Let's Be Honest

Yesterday morning, when the house was quiet and I was keeping to the office to let Hubs sleep, I cracked open once of my unfinished books and started reading it.  Oh, it had a few first draft type problems, but all in all, it was pretty damn good.  

I had hoped that by reading through it, it would spark some kind of creative spark.  Okay, so I hoped for a bonfire, but I would've settled for a spark.  The only urge I felt, unfortunately, was the urge to edit.  And that wasn't even that strong.  No more of an urge than I get reading work I didn't write.  

It's been about ten months since I published my last book.  It's been over 6 months since I wrote anything creative.  From time to time, thinking about my writing has been a knife in my spleen.  Putting words onto paper had been my joy.  

I was going to say 'my passion', but I couldn't have been that passionate about it, if I gave it up.  I see other writers talking about the passion driving them to write more and be better, and how this has lead them to making enough money to live on (or at least to make their financial lives better).  

I don't think I've ever had that kind of passion about anything.  I love putting words down.  I love people reading those words.  I love having people pay me money for it.  But is it my passion?  :shrug:  Like I said, it couldn't been that passion-provoking, if I could give it up so easily.

Yeah, the choice to get a job instead of write was not the easiest in the world, but in retrospect, it wasn't that damn hard either.  If it was my passion, shouldn't it have been harder to give up?  But let's face facts - the writing was not making any money.  I made like $1350 that first year and every year afterward has been less.  My total sales figure since February of 2015 is just under $4K.  I can't even bear to think about how much money and time I spent to make that pittance.  I'm like $11K in the hole net.

Finally, enough was enough.  Continue to throw good money after bad, while Hubs works himself into an early grave to keep us from going bankrupt?  Or go get a damn job?  See, not that hard a choice after all.

Sure, somewhere in the back of my head, I thought I would work and write.  That was obviously a pipe dream.  My brain isn't wired like that, I guess.  I hit work and my left brain wrestled my right brain to the floor, pushed its face in the dirt, and shouted, "My turn, Bitch!" Shortly after which, ol' right brain crawled into a corner, whimpered for a while, and then slipped into a coma.  

I don't think I could write anything creative now if my life depended on it.  I write loads of stuff at work - mostly emails and letters.  No creativity involved.  Occasionally, I write marketing stuff and maybe put a little flair into that.  But that's rote stuff.  I could burp out marketing copy in my sleep.  Write such that characters come alive?  Not a chance in hell.  I was reading about Aryl and Lyra and the gang, and I know where their supposed to go and what they ought to be doing.  It should've been easy to start typing again, but I can't make the words come.  

Will I ever write again?  I have no clue.  I've never been very good at looking into the future.  For now, all I can say is that I can't write while I work, and I need to work for who knows how long...  Three years?  Five years?  Ten?  In nine years, I can take early social security (if there's any left by then).  Will anyone want to read what I write by then?  Will Aryl and Lyra wait?  Will Duke?  Will the SCIU gang and Dennis Haggarty even be relevant then?  Or will there be something new I can try my hand at, leaving all my unfinished books unfinished forever?  Time will tell.  

I'm such a stubborn cuss, I can't actually admit defeat here.  So, it's not goodbye to my stories.  It's just 'so long for now'.  And I'll still be here at the blog for anyone who still wants to come around.  

Sunday Update - Week 4

 Fair warning: I don't have a whole lot to talk about today, so this might be boring.

I spent last week laid up for the most part with a head cold.  I'm still not 100% over it.  It's lingering.  And now Hubs has it.   Weee. 

Sick or not, things had to be done, so I ran errands yesterday.  Walmart was Walmart.  I picked up necessities and stuff to combat this cold.  Then I stopped at the feed store and picked up supplies for the critters.  I got home and unloaded the groceries.  Hubs unloaded the feed.  Then we spent the rest of the day laying around.  

A brief thought on Robitussin Honey... not worth the extra money you pay for better tasting cough syrup.  And yeah, that's the only reason I bought it.  I took some last night to try and kick the last of this stuff in the ass.  Now I have medicine head like you wouldn't believe.  I could've gotten the same for about $5 less a bottle. 

If you checked in yesterday, you saw I didn't read much last week.  I got about 138 pages into a book that I DNF'd.  One would think that since I was home and sick, I would've been reading a lot.  Nope.  Wearing glasses was not an option.  They sat on the bridge of my nose, weighing on my sinuses and making me sneeze.  Which was part of the fun during that short span I was at the office.  

Don't even ask about activity.  Bleh.  However, being sick has reduced my weight.  Weight: 160.0.  Yep, lost about 4 pounds in 10 days.  I do not recommend this as a weight loss plan, though.  I expect that I'll go back up again after this.  We'll see.  On a brighter note, I learned yesterday that despite my lack of activity, I can still heft around a 40 pounds bag of birdseed.  Go me.

I worked about 20 hours last week.  Monday, half of Tuesday, and Friday.  Friday was playing catch-up for the days I missed.  And there are still things left undone which are running around in my head like a hamster on crack.

The big snowstorm they predicted last week ended up dumping about 2-4 inches of the white stuff.  So, totally not the 4-8 or 6-12 they'd predicted days earlier.  It was mostly gone by the time I went to work on Friday. Yay.  

My month of Ancestry ended on Wednesday.  I learned a lot this time around - mostly about people closer in the tree.  Cousins and whatnot.  The best part was talking to Mom and hearing her stories about people.  (Might not have been the best part of her... me rattling on endlessly about genealogy.)  I got to hear about the guy who worked as a clown, marketing cookies in the metropolitan Detroit area.  And the great aunt my grandmother hated, who apparently stunk.  And how my grandfather built the addition on the house she grew up in.  (I googled the address, so I could see it, and then we talked about her growing up there.)  Dudes, if you still have older people in your family that you can talk to about this stuff, do it now before it's too late.  I don't have my dad to talk to and I lost all his stories.  Thank goodness, Mom remembers his stuff as well as her own.  Also, thank goodness Mom's memory is still as sharp as a chef's knife.  

Okay, I think that's about it.  Maybe this post wasn't as boring as I thought it would be when I started.  And the medicine head is going away, too.  Yay.  Have a great day everyone.  I need to hit the Dollar General today because, wouldn't you know it, I forgot to buy Kleenex.  Derp.

How was your week?

Saturday Reading Wrap-up - 1/27/23

This wasn't the most exciting week in reading.  In fact, I spent most of the week reading a book that I DNF'd yesterday.  

I got one new used paperback last Saturday.  It's a romantic suspense by an author I love.  I got another paperback new from Amazon (which I just discovered I actually read before - derp).  No new ebooks.

Books Read:

None

DNFs:

1/27/23 - paranormal... horror... I can never tell with Anne Rice.  Okay, so I DNF'd Tales of a Body Thief.  I had read it years ago, but as I was reading it this time, I wasn't quite as impressed as I remembered.  Lestat is whiny.  And by the time I reached page 138 or something, he was approaching too stupid to live.  I suppose when you've got a character who basically can't die and you're tasked with writing another book about him, you have to go somewhere.  :shrug:  I couldn't take it anymore so I closed the book and slipped it back on the shelf.  I'll keep it, but I don't think I'll read it again.  I need to buy The Vampire Lestat and The Queen of the Damned to complete the set and read those again.

Currently reading... a cute little cozy I picked up to round out my last Amazon order.  Apparently, I've read this before, but I don't remember it so whatever. LOL

What was on your reading plate this week?

Thursday This n That

Well, the big news of the week is this head cold from hell I managed to come down with on Saturday.  All sneezing and some coughing, but no fever.  I worked Monday, but only worked half a day on Tuesday and took all of yesterday off.  You know if I'm taking time off work, it's gotta be bad.  I've blown my nose so much that it and the space between it and my upper lip look like raw meat. I've gone through three boxes of tissue and a roll of toilet paper.  Between coughing and sneezing, I think I've pulled every little muscle in my rib cage.  I slept ten hours last night and I'm weak as a kitten.  I could probably sleep another ten hours.  I just wrote the office that I'm not going in again.  

The other day, I discovered a good channel on Direct TV that I didn't know we had - COZI TV.  It's got reruns of old shows - like Quincy ME, and Emergency! I accidentally scrolled too far up and ended up in the shopping channels, and it was nestled right in there with another good channel that runs old western shows and movies.  Anyway, they'll be running a marathon of Emergency all day Saturday.  Yay.  Ah, nostalgia.  I had a serious little girl crush on Randolph Mantooth.

My soap arrived.  I thought it was 16 bars, but it was only 8.  (I went back and checked.  My fault.)  $22 for 8 bars of soap.  Cringe.  But it's necessary to my existence, so I pay it.  Pre-'rona, this was easy to find on store shelves.  Now?  Nope.  

Okay, that's about as much as I can think of right now.  I'm going back to bed.  Blerg.

Sunday Update - Week 3

 Three weeks into 2023 and I already missed a Sunday Update.  Derp.  This is not an auspicious start for the year.  

Okay, anyway, I ate some things on Monday that did not agree with my stomach and spent part of early Tuesday morning praying to the porcelain god.  But I couldn't just not go to work because there was something very important that I had to do first thing, so I went to work.  Did the thing, made the call... and the dude wasn't answering his phone, so I left a voicemail.  Then I waited to see if dude would call back.  I gave up at 11 and went home.  I spent the rest of the day sleeping and reading, so I was all better when Wednesday came.  Yay.  Unfortunately, that little bout of whatever must've side-swiped my awesome immune system because I woke up yesterday with a scratchy throat which developed into a full blown head cold.  Anti-yay. :shrug: I've had worse, but I am a little bummed that I get to spend my two precious days off blowing my nose.

On the upside, sitting around doing nothing leaves lots of time for reading, so I actually finished 3 books last week.

Despite the cold virus, I made parm-encrusted pork chops last night for dinner.  Yum.  No baking otherwise.

In the weight/activity sphere, I cleaned the office bathrooms and then swept the whole office.  Cleaning is activity, damn it.  I sure felt it the next day.  Weight: 162.6 as of like five minutes ago.

I'm still playing in the family trees.  Mom set me a task yesterday morning, so I spent the afternoon tackling that.  Nor sure if I accomplished anything toward what she wanted me to find out, but I think I have the entire twig filled out, and I can ask if I found the person she was looking for the next time I talk to her.  In doing this, I discovered a bit about this one person in my family who was written up in the paper for wife-swapping in rural Michigan in 1939.  She moved in with the neighbor and the neighbor's wife moved in with her husband, they divided up the kids, and then they got divorces and remarried the new spouses.  Weird.  My month of Ancestry is almost up, though, so this will end and I'll go back to my usual pursuits.  I ought to have people pay me to do this for them.  

I did a little online shopping.  I bought soap.  Lever 2000 Aloe & Cucumber.  It's the only soap that keeps me clean without making me want to itch my skin off or douse myself with perfume to cover its scent.  It hasn't arrived yet, but it should be here before my last bar becomes a sliver.  I also bought 2 CDs - both by AJR - a book to round out my free-shipping amount.  (The soap couldn't be included in that, damn them.)  I haven't received those either, but I already downloaded the music to my computer, so YAY.

I think that's it for me today.  Work is work.  Life otherwise is unsurprising and unexciting.  How are things in your little piece of the world?

Saturday Reading Wrap-up - 1/21/23

Three weeks into 2023 already?  Gah.  Anyway, it was a good reading week for me.  Yay.  Okay, part of that was being sick on Tuesday, so I had almost a whole day to sit in a chair, reading.  I'm 4 books ahead on my reading goal.  Woohoo.

New books?  I got my first new ebook of the year! It's a suspense.  Big surprise there, I know.  LOL  

Books Read: 

6) Three Men Out (Nero Wolfe) by Rex Stout (1/20/23) - Crime - 5 stars. Neither new to me nor underappreciated.  Picked up for 50c at St. Vinnys.
Review: "Rex Stout never disappoints."

5) Domino by Phyllis A. Whitney (1/17/23) - Romantic Suspense - 5 stars.  Super not new to me - I started reading and collecting Phyllis in high school.  Snagged this at St. Vinnys for 75c.
Review: "Another excellent novel by Ms. Whitney."

4) Spinsters in Jeopardy by Ngaio Marsh (1/14/23) - Mystery - 5 stars.  Not new to me, but I haven't read nearly as many of her novels as I'd like.  And she's got plenty of lovin' for this one.  Also a St. Vinny's find for only 75c.
Review: "This one started out a little weirder than I was expecting, but it turned into a good mystery with plenty of thrills."

No DNFs.

Currently reading... I didn't start anything new after I finished that Nero Wolfe last night.  I might go with Anne Rice next or dive into that one suspense ebook I picked up.  Either way, good times ahead.

What was on your reading list this week?

Thursday This n That

Hey, it's still Thursday!  

I had a gentleman call me 'kiddo' this week and it made my day.  And although that gentleman will never read this, I just want to say 'not knowing how to use computers very well certainly does not make you stupid'.  Think about how much of human existence and innovation happened before the computer was even invented.  And I've known too many people who could use computers who certainly weren't smart.  

Anyway...

A fly lands on the ceiling by putting its front two legs on the ceiling first and swinging the rest of its body up.  On day in college, I spent an untold amount of time watching a fly to come up with that observation.  You're welcome.  See, all that money wasn't totally wasted.

I don't actually remember a whole lot about college.  No, not drugs.  Car accident.  Achieved the same effect.  Moral of the story?  Don't do drugs.

Speaking of the car accident... the anniversary was last week. 29 years.  A while back, I had a gal ask me if I was alright.  I was all like 'sure, why?' and she said she asked because I was limping.  My answer was that I always limp.  But that's not strictly true.  For a long time, it was true.  And then it wasn't.  Tada. Of course, when I do limp, I don't notice it because part of me thinks I always limp. Silly wabbit.

There's a stack of bricks behind the office that I covet.  I keep thinking they'd make a nice retaining wall under the deck where the slope is bad enough it's washing our pea gravel down the hill.  I wonder if the boss would sell them to me, but I keep forgetting to ask.  :shrug:  It's not like I have time to futz with a retaining wall these days, but the idea has been tickling the back of my head for a while now.

Monday night, I ate somethings that didn't agree with me and spent part of the wee hours of Tuesday praying to the porcelain god.  If you're not familiar with him, his name is Ralph.  Sometimes they call him Huey.  

Crass?  On occasion.  I also once knew some of the dirtiest jokes you would ever hear.  I don't tell them anymore.  Every rare once in a while, I'll remember one and laugh to myself.  I told one to a friend back in the summer of 2021.  She couldn't remember it well and she kept asking me to repeat it, much to my dismay because it is particularly nasty.  She rolled every time she coaxed me to tell it again.  She has since moved away and I will never tell it again.  Never.  Don't even ask.

Seriously. I mean it. Don't ask.

And on that note, I'm going back to my Nero Wolfe.  Have a great night.. day... err, whenever you're reading this, make it great.  

Saturday Reading Wrap-up - 1/14/23

Heigh ho.  Not a whole lot to talk about this week, but hey, it's another Saturday and I did some reading, so it's all good.

I didn't get any new books.  :sadface:

Books Read: 

3) Kill Shot by Vince Flynn (1/8/23) - Political Thriller - 5 stars.  Not new to me (especially since I read it in 2012) and well-appreciated.  I picked this up from St. Vinny's for $1.
Review (added to my previous review): "I didn't remember reading this, which made it even more awesome. And since I wrote my review, they did a movie with Mitch Rapp. I haven't seen it and I don't want to. I'd rather Mitch live in my imagination. =o)"

No DNFs.

Currently reading... Spinsters in Jeopardy by Ngaio Marsh.  Another thrift store find.  I do enjoy Ngaio Marsh, but this one started a little weird.  I kept at it and it's pretty good stuff.  

What's on your reading list for this week?

Thursday This n That

 Dang, I missed Thursday again.  That sucker just flew past with no regard for my blog.  Ah, well.  Better late than never.  I really had intended to do better this year.  Derp.

I read a FB comment this morning where someone was saying how much they enjoyed a particular suspense novel and, at the end, they said 'may contain triggers for some people'.  Ummm... I would reckon that everything contains a trigger for some people.  I would also reckon that if a book contains nothing that would make anyone uncomfortable, it's not a very interesting book.  Jus' sayin'.

I wrote a book about a serial rapist - FERTILE GROUND.  Did I put trigger warnings on it?  Nope.  It's right there in the blurb.  For the record, though, the book contains no actual rape scenes.  I didn't feel the need to be explicit in order to keep the pedal to the metal on the suspense.  And I made the end ultra-satisfying.  Well, I found it satisfying.  :evil grin:

This entire week has been one big slam-fest at work.  I thought I was busy before, but this week made a lie out of that.  I drank a pot of coffee yesterday just to keep up.  Man, I was flyin'.  Woohoo.  Too much more of that and I might actually turn into diffuse ball of charged particles.  So, if I disappear and you just see a glow hovering over SW Missouri, that's me.

Huh, I just noticed it's Friday the 13th.  Make sure you leave milk and cookies out for Jason Voorhies.  Eh, I'm not a suspicious sort, but it fun to joke about.  Of course, if today turns out to suck, I can blame the date. LOL

I actually got to use my writing skills this week.  A big important letter needed to go out and they handed it to me to edit.  I took the general gist of it and rewrote it (after I told the original creator I was going to rewrite it and got his okee-dokee.)  I received much praise for the end result.  Yay.

For the record, everything I say I've done, I've actually done.  Jus' sayin'.  And yeah, I know... many of the things I've done were a couple decades ago.  I must be rusty, but I still have the chops.

Okay, I should probably wrap this up and go about my day, so you can go about yours.  Have a great one!

Sunday Update - Week 1

Well, hello there.  The first week of 2023 is in the can.  Onward and upward.

No, I'm still not writing.  I'm not sure if I can while I'm working.  It feels like the entirety of my brain space is taken up with the job and my creativity has curled into the fetal position in a corner. Every once in a while it mumbles something to itself and I try to write that down, but I'm not getting more than a whisper of an idea here and there.  It's been a while since I even got that.  I think it's comatose now.  It's funny (in a warped-sense-of-humor way) that before I went back to work, I had scads of time and no money. Now I have money but no time.

Anyway, I'm working 40 hour weeks with 2.5 hrs of lunch.  Bills are getting paid, the fridge is full, and that's all that matters.  Downtime is for decompressing.

I am reading in my downtime.  I've already completed two books for 2023.  I set my goal for 50 this year.  I should be able to do that even if I find myself too tired to read here or there.  I hit St Vinnys yesterday and came home with 8 books for $6 - a Vince Flynn I didn't already have, a couple of Phyllis Whitneys, a couple Victoria Holts, an Anne Rice, a Rex Stout, and a Ngaio Marsh.  Yay.  I'm reading the Flynn now.

In baking news, for New Years, I made a chocolate cake with strawberry frosting, and I substituted wine for some of the water needed to make the cake.  It turned out a little denser, but was pretty tasty.  I also made beef bourgignon for dinner that day.  (Someone gave me a bottle of Pinot Noir, and since I don't drink, I figured I'd better cook with it.)  It was super yummy.  

As for weight, I clocked in the year at 165.2.  Then I made a pig of myself all week.  (Pizza and donuts at work, cake at home.)  I'm a bit afraid to step on the scale today LOL.  No activity to speak of.  Hubs and I did take a walk early in the week, which was good.  I need to up the activity level before my arteries clog and I give myself a coronary.  

I'm currently doing genealogy again.  Yesterday, I discovered my great-great grandpa had a middle name.  I found his wedding certificate - in German - and using both an online translator and a print-out of German characters as they equate to English, I parsed it out.  Yep, Adam August was my 2x grandfather and just plain Adam was my 3x grandfather.  Genealogy is like working a puzzle combined with solving a mystery.  Right up my alley.  I found out another grandfather had fought in the War of 1812.  And I got one branch of the tree all the way back to a man who was born in 1475 and his sons all have Sir in front of their names.  

Yes, I could be using that time to write, but refer back to the creative portion of my brain being comatose.  I'm all analytical now, so this pastime suits me.

Oh, and I got a new-to-me wool dress coat yesterday.  It's a Larry Levin, or something - which run like $150 and I got it for $8, so woohoo.  Mid-thigh with a cross-button thing.  All I care about is that it's warm and that it goes with my dressier work clothes - for those days when I can't wear my leather jacket.  (My leather has never seen the rain/snow and I don't want it to.)

Well, this update thing turned out way longer than I meant it to, but I wanted to address some things and I'm feeling chatty.  But I think I'm done now.  Have a great week wherever you are.  :hugs:

Saturday Reading Wrap-up - 1/7/23

 Welcome to the first Reading Wrap-up of the year.  Yay!  

I haven't gotten any new books this year.  That might change today. I'm thinking about stopping at the thrift stores to spend this Visa gift card that's burning a hole in my pocket.  Also yay.

Books Read: 

2) What Lies Beneath by Adam Croft (1/2/23) - Suspense* - 4 stars. New to me but not underappreciated. I saw this listed for free on a FB page I follow.
Review: "Interesting suspense... I just wanted more of it and less of the personal stuff. But that's me."

1) Snowflakes and Sparks by Sophia-Leigh Robbins (1/1/23) - Romance* - 4 stars. New to me but not underappreciated. Free off another FB page I follow.
No Review.

0) The Cat Who Came for Christmas by Silver James (1/1/23) - Holiday Paranomal Short* - 5 stars. Definitely not new to me, and not on Goodreads, so it can't get the appreciation it deserves.  Copied from the author's blog and sent to my Kindle for casual reading.  
Review: This story was awesome.  I love when Silver does her Christmas short stories - they're little slice of her worlds and they are always amazing.  If you aren't following Silver's blog... well, shame on you.

No DNFs.

Currently reading... A drama written in the fifties about an embezzler.  I'm not that far along in it.  It's interesting and the writing is pulling me forward, but I'm not quite sure what the point is yet.

What did you read to start 2023?  

2022 - A Year in Review

 Yep, 2022 is over. Time to go over what happened. And yes, I still have a flair for stating the obvious, so that didn't change with the new year. LOL

Let's see... 

I started out 2022 working on getting my 17th book ready for publication.  Song of Storm and Shroud hit the electronic shelves on 3/21/22 to a chorus of crickets.  Huge thanks to the 3 people who bought a copy.  

In all of 2022, I sold 30 books in 2022 for a whopping $54.  I would've sold more if I'd had the money for advertising, but I had no money. Which leads me to...

The big news of the year, of course, was the fact that I went back to work full time after an 18 year hiatus.  I am an office grunt.  I answer phones, file stuff, provide general backup for people whose jobs are more important than mine, etc.  The rented mule. The corporate mushroom. A busy bee.  The job is accomplishing it's intended purpose and that's all that matters.  I like it about 90% of the time, which is more than I've liked several other jobs I've had in the past.  

I had hoped that once I settled into my job, I'd have time to write.  I didn't count on the fact that once I get home, I don't have the energy or the will to write in the couple hours I'm home before bedtime.  My brain has entirely shifted away from anything creative.  I still hope to write again, but I wouldn't hold my breath while waiting on another book if I were you.  You'll turn blue and fall over.

In weight and activity news, I started the year at 182.2 pounds and ended the year at 165.2 - 17 pounds lost.  I wish I could say that was due to being active and eating less, but it's due to stress and eating less. I'm not home to graze.  I eat lunch - usually yogurt, a cheese stick, some ham chunks, and grapes - and then dinner and a bowl of ice cream.  I keep a bag of mixed nuts and a bag of Hershey's minis in my desk, and munch on those from time to time.  (I hand out candy bars to co-workers more than I eat them, though.)  I did have this great idea that I would walk on my lunch break (30 minutes), but I've only done that once.  Thus, my walking for the entire year was only 33.65 miles.  No biking at all.  My biggest activity these days is cleaning the office at work, once a month-ish.  I really need to up my activity level for 2023 so I don't turn into an atrophied lump of meat.

Tomorrow, work is having a big in-house thang wherein they go over the year before and address ways to improve and goals for the year ahead.  I had to fill out a sheet on my goals, etc.  I'm a grunt.  I have no goals except to do the best job I can do with the limited resources and control a grunt tends to have.  I mean, I'm 52 years old and post-retired.  What goals am I supposed to have?  Try not to fuck anything up too bad so I can keep my job.  (No, I did not put that on the form, but my bosses knows where my blog is at, so they're probably reading this anyway.  :waves:  Hi, guys.  Don't worry, no one around here reads this blog except you.)  I think I wrote 'continued improvement in all aspects of my work' - or if I didn't write that, I should've.  

Okay, I think that's it.  Not a whole lot of action in my year.  As for the year ahead?  Well, I don't have any goals or resolutions for the new year.  Keep working.  Keep breathing in and out.  Keep progressing toward Hubs' and my combined goals. I think we're thinking we can put in a wood stove by the end of the year.  

How was your 2022?  Do you have goals for 2023?