell, I haven't moved that many copies of all of my books in an entire year since my first year. That year, I moved like 1016, which is fewer books than I've given away this year.  I am shocked.  This is my wow-face =oO.  Anyway, thank you.  Thanks to all of you who've read my books, and to all of you who've downloaded my books, and to all of you who've reviewed my books.  You're all awesome and I love you. :HUGS:  You're really making my anniversary special.  Special thanks to Silver and Debs and Janet for sticking with me all the way.  You guys rock.

Today is officially the 10th anniversary of DE going out into the world.  On 2/13/15, it went live on Amazon and I got my very first sale ever.  Woot.  

Speaking of sales, I've officially made more money this year than all of 2023.  Sure, it's $28.82 vs $28.08, but we have to take our little successes where we can find them, eh?

Man, these last few years have been a little depressing for me with regards to being a writer.  I mean, I haven't broken $100 since 2021.  The last year I made more than my average of $400/year was 2019.  But there's always hope.  And more than a little of a masochistic nature, LOL.

Okay, enough about that... I think I might've already mentioned it, but I made carrot cake.  It was good but unimpressive the first day.  Every day, it's gotten a wee bit yummier, though.  Mmmm.  Next time, I definitely need to add raisins.  I do love me some raisins.

The weather here has been gross.  Wet and cold and icy.  Blerg.  Good thing I got all my errands done over the weekend or we'd be screwed.  Eh, it's all about planning ahead when you live in the back of beyond.  

Ack.  I need to wrap this up so I can call Mom.  It's a thing.  Every morning M-Th, I call her at 7am and we talk for an hour.  She's 84 and, let's face it, she's not going to be here forever, so I like to get as much chatting in as I can.  Plus, I really enjoy our conversations.  There's no better way to start the day for me.  (I also call her on Saturday, but that's at 7:45.  She gets Fridays and Sundays off from me. LOL)

And with that I bid you all adieu.  Have a great day wherever you are!

January Marketing Wrap-up

I'm taking the rest of the month off on marketing, so I can try to focus on editing.  So, since I don't have any sales or freebies going on, I thought I'd wrap up the month today.  Here's how January's marketing efforts played out:

I had four freebie sessions and gave away 517 books.

In Deep Wish - 148 
Fertile Ground - 153
Unequal - 97
Ugly and the Beast - 119

From the giveaways, I also netted 21.36 in sales ($21.12 worth).  And right now, I have two different books being read in KU.  I hope to see at least a little bit more in the sales totals before it rolls over to February.  (For the record, I hate when a new month starts and all the metrics zero out.  It's quite depressing.)

I haven't checked the rankings, ratings and reviews on everything yet, but there's hope I'll see some improvement when I do.  This year, I started keeping track of that and have seen a bit of an uptick in rankings, if not one in ratings and reviews.  There's always hope.  

Next month will be my 10th anniversary of being a published author.  I published DYING EMBERS on 2/13/15.  I'll probably do something to celebrate.  Maybe offer a signed paperback to... I don't know who because I don't have many people actually following anything I do anymore.  I'll definitely make DE free for that week or something.  Stay tuned.  

Okay, that's about it for me.  Any questions?  

This Damn Internet Thing, Pt 2

Yesterday, we went through the process of getting the damn Starlink connected.  Everything said it was supposed to be easy.  Find an open spot with the best chance of connecting a satellite, point the thing at it, and whoosh, it works.  Well...  There's a step in there where the modem is supposed to get a solid white light on it that says it has found the satellite.  The last time we tried this, no solid white light.  In fact, we didn't have a white light at all, we had a flashing yellow-orange light. So, we gave up, put everything away and vowed to try again.  We were, in fact, on the verge of sending everything back for a refund.  But we, being more than a little mulish, decided to try one more time.

The first time Hubs went up on the roof with the smartphone we purchased for just this app, he did everything they said to do.  And the damn thing wasn't getting past 2% complete.  We posited that was because the cell signal here blows as bad as the internet, so no matter how we tried to connect the app with anything, it was bad.  I even deleted and reloaded the app.  No avail there.  

We made the decision to just put the Starlink up there, in a spot where we felt we had a good view of the sky, and hope the flashing light went away.  He put it here. Waited.  Nope.  Put it there.  Waited.  Nope.  Finally, he put it in a spot and came off the roof for a break.  While he was breaking, I was screwing around with the smartphone, trying to put it back to wifi from mobile.  I noticed the wifi choices were showing a new thing... STARLINK.  I tapped on that and it connected.  

Now, says I, if I can connect to the Starlink wifi, it must be talking to the satellite.  Right?  So, I walk right over to the old modem, pull the cable that leads to my computer and plug that thing into the back of the Starlink modem.  And HUZZAH!  I have internet on my computer.  

But the light's still flashing.  Hubs is wracking his brain trying to figure out why it's working when the flashy light thing means it's searching for the satellite.  Personally, I didn't care.  I was walking around saying 'let that motherflipper flash'  and 'flash bitch flash' and 'flash all you want, lady, we have internet'.

Hubs went back on the roof and completed the install.  We even found the stud on the first try, despite the stud finder not being able to find anything through the shingles.  He drilled guide holes, put the super-sturdy whatchamathingies in and bolted the mount to the roof.  (Yes, we bought a mount. No they don't come included.  Yes, we also bought an extra long able just in case.  It comes with 50', but we weren't sure that would be enough.)

By this time, it's getting dark and we're both starving.  Thank goodness I started the pork roast in the crock pot hours before.  After standing outside for hours, and running back and forth from here by the modem to out there, I was not in the mood to cook.  

Later, the modem was still flashing, but it was flashing purple - which supposedly means it needs a factory reset.  But the internet was working and so I was still taunting the modem, calling her a bitch and other unsavory things.  We went to bed.

Sometime last night, we lost power.  Must've had a storm that I slept through.  Anyway, I come in here to boot the 'putes and there's no light at all on the modem.  :gasp:  Then I remember that the solid white light is supposed to turn off after an hour.  I boot the 'putes and once they're up, they both say that they have internet, so life is good.

You have no idea what a relief it is to have this thing that's been hanging over our heads for weeks (and bad internet for YEARS) finally come to an end.

We'll wait for a couple weeks to make sure everything is kosher with the new SL, then we'll tell Brightspeed to pound sand.  (We already paid this month's BS bill, so no worries there.)

Today, I need to use the app to finish setting everything up and we still have some clean-up work to do.  Tidy the cables, etc.  

Yes, all of this would've been easier if I was as technologically savvy as I used to be... back in the 90s... but time and tech has passed me by.  It also would've been easier if we lived on a house that wasn't surrounded by trees (which presented less of an issue than we feared).  But hey, it's done and it feels like a weight has been lifted off us both.  Fingers crossed it all stays this way.

2024 Books Read

Yeah, yeah... this is way later in the year than I would've started one of these lists, but I was working and not reading up until recently, which meant I didn't actually finish many books before now, so I didn't see the point.  However, I'm reading again, so I thought I'd make a reading goals thing on Goodreads.  And this post.  If you've been here before you know the drill...

(psst... * means ebook, # means underappreciated)

36) The Lost Girls by Allison Brennan (12/18/24) - Romantic Suspense

35) Three Witnesses by Rex Stout (12/15/24) - Hard-boiled crime

34) The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie (12/9/24) - Mystery

33) Dragon-Eyed Dream by L. Darby Gibbs (12/6/24) - Fantasy*#

32) Natural Selection by Janna Ruth (12/2/24) - UF*#

31) Death at Rosewood Manor by Eva Bernard (11/30/24) - Cozy Mystery*#

30) Zombie Math by J. Sharpe (11/25/24) - Zombie Apocalypse*#

29) SLAN by A.E. Van Vogt (11/22/24) - SF

28) Caesar Now Be Still by Frank Schildiner (11/19/24) - Hard-boiled Crime*#

27) The Raff Memorandum by Nick Webster (11/17/24) - Suspense*#

26) The Border Legion by Zane Grey (11/9/24) - Western

25) The Case of the Waylaid Wolf / The Case of the Restless Redhead by Erle Stanley Gardner (11/2/24) - Mystery

24) Love Blooms by Jennifer Faye (10/31/24) - Romance*

23) Moonstruck Mafia: Boston by Silver James (10/27/24) - Paranormal Romantic Suspense*#

22) Biker Funeral by Jamie Mason (8/31/24)  - Hard-boiled Crime*#

21) James Herriot's Dog Stories by James Herriot (8/30/24) - Literature

20) Brother Assassin by Fred Saberhagen (8/24/24) - SF

19) The Case of the Half-Wakened Wife by Erle Stanley Gardner (8/12/24) - mystery

18) Oblivion's Cloak by Dylan McFadyen (8/9/24) - epic SF*

17) The Tuesday Club Murders by Agatha Christie (8/4/24) - mystery

16) The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks (8/2/24) - fantasy

15) The Mystery of the Blue Train by Agatha Christie (7/24/24) - mystery

14) Cinder by Marissa Meyer (7/21/24) - SF dystopian

13) Mystery of the Haunted Pool by Phyllis A. Whitney (7/19/24) - YA mystery

12) The Pale Horse by Agatha Christie (7/15/24) - mystery

11) Sweet Smell of Revenge by Pam Clifford (7/10/24) - mystery*

10) The Elfstones of Shannara by Terry Brook (7/8/24) - fantasy

9) Midnight Clear by Silver James (7/1/24) - SF holiday romance*

8) Hercule Poirot's Casebook by Agatha Christie (6/30/24) - mystery

7) Perfect Pending by Lucia Ashta (6/25/24) - paranormal romance*

6) The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (6/14/24) - mystery

5) The Case of the Mythical Monkeys / The Case of the Angry Mourner by Erle Stanley Gardner - mystery

4) The Goggle-Eyed Pirates by Lee Falk - adventure/mystery

3) The Case of the Green-Eyes Sister / The Case of the Spurious Spinster by Erle Stanley Gardner - mystery

2) The Case of the Darling Divorcee / The Case of the Runaway Corpse by Erle Stanley Gardner - mystery

1) Award Science Fiction by Various - science fiction

0) Rumor Has It (Duke Noble, Private Investigator #1) by B.E. Sanderson - hard-boiled crime

Sunday Update 8/24/24

Well, hello there.  Thanks for stopping by for my weekly update.  In case this is your first time here, I'm a pretty boring person.  All the exciting in my life is fictional.  

Day before yesterday, I finished the WIP.  It'll become my 18th published novel.  It's Duke Noble, book 2 - tentatively called Thicker Than Water.  (Not sure I love that title.  We'll see.)  It ended up being 47269 words for the first draft.  I really like how it ended.  There's a lot I have to go back and fix - continuity issues, gaps, a dearth of description... the usual.  I'll probably start that next week.  With my brain, I don't really need too much time to step out of the story so I can look at it objectively.  

So, with finishing that sucker, I wrote 6657 words last week.  I'm hoping to start writing again on something else sometime this week, then write at night and edit TTW during the day once I get to editing again.  I've done this in the past, so it's not outside the realm of possibility.  I do wonder whether I still have the chops to write one book while editing another, though.

This past week, I ran a sale on the Once Upon a Djinn books.  I ended up moving 106 copies of WIOH (free), two copies of IDW, and one copy each of UWC and WHTF (99c ea).  On the bright side, the rankings thing on Amazon is finally moving again, so here's hoping it equates to residual sales and page reads in KU.  WIOH reached #91 in free urban fantasy, so yay.  That usually helps.  :shrug:

I didn't post a Reading Wrap-up yesterday because, frankly, I forgot.  Honestly, though, I didn't really have anything to talk about.  I didn't finish a book last week - just DNF'd one, which was annoying.  Then I picked up a SF and finished that last night.  I'll talk about it all next Saturday.

In baking news, I made a batch of Peanut Butter & Cocoa Oatmeal Cookies.  Hubs was jones'n for something chocolate, so tada.  

On the activity front, I walked 3 days for 2.55 miles worth, then yesterday, I cut down my lilac bush with this nifty new hand saw thingie I bought.  (Poor Linus.  He up and died this year, all but one lonely trunk and 3-4 suckers.  I left all that, hoping to resurrect him.)  It was quite the upper body workout and I'm feeling it today.  I haven't weighed myself.  I don't need that kind of negativity... LOL.

I can't think of anything else from this past week worth talking about, so feel free to go on about your day.  And if you want to, drop a comment and tell me about your week.  I hope it was a good one.  If not, we can commiserate. :hugs:

JuLoWriMo Wrap-up

Okay, so Silver and I did this thing in July that we called JuLoWriMo, wherein the plan was to do something writerly every day.  The idea was to use the month to get back into the saddle after our extended periods of not-writing - hers due to medical issues and mine due to working outside the home for a couple years (which, frankly, sucked the creativity right out of me).

All in all, I think it worked for both of us.  She's back to working on her stuff daily and I'm back to putting words on paper.  I didn't do every day.  I wrote 27 out of 31 days, though, and managed to add approximately 24000 words to my WIP.  

For this, I chose to work on the next Duke Noble.  I'm calling it Thicker Than Water right now.  I'm not sure if I'll use that as the title at the end.  I liked it better when I first started the book than I do now.  :shrug:  Anyway, I started writing on this story on May 30th when I laid down 198 starter words.  I was creeping up on the end of my day-job and the ideas were starting to pop, so I jotted one down.  I did some more words in the month of June - like revving the engine before the big race.  This gave me 4564 at the start of July.  

The hardest part, at the beginning there, was getting my hands used to cranking out words again.  I did not have to remind my hands how to type, thank goodness.  I did do a lot of that at work, just not for any extended length of time.  And writing requires extended typing.  So, my fingers were fairly flying over the keys, but after 30-40 minutes, my hands would start to cramp and my wrists would complain.  The next morning, my digits would be pork sausages.  Gotta work those bad devils until they get over it, doncha know.  Eventually, the ouchie got less and less and I could produce more words without paying for the deed the next day.  I'm not up to previous numbers, but I did manage to whip out 1304 in one sitting.

The other hard part was learning to focus on writing again.  Sit here in this chair with my hands on the keyboard and let words flow out of my fingertips without distraction.  Hubs was awesome and wrangled the cats on several occasions, so I could work in quiet.  But life doesn't work that way most of the time, so I needed to get used to working with things going on around me.  I think I accomplished that, too.  I was in the middle of my writing session Wednesday night when Hubs got stung by that wasp, and after I took care of him, I sat back down and got about 500 more words out.  

What I need to do from here on out is continue to write every day (or most days) and for longer stretches of time.  And if I can't do longer stretches of time, then I need to start having more than one writing session a day.  In the old days, I could crank out a 

Anyway, I think JuLoWriMo was a success.  If you've never done something like this, I highly recommend it.  Even if you're not a writer.  They say it takes 30 days to form a good habit... I think.  This is one way to do that.  Write every day.  Or exercise.  Or paint.  Whatever it is you want to do, pick a month and go for it.  You might be surprised at the results.  

The Olympics

I get why some of you are boycotting the Olympics.  Really, I do.  I'm not doing it, but I get it.  

For me, all the reasons to boycott the Olympics as an organization are stacked up against the individual athletes and their accomplishments.  Those kids have worked their asses off to get where they are and I'm going to support them, even if it's just me in my home cheering where they can't hear me.  I don't want to punish them over actions they had no part in and no control over.  

In a rational world, the athletes would en masse raise their voices against the stuff the organization is doing.  But as I've said before, we're in a far from rational world.  They're stuck working with the Olympics and I'm going to give them my support.  I mean, where else would most of these kids get to show their talents on a national stage?  It's not like ESPN is jumping over themselves to televise badminton.  They occasionally show swimming or running, but only the die-hard fans watch.  Right now, in this venue, it's their one shot to get the accolades they deserve for all their hard work.

So, yeah, I'm watching.  If you're boycotting to the point where you don't even want to read about it, stop reading here...

OMG, the girl - Chloe Dygert - who was in the cycling race and fell?  That spill was awful, but the fact that she got up, got back on her bike, and raced her heart out to win bronze was freakin' amazing.  She was feeling the pain when she walked up for an interview, and no wonder she was on the verge of tears after that fall, but go her.  I felt really bad for her, though.  If she hadn't fallen, she could've easily taken gold.  I wanted to give her a big, ol' hug.

I'm not sure what's up with our gymnastics girls.  Okay, so they're in first, but they're still making me sad. Poor Jade got knocked out of her best event - floor exercises - because she missed the landing on one of her passes and fell.  Now she can't compete in the finals for that event.  And none of the other girls even went up and hugged her after that.  Sad.  The men's side is worse.  But the bright spot is Paul Juda.  Go, Paul.

I'm also cheering on people of other nations.  Israel particularly, but any one of these individuals who represents my values is gonna get a big WOOHOO from me.   Screw the lousy organizations and the horrible policies of the countries they're competing for.  You go, guys.  

Sunday Update

Good morning all.  It's Sunday again... you know, in case you have a tough time figuring out what day it is, like me.  

In the writing realm, I didn't write every day like I was supposed to.  I missed two days because of reasons and due to because.  I still managed to add 4840 words, though, so it's all good.  This book is now at 24533.  Yay.  I've also been thinking about another book and wanting to work on that, which for me is a bad idea.  I need to finish this before I go back to that or I'll never finish this.  There are enough unfinished novels on my hard drive to attest to that.  Still, it's good to be thinking about books again, so I have that going for me.

I read two books last week and made it about 100 or so pages into another.  

I was busy in the kitchen this week.  I made oatmeal cookies which didn't turn out too well, but we're eating them anyway.  Then I made coffee cake which didn't turn out the way it was supposed to, but we're eating it anyway.  Then I made pizza which was pretty damn good if I do say so myself.

On the activity front, I only did something active four days out of seven, and some of that wasn't all that active.  Still, it was more than sitting on my butt in a chair, so I counted it.  Two of the days, I walked.  My mileage is up to just over 30 miles this year.  Weight: 169.2

I've been working on the genealogy again.  This week, I got a little farther up the tree on the ancestors who came from Europe.  If I read German, I could probably make more progress, but I'm muddling along.  I also discovered some cousins I once knew, but haven't seen in decades, who have passed away.  They're all on my dad's side, and those people stopped communicating with Mom after Dad passed, so while it is annoying that no one told us, it's not super surprising.  If we'd known, we probably would've at least sent flowers, if not actually gone and paid our respects.  They were all in their 80s, so nothing shocking there, but still sad.  I also found where my great-aunt's grandson was killed in a tractor accident in 1962.  Dead kids in my tree make me sad.

I'm still thinking about the day job. I can't seem to stop myself from wondering if this got done or that got done, and did they remember to do that other thing that I was in charge of but that no one seemed to take care of before I got there?  :shrug:  This, too, shall pass.  Also, I kinda miss my guys.  Not enough to want to go back to work, but still...

Well, I think that's about it for me.  Other things happened, but at the moment I can't think of them, so they must not have been important in the scheme of things.  This week will be more writing, more reading, etc.  I also really need to get on top of updating all my books' back matter and continuing to make sure all the paperbacks are correct.  (That last one should've already been done, but it's a slog because my internet is sooo slow that I'm less inclined to want to do it.)

Have a great day, everyone!  And if you're in the mood, tell me about your weekend.