Happy Easter!

 

What Can I Say?

 

I'm struggling with coming up with blog posts because I know basically everyone just wants to know when the (***&&^^%$##@@!ing books will be out, and I can't answer definitively except to say not as soon as anyone (including me) wants.

ARGH.

But I mean, it is what it is. I'm writing as fast as I can. Granted, at the moment that doesn't seem to be more than about 500 words a day per project. 

Do you ever go through one of those cycles where, no matter what you do or how careful you are in the doing of it, WITHOUT FAIL it comes bouncing back with a bunch of problems? That's me right now. Everything I start either ends with me falling down a rabbit hole or, worse, boomeranging back to hit me between the eyes. 

But on we go...

Anyway, all is not lost. The Office Elf is slowly excavating my office from beneath years-worth of using it as a giant file cabinet. I might, in theory, soon be able to work in there again. I learned to make the perfect margarita. I discovered the series What We Do in the Shadows and rediscovered Aimee Mann. My miniature Japanese maples seem to have survived their first winter and so far the three roses I moved to larger pots are hanging on by their tendrils (I do not have luck transplanting roses, so I'm cautiously hopeful). We had a short cold spell, but it's warming up again, so I should be swimming tomorrow. AND I'll be celebrating Easter with my family for the first time in two years.

So...lots to be glad about. 

I'm strenuously avoiding the news as much as is feasible and I've cut way back on both True Crime and social media. All of which has left me calmer and more optimistic and, believe it or not, more productive. ;-)

So what's up with you?

 

As the World Turns

 

It's been warm enough to swim for most of the last two weeks! 

And, if the weatherman is to be believed, it will be warm enough to swim for most of the NEXT two weeks. Usually, we don't get these long stretches of warm weather until we hit May, so that's both the good news and the bad news. Good news for me. Probably not so good for the planet. It's major drought time in California.

But we're all gonna die anyway, so oh well.

(I try not to say that around the Office Elf as it doesn't inspire her to do her best work.) ;-D 

So it's been a crazy-ass distracted start to the year, no lie--and also no signs of that letting up anytime soon either as we're once again trying to refinance the house. Also I'm going through getting our rental property up to snuff. This is time-consuming and nerve-frazzling stuff that I've been putting off for years, and now it has to be dealt with. 

But about the books. 

Hide and Seek is coming along beautifully--that 500 words a day thing is really paying off in a chapter a week.

The Movie-Town Murders is also coming along, but it's a more complicated story and, as I said, there have been a LOT of interruptions. Also a LOT of rewriting. I know I'm overthinking it, but at the same time, I have to be happy with it. Hopefully, hopefully, HOPEFULLYFORTHELOVEOFGOD I'll be finishing up by the end of this month. 

I've got (I think) half the book, but despite my detailed outline, I'm not writing in linear fashion, so it's more like...well, picture the parts of a clock--gears, springs, tiny cuckoo bird--scattered across a work desk. The bits and pieces are all there, but not in working order. Not yet. 

But it's coming. And I really love where Sam and Jason's relationship is at. 

BUT CAN IT LAST? 

Who knows. 

Anyway, after The Movie-Town Murders, I jump right into the next two Secrets and Scrabble books, and then...I don't know. I don't have anything else officially scheduled. There are plenty of things I want to write--I really, really want to finish the Holmes & Moriarity series this year--but given how insanely slow things are going right now, I'm afraid to commit to anything. To be honest, this year's goals weren't about books and writing so much as getting my house in order. My literal house but also my metaphorical house. 

So that's where we are. I'm working, I'm writing, the books are happening, but I've resigned myself to the fact that this year someone or something is going to be knocking at my office door every half-hour. I'm trying to be patient and good-humored about it. Four months in, I can safely say this is not the year I planned, but what else is new?