Wed. March 22, 2023: Feeling Spring-y

image courtesy of Jill Wellington via pixabay.com

Wednesday, March 22, 2023

Waxing Moon

Cloudy and cold

The latest Process Muse, about physical space, dropped this morning. You can read it here.

I had trouble settling into the page yesterday morning. I thought doing the dishes would help focus me, but I sat down and there were a million little fidgety things demanding my attention. Since I was in that kind of headspace, I did the social media rounds for yesterday’s episode of Legerdemain. I answered emails. I’ve got all but one email account down to manageable levels, and I’m working on that last one, while doing upkeep on the others. That one’s a little rough because I got on an email list for a “media company” that bulk sends sales emails, and every time I “unsubscribe all” they just send it from a different “publication.” I think I’m going to start reporting them as spam. I’ve put in multiple requests to take me off everything, and they ignore it. And they’re mucking up the email.

It’s not where I get my main business/writing email, thank goodness.

Hoopla is finally distributing The Topic Workbooks et al; I have so many links to add to my various pages. I need to block in time to get on top of that.

I’m getting another bonus for the serials, which is nice. I’m working on some paid advertising for them this spring.

I have Process Muse topics planned into next January! I managed to do a little bit of work on an upcoming post, but I need to fact check a few things. I will finish it up tomorrow or Friday and schedule it.

Put in a request to have maintenance come and take a look at the dishwasher. I’m pretty sure it needs a new power board; hopefully they’re willing to do that, and not just switch it out with whatever subpar dishwasher they have on hand. The guy was going to stop by either yesterday afternoon or this morning; it wasn’t yesterday afternoon, so I hope it’s this morning.

Turned around a coverage in the afternoon. It was warm enough to work out on the porch, with hyacinths and cats.

I’m looking forward to April, with the DG’s End of Play providing the emotional space to write FALL FOREVER, and then I’m doing an eco/wellness challenge with the yoga studio. I mean, daily life and script coverage and the rest is in there as well, but I’m really looking forward to those two pillars of the month’s structure.

Yoga was great last night. The woman behind me grew up on the street where I currently live, so we had a lot to talk about. Her daughter is opening a vintage clothing shop within walking distance, so I look forward to checking it out when it opens. I had some good conversations with several people there. The studio draws a really interesting, eclectic group. I’m looking forward to spending more time there.

Picked up takeout on the way home (I need to stop doing that). And someone was in my parking spot. I moved over two slots, to a space that’s usually free, because I didn’t want to take anyone else’s.

Slept well, although I had busy dreams. I was in an office I remembered in the dream from another dream. It had to do with horse racing. It was something about jockeys being drugged without their knowledge/against their will. I need to make a few notes, because there’s the seed of something there (and I haven’t written about horse racing in a long time).

Up early. Off to the laundromat (believe me, it was necessary). I was the only one there, which was glorious.

While the laundry went through the machine, I started the first read-through of THE TREES WHISPERED DEATH since I finished the first draft in December. When I finished the draft, I was relieved that it was finished, but I was discouraged. However, starting the read, there’s a lot I really like, especially when it comes to voice, dialogue, and character. Don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty to do on it, PLENTY, before it’s submission-ready, but there’s a good foundation. Both this and CAST IRON MURDER, I think, are suitable for agent/traditional submissions rather than small publisher submissions, as long as I don’t get boxed in to “cozy.” TREES is definitely historical mystery (1957) with an older, amateur female sleuth AND deals with the issues of the day, so it would be difficult to try to push it into a cozy box. CAST IRON deals with contemporary social issues; it could be heavily revised to be a cozy, but that would destroy the book, in my opinion. Both have strong, older female protagonists at the center. Both have long-term series potential.

I will sit down and write a series overview for each as I work on revisions, and have that ready, in case it’s requested. I have thumbnails of the first three books in each series. I have publishers in mind that I think would work for each of them, but I will probably query agents first, although I don’t think that will happen until autumn for CAST IRON and probably not until next spring for TREES.

But both are stronger, overall, than I thought they were when I finished the original drafts. They definitely need both a developmental edit and a multi-colored draft edit to clean up sloppy writing, but they are nowhere near the hot messes I thought they were when I finished them, and that’s a good feeling.

I’m waiting for the maintenance guy to come and take a look at the dishwasher; I don’t want to get caught up in writing Legerdemain and then get interrupted; at the same time, if he doesn’t show up on time, or is hours late, I don’t want to lose that writing time.  I guess I could fold laundry first, right? And then, if he’s not here by the time it’s folded and put away, I’ll sit down to write and hope he doesn’t show up until afternoon!

I have one script in my queue today and two tomorrow, so I’m in decent shape.

Episode 17 of Angel Hunt drops today. I hope you enjoy it.

Have a good one!