The garden is really coming along. I made ratatouille this morning in the Instant Pot and the only ingredient I had to buy was onion. It feels good to have all that available. 

Also, in hot weather, there's nothing like coming with an instant pot instead of spending a few hours over the stove. When I first got the pot, I bought an extra liner, which makes labor intensive dishes like this a lot easier - I don't have to dump out the first stage of vegetables, I can just switch in another liner. And I have a silicone lid, so I can just put the whole pot into the fridge when I'm done. 

I like my ratatouille both hot and cold, so it doesn't matter to me.

What's your favorite straight-from-the garden dish?

Routine

Do you have one? Do you need one? Or do you drop into your day like the balls in a pinball machine, scattering everywhere? 

I'm a little of each. I have certain routines I like to follow - tasks on my calendar that get done each week, because otherwise I'd forget - and if I don't get my Monday morning at the coffee shop, I do get a little grumpy. The rest of the time, there's a list, and so long as the bulk of items on that list get done, I don't care in what order. 

A lot of writers like to sit down at their desk at a set time every day, staying there for a certain period or a certain number of words. That doesn't work for me. I've spent so much of my life writing in small corners of my life - at work, on the train, waiting in line - that a large stretch of time usually pushes me to do something that takes a large stretch of time to accomplish. I can do words in a few minutes, and come back to them later. It may not be the most efficient, but that's how I've trained myself to work, and this dog is too old to learn new tricks when the old ones serve perfectly well. 

This heat wave we've been having has definitely thrown off my routine. I haven't seen the coffee shop in 2 weeks, other than standard Saturday breakfast club after the farmers market. My daily 2-mile walks, which absolutely helped my writing brain, have also been curtailed. The only task I'm really keeping up on is the garden, because if I don't, it will die and we will have no veggies. 

So what's your method? Are you a list maker? A list checker? Or do you fall free form into your day and still get all the things done?? Or do you fall free form into your day and still get all the things done?

Long hot summer

It's hot. It's been hot for days, and it's going to be hot for more days. Philadelphia is good at heat and humidity, but we had August in June, and now we're having August in July.

The heat has sucked every bit of energy out of me, but since things still have to get done, I'm running on fumes at this point. 

Which means today's check-in is very low effort, but I did want to share that if you are in the UK, Songbird is on 99p sale for the entire month.

Are you a summer or winter person? I'm definitely winter - you can always put on more clothes, but I haven't yet figured out how to take off my skin.

Here's the link to buy, if you're so inclined. It says something about the heat level that I had to be reminded to do this.

Stages of grief

Last week I told you about the mastermind group I joined. A week ago today was the first zoom meeting - just the coach, his assistant, and nine slightly nervous writers. 

After some preliminary chat and an explanation of what was coming, he went over the goals section in each of our applications and gave us his thoughts on them. (The application was long - longer than most job applications I've ever filled out).

When he got to mine, he read out, "I'm confident in my books, my sales are decent, and I have a lot of good reviews, so what I'd like to learn is how to market them bettter and get them in front of a wider audience." 

That seems reasonable, right?

Right?

"Well...." he starts, and gives me an apologetic smile. "Your blurbs are doing a lot of the heavy lifting. Those covers, though, they aren't doing you any favors."

What?

The five stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

"No!"

"#%&@*$!!!"

"Can I keep the cool font?"

"This is the worst thing that's ever happened to me."

"Hmm. I wonder if that cover designer I talked to a while ago - the one who did the covers on books I bought, but whose covers I didn't want to be like - has any availability?"

So that's where I am. It's the Tudor books he's talking about, and while I do LOVE those covers, and always will, thtey don't sell the books the way they should. And I've paid a significant chunk of money for this coaching, and he warned in the application that there would be hard truths and apologetic smiles.

I just didn't think it would happen in the first week.

Help

Help.

There's a word. One I hate using. Always have. 

But.

Recently I had the opportunity to apply for a mastermind program for indie writers. I knew it would be good for me. I knew someone who was in the program just ending, who spoke highly of it. 

But. 

It's asking for help, right? Even paying for the membership is asking for help.

I don't do that well. Just ask my husband the stupid situations I get myself into because I don't like asking for help. Move furniture alone? Sure. So what if I can't stand up straight for 2 days? Transport 3 yards of mulch by myself? Absolutely - unless you insist on helping, and then I'll probably tell you that you're doing it wrong.

But it nagged me. I knew that this program - 12 writers at the same level, 12 months of intensive coaching, the kind of inspiration you only get from people who want the same thing as you, as badly as you - would work for me. 

Fine. I applied. It was a more thorough application than any job I've ever had. 

And then I got accepted. 

For a moment, I thought about making an excuse - too busy, not enough money. Something. 

Then I said, "Yes, thank you," and sent my payment. Because I do want to learn how to improve as an indie author, and I'm far more likely to do the work if I've paid for it.

But asking for help...it still hurts.

We're having a heat wave

Not much to say for myself this week. We're having a heatwave, highs in the 90s, and my motivation has leaked out of my pores.

The book released on Saturday to very nice sales, and I also set up at my local farmers market and sold a few more copies.

I also finished the garden rehab and finally have proper space to set up my hammock. It's really surprising that I've emerged from it long enough to write this and occasionally use the bathroom. (When the temps no longer drop at night, I'm pretty sure I'll be sleeping out there, as I'm lucky enough not to be attractive to mosquitos)

This morning, despite the heat, we decided to sort out the growing chaos on the back patio. It's a project that's been coming, escalated by a new neighbor with an escape artist toddler. We have melted and now I'm in front of a fan considering what - if anything - I feel like doing next.

Garden Therapy

So the book comes out on Saturday, and basically I'm spinning like a top. And what's the best thing to do when I'm spinning like that? 

Go to the garden.

I posted earlier this spring about rearranging the backyard and installing new raised beds. They're all in, they're all full, and they are all planted except for one, which is getting a late crop of seed potatoes because my peas, which were doing so nicely, got eaten by something and now it's too hot and dry to start over with any chance of success.

The beds have two kinds of squash, two kinds of eggplant, cucumber, Lima beans, a variety of peppers from sweet to Mexican spicy, and far too many tomatoes. I planted three deliberately, and transplanted another seven of the volunteers that popped up.

What I finally have to do next week, when there is a little more clear space in my head, is order the wood chips to cover the weed barrier. I hate walking around on that woven plastic-y stuff. But I need to pick a day with a good forecast, and after a few days of clear weather because I don't want to shovel wet wood chips and transport them around the yard.

Pomegranate flowers

In the side yard, the blueberries are about half done. I want to get two more bushes to plant this fall, because I have spaces along the drive where other things didn't do well and they will. The fig tree is taller than I am and covered in little hard green figs. Now, I don't like figs personally, but my husband loves them, and I like to make fig jam. So it's worth the real estate. 

In the front, flowers are blooming away. The cherry tree actually produced cherries this year, but we didn't get as many as the birds did. I think this fall we'll trim it back so that it's low and wide enough to get a protective net over. Right now, I'd have to throw it from the second floor window, and my aim isn't that good. The peach tree isn't having its best year, but it had so much fruit last year that my neighbors were finding squirrel-relocated peach pits all up and down the street.

Overambitious fig

My favorite - although, like the figs, it's not my favorite fruit - is the pomegranate. Just because it feels so weird to grow pomegranates in Pennsylvania. We got 11 last year, and I'm hoping for more this year, because the blooms are crazy.

So that has been garden tour 2024. Inconsistent fruit, far too many tomatoes, and a backbreaking effort to not break my back again next year. We'll see. The whole point of putting in raised beds is to not rearrange things - or at least that's what I said 5 years ago, when I put in the previous raised beds.

The Son in Shadow - Chapter One

 

Prologue

     My life has been spent in the shadows of powerful men. Some people flourish in shadows, but I have not; shadows are cold, and those concealed in their depths are not clearly seen by those who live in the light.

     I wish to be seen.

Chapter One

There was once a time when there were two queens in England. Whether I was fortunate in working for them both depended entirely upon your point of view. My opinion varied from day to day, but I had little choice in my continued service of two mistresses, and therefore tried not to think about it too often.
     “The queen will be there ahead of us at the rate we’re moving,” my man shouted as our horses splashed through a wide, shallow river.
     “I doubt it.” I looked over my shoulder at the group riding behind me. “They have to take care and choose a place where she’ll be welcome.”
     We were lately come from Scotland and our journey was by necessity more leisurely than if a royal warrant had been available to grant us a change of horse at each stopping place. As we made our way south, a pathetic straggle of men ostensibly loyal to a vanquished queen, I took careful note of what was said at the inns and in the halls of the great houses where we lodged.
     The other men of the party complained at our slow pace, but I had experienced far worse, and unlike the queen whom I had served until recently, no one on either side of the border was baying for my blood.
     It was by this time mid-May, and the worst of the spring rains had passed. The ground was boggy in spots but having made this ride in the torrential rains of autumn years before, my mind registered nothing more than weariness and a mild concern for our horses. I was glad to see a village appear below, with an obvious tavern by the side of the road.
     Handing our mounts over to an eager young lad whose hand flashed out for the coin I threw him, we ventured into the room—dark even on a bright day, with the remains of a fire low on the hearth. Several tables were occupied, and we settled at an empty one near a rowdy knot of young men, hoping for gossip. Sometimes we asked outright about the Scottish queen and others only waited for news to be dripped into our waiting ears. And news there was this day, as we quickly learned.
     “Defeated at Langside,” said a young man in a dirty brown coat, his elbows resting on the scarred table. “Not even a fight.”
     He had been there when we arrived, along with several others, already well into their cups. By their rough garb, they were apprentices or land workers cleaned up for a ride into the village.
     “Were they so outnumbered?” I asked, hoping for more.
    “Melted away into the hills is what I heard.” He slammed his empty cup on the table. “Left her standing there with her teeth in her mouth.” 
     We were told that even though her Protestant lords had made it clear she would never be permitted to regain the throne, Mary had nevertheless mustered a force of some six thousand men and faced down her son’s army. When they were defeated, she fled south with a scant handful of supporters and was rumored to be making for England—which, of course, we already knew.
     “Good fellows, not wanting to be associated with an adulteress,” Robert Sturgis put in, his voice insinuating. “Or a murderess.”
     “Ha!” The man threw his head back, calling to the maid. “More ale here for my friends.”

The right life

I was listening to a podcast the other day. An older female writer being interviewed, and she answered a question about why so many creative people give up on their dreams just before things get big. She said part of it is fear, because by that point we don't believe that good things will happen, but the other is that they reached a certain age and realized that they don't have a house or a 401k and they have no idea what their future is going to look like. And that's terrifying in a whole different way. 

That really resonated, and perhaps it's why I'm so gung-ho now. I did 30 years at a job - while writing for myself in my free time - and I had a house. I have the 401k. When we moved from Philadelphia to the burbs six years ago, we sold our West Philly houses and bought the new one for cash. It's much smaller than what we had before, but that's fine. Neither of us are extravagant. We don't need big houses, expensive cars, or nice clothes to wear for non-existent office jobs. 

So this later-in-life writing career suits me to a T. I may not have as many years as someone who starts in their twenties, but I've gotten the hard work and the bulk of the worry out of the way. We won't be homeless or hungry or wonder what the future will bring, other than the standard existential dread that afflicts us all from time to time. And I've lived a lot and learned a lot and written a lot in those intervening years. 

All in all, despite it having felt weird to be a debut author in my mid-50s, it's absolutely the right life for me now.

A little sewing on the side

Another day, another vintage wedding gown to give myself fits over cutting into.

This time the gown was from 1946, and the customer (daughter of the 1946 bride) wanted 13 drawstring jewelry pouches for members of her daughter's bridal party.

I love the passing down of these gowns into functional things.

There was a small problem, however. The gown had been stored in the basement - in a plastic bag. The mildew streaks on the underside of the satin looked like rust. I told her to take it to the dry cleaner and tell them to clean it as well as they could, not worrying about shrinkage or minor damage, and that faded it somewhat, but the resulting fabric was still somewhat rusty in spots.

I'm calling it part of its sentimental charm, and hopefully they will too.

The brief was for 10 small bags and 3 larger ones, lined with the gown's original slip. That didn't work, either. The numbers, yes. The slip, no. It was some kind of crepe and when I cut into it, it just dissolved into a pile of threads. I used a yard of white handkerchief linen that had been sitting in stash for years, because I'm never going to make a white blouse that will stay white 3 hours into its first wearing.

The last - and worst - complication was that I'd originally planned to embroider the 1946 wedding date by hand. I drew the numbers very carefully with one of those blue washable markets, which I had used recently on the pillows I'd made from another gown. I embroidered 2 pieces, didn't like the look of it, picked out the embroidery and rinsed the satin so I could use my embroidery machine, and while the blue rinsed out, it also took some of the age/stain color of the satin, leaving me with bright, ghostly white numbers that would not fade. I had to cut 13 more pouch fronts.

Consider, if you will, the tantrum. I knew that marker could sometimes stain. I didn't think it could remove color.

Anyway, they're done, they're pressed, they look lovely, and thety're being picked up tomorrow.

And it's done

The book. And the author. 

Okay, so it's not quite done. I still have to listen to the computer read it to me, and I have to send advance copies to a few trusted readers/friends to find all the typos hiding on plain sight that I'm no longer capable of seeing, but that's minor stuff, really. 

The words and the big edit are over. It's a book now. Champagne has been drunk, notes for that book cleared off my phone, desk tidied. Nap taken. Long walk taken. Another nap. 

A brief rest (otherwise known as a custom sewing project) and onward.

Who is that?

Have you ever stumbled across an old photo and not recognized yourself? Whether it's such an old picture or simply because it doesn't match the picture you have in your head?

That happened to me this week. I was rummaging around on my computer, trying to find a photo from a trip years ago. A friend recently lost her dog, and I remembered that I had taken pictures of him when we visited her. So I tried to find them. No luck, but in a folder randomly marked random, I found myself. 

None of these pictures were ancient - no childhood or high school, not even my twenties - but they were so different from the image I had of myself at that time that they might as well have been of another person entirely. 

The photo here is me with several other members of the University City Garden Club, taken just a few years after I moved to West Philly. So, approximately 2003, the year before I met my husband. I was 39. I remember thinking I looked older. I thought I was overweight. I had various other criticisms that I thought were valid. 

Looking at it now, I realize that I looked like a freaking 12 year old. Maybe 16. Okay, 20. My skin was good, my boobs were higher, and if there was a little softness around my middle, it was offset by everything else I had going for me at the time. None of which I saw. 

Between modern standards of beauty that we take on board when we're too young to know better, criticism - well-meaning or not - dealt out over years, and our natural tendency to be harder on ourselves than we would be on anyone else we cared about, I don't think there's a woman alive so at one point or another who hasn't had an entirely unrealistic view of herself. 

Generally we look way better than we think we do.

This somewhat out of body experience has made me take a look at myself now. Not necessarily in the mirror. (Those are still not my favorite things.) But maybe, at 60, I don't look like I'm 70. Maybe my skin isn't that bad or that wrinkled. Maybe I'm not as chunky as I think I am - and even if I am, my body still does everything I need it to do without much complaint, and in the long run that is what's most important. 

Have you ever had an experience like that, seeing yourself in an old photo and not seeing yourself at all?

Author Life

Not a lot of time this week for a proper post (edits, craft shows) but I wanted to share an Amazon review I got the other day on Coming Apart, the first book in my Ava & Claire series. 

It was a one-star review, but not the worst thing that could have happened. First off, it proves that people night want content warnings, but they don't always read them. Second, a negative review like this is actually helpful - it warns like-minded readers that they won't enjoy the book, and gives others a heads up that they will.

One of the things I love about historical fiction is that it shows how little people have changed - customs and costumes, but not in our essentials. Also, in every era there are "hot topics" which done people don't want to talkb it read about. 

"I know things happened back then, but I was not expecting to read about it." 

Interestingly, I've gotten messages from other readers who had similar feelings as the reviewer but who said the books made them think, and while they hadn't necessarily changed their minds, they had more empathy for people in difficult situations than they did prior to reading.

Live and in person

The other week, I did an author event at a local venue. It was the first time I had done something like that - I did a reading at a bookstore not long after Songbird came out, but covid put paid to live events and I never got around to trying it again. 

This event was interesting. Not very large, not very well attended, though I did sell a few books and, more importantly, made some local author friends. 

On the other side of my efforts to not return to cubicle life, I did a large craft show this past Sunday. Well attended, but it started very early, the weather was very damp and chilly, and by the time it was over I was remembering why I started to cut back on craft shows.

Not that there weren't good parts, not that there weren't sales, not that there weren't great conversations with crafting friends - none of whom were located within chatting distance, so we were all grumbling via text message - but outdoor shows are such a crap shoot. I've been rained out as often as I've had glorious days, but most are just in the middle. Okay weather, but not the sort of day that will draw people outside, and which make me think longingly of my sewing room or, better yet, my desk. 

But I can't give up craft shows anytime soon. I don't really want to, and it is still a source of income in the spring and fall. I don't do summer shows because I don't like sweating, and a lot of the people who would buy for me are off at the shore with their kids. So I can justify staying home in front of the fan.

No photo with me at Sunday's show but I'm really pleased with this one from the author event. Maybe I'm just more photogenic when surrounded by my books.

So pretty!

Just a short check-in this week because I'm up to my ears in craft show prep for this coming weekend, edits on the just-finished book 4 of my Tudor Court series, and the garden is calling pretty loudly.

The Son in Shadow won't be out until June 15, but the pre-order is up for the ebook (can't do pre-orders on paperbacks on Amazon, at least not yet) and I wanted to show off the new covers I've put on the ebooks.

While I love the paperback covers with their historic ceilings, I wanted to try something different, and it's very easy to change out ebook covers because they're a simple graphic, rather than tthe actual typesetting of a full-wrap book cover with spine measurements and text, etc.

I wasn't planning to do a re-cover, but these came out so well that I've put them up. Ebook only, for now at least. A Wider World is my favorite, but it's also my favorite of the books, so that makes sense.

The scent of childhood

Late Saturday afternoon, my husband and I were out taking a walk when we heard a lot of sirens. I checked my phone - our county fire and police have a live dispatch app - and saw there was a house fire about two blocks from where we were walking. So obviously we walked that way.

Our town is technically a borough, and in our weird county, each borough has its own fire department, most of which is volunteer-run. You would think that would make the response less efficient, but the exact opposite is true. The call had gone out less than three minutes before we got to the block, and there were already four trucks there. The call goes out everywhere at once, and anyone who's available will show up - especially for a house fire, with the implied possibility of people being inside. 

It was pretty clear from looking at the firefighters that they already knew that wasn't the case. They were calmly going about their jobs. Moving quickly, yes, but not with the underlying anxiety of potentially having to rescue anyone. We stuck around for a while, and watched as another half dozen engines eventually appeared.

It was really cool watching them, all these men and women who obviously work together all the time, because the companies were acting interchangeably. At one point there were firefighters from three different companies balanced on the roof line, cutting a hole in the roof. Just the sight of that is enough to turn my knees to water. 

Everyone watching - and it was a lot of the neighborhood - had their shirts pulled up over their noses because it did stink. But to me, it also smelled like my childhood. My dad was a Philadelphia firefighter, and he came home everyday smelling like whatever blaze he fought. He could have probably showered at the firehouse, but he wanted to get home to his family and his bathtub full of scalding hot water where he could rinse off the smell and soak away his aches and pains. 

What happened to those two houses in town was tragic. The first house looks like a total loss. It was unoccupied at the time, though being worked on. The second house, adjoining it, has some pretty significant damage. 

But this is one of those times where I can hold two opposing thoughts in my head. Any loss by fire is tragic, but the smell of that fire took me straight back to my childhood, straight back to Sunday mornings on the curb with the other fire kids while our exhausted dads paced back and forth in front of the shell of a building and refought the fire until they were satisfied. 

Fire is bad. Fire is also the smell of my dad. And for that, I will always have a moment of warmth, and a smile, before my brain clicks over to the present. They say that smell is our strongest memory sense. I think they're right.

Welcome to the farm!

I'm still going to get The Son in Shadow finished by the end of this week. If I have to give up sleep, I'm going to get that book FINISHED.

But I probably won't have to go to those lengths, because it started raining Sunday night and it's still raining. And considering that what I want to get up to in the back yard involves moving soil from my old raised beds (4'x4', 6" deep) to my new raised beds (2'x4', 12" deep), that would be a messy, heavy business better saved for a day with a little sunshine. 

Though I will get the rest of those completed aluminum beds out of the living room, because we're tripping on them and the cats seem to think I'm building an amusement park for them.

These are much better quality than the old raised beds, and the rectangular size allows me to arrange them so that they're closer together (because they're not wider than my arm's reach). I'll be able to grow a lot more this year, while still having an empty space alongside the garage - to the left of this photo - where I can set up my hammock and a small table to hold a drink and a book.

I've got a nice little seating area set up on the front patio, but sometimes you just don't want to be where everyone can say hello, and the hammock stand, as I found out last year, only fits on the patio if the other chairs are removed and the peach tree is pruned back. So I need a little space to hide away, and I'm going to get it, so long as my back holds out.

Fingers crossed that my back holds out.

Anyone have a bridge for sale?

The Son in Shadow, Tudor book 4, is almost there. Almost done. I'm very glad I shifted from my original planned mid-April release date, because while I could get it done and edited and formatted in time, I would be a rag, and April is also the start of craft show season, so I'd prefer not to do that to myself.

I really thought it would go faster, though. It's the fourth book in a series. I know the main character - he's been in my head and in my books since A Wider World. There are also appearances by Bess and Tom from Songbird; Robin and Margaery from A Wider World and Lady, in Waiting, and a few other returning characters. I know all of them, and sections of this book have been drafted since before I started working on the Ava & Claire series.

Okay, so the later middle Elizabethan reign - 1568 - 1571 - was some new ground for me to explore, but I didn't think it would take this long for me to get my thoughts together. I'm about 20%, maybe less, from the end and I just keep walking around it and looking at it and trying to figure out where I'm going. I know the end, but it's like I'm across the river from it and no bridges are magically appearing.

Anybody got a bridge they'd like to sell me?

Tis the season

Garden season, that is. 

In the front yard, the daffodils are exploding in a riot of yellow - so many that I can actually *smell* them. The hyacinths are up, but the grape hyacinths, usually the earliest arrival, are poking along by comparison. The peach tree looks like pink popcorn.

The side garden is still pretty dormant. There are a few daffa, and the iris greens are perking up, but the side is mostly fruit and the fig and blueberries haven't leafed yet.

Im the back is...a mess. Five springs ago, I put in eight 4x4 raised beds, the kind made of recycled wood/plastic. They were cheap, which I needed at the time, but they've lived up to their pricing, bulging outward and coming loose from their corners, spilling soil everywhere.

Add to that pretty picture the fact that we need all new mulch between the beds, and that I spent Saturday helping a friend build new metal-framed beds for *her* garden, and I have a new project. New metal frames are due to arrive tomorrow, and that gives me plenty of time to put them together and figure out how to place them so we can actually use the back yard a bit more. (I have a hammock on a frame that I'd love to use, but there's no room for it). 

The fun part will be getting the existing soil from the old beds to the new ones, considering they're not going to be in exactly the same place. And I need to top up the soil once that's done, and get more mukch. Hoping the local tree service is still giving away free wood chip because them I can afford the higher quality soil/mushroom compost blend. 

The fun part will be when there's a mountain of it in our driveway that will need to be shifted so we can continue to use said driveway.

Enemies to Lovers

We're not there yet, but things are definitely improving. They're willing to eat side-by-side, but most of the time they don't want to be in the same room.

One exception: early morning, when the front door lets in sun across the living room carpet. They both want that, and they're willing to share.

Generally Rufus has the front, and Tessa lines up behind him.

The day I took these two photos, she got closer than usual. She was growling quietly, but that seems to be her standard - she's always on high alert for danger, even when she's the one putting herself in the line of fire by lying behind her sparring partner.

Then the impossible happened. She moved up, threw herself down again, and put an arm over him. Rufus opened one eye and quickly closed it again - if he didn't acknowledge it, maybe it wasn't real?

But I call progress, even though it only lasted a few minutes.

Rage against the machines

I've mentioned before that I have done some experimenting with the different AI language models. Chat GPT and Google Bard (now Gemini) were actually quite helpful in rewriting my book descriptions for the Tudor Court series. It's not something I talk about to openly, because the writing community on social media is heavily weighted against the use of AI. 

The reasons are that it takes work from human creatives - the people who edit, provide book descriptions, design covers, etc. And don't even get them started on AI voice for audio books.

Now, I'm a creator. So I do understand where the fear is coming from, but also, these are tools, and they are only as good as the users. Would you expect a chainsaw to know how to cut down a tree if no one was holding it?

I don't mean to sound glib, but I have learned through experimentation that your results with these programs are only as good as the prompts they are given. It's not creativity in the same way as doing something from scratch, but find me a writer who likes to write a book description - a writer who can boil a 400 page book down to three paragraphs that will sell the book - and you're talking about one or two writers out of a vast number.

Where I draw the line is with actual writing. I would never let AI write a book for me - or even a portion of one - because writing is what I enjoy and what I'm good at.

One of the reasons that many of us became indie authors in the first place is that we didn't want to deal with gatekeepers, so I don't think it's right to gatekeep each other's choices when it comes to something as personal as our own business model. As they told us in school, keep your eyes on your own paper and don't worry about what someone else is doing.

And as an example of what is possible with an AI art model, this is a cover that I did for Princess of Spain, which is the newest giveaway story for readers who sign up to my newsletter. You can get it here. The prompt I gave it was this: Please create a photo realistic illustration of a middle-aged white woman in dark-colored 16th century garb standing in a chapel. The room is shadowy, there are stained glass windows. The mood is contemplative.

The collage shows some of the results it gave me before I got more specific. Most of those, while pretty, are completely unusable, but the final - or at least the place where I decided to stop - is more than good enough. It's a 10,000 word short story; I would never hire a cover designer to put a cover on a short story. I'm not going to pay $100 plus (and sometimes considerably plus) for something that I'm giving away for free. Being in indie author also means managing your finances responsibly and knowing where and when you can spend money on things.

Let me know your thoughts. We can agree to disagree, but any outright trolling on the subject will be deleted and the commenter will be blocked. We can all play nice.

It happens every year

Autumn is my favorite season, but winter comes a close second. I like battening down the hatches and being indoors when it's cold outside. I like being outdoors when it's cold outside. I definitely do not like sweating, which is why summer is a distant fourth in the seasonal sweepstakes. 

 But this winter is ending early, and I'm not as upset as I could be. We had an actual winter storm a few weeks ago, and it started raining in the house, which entailed getting an entire new torch down rubber roll roof on the flat portion. Not inexpensive, but it could definitely have been worse, and it was one of those times where we just had to think, "pay now or pay later." We paid now. 

 And now, today, it's in the high 60s and I am going out to face what has become of the garden during the off season. As always, I put a few things aside in November to deal with later, and later has now come. And current me is swearing at November me for being a lazy cow and leaving me with all this to clean up. 

It happens every year. I shouldn't be surprised.

Sentimental journey

A non-book-related post this week.

Before Christmas, I was contacted by a woman who I'd met when I was vending at the local farmers market. She asked if it's be interested in doing something with her mother's vintage wedding gown.

I said yes, so long as she didn't mind waiting until after the holidays. We got together in early January to discuss the project. She suggested pillows, one for her and one for her sister.

Their mother got married in 1949, and the gown was a relatively plain ivory rayon satin. It was pretty, but it had been in a box (not even proper wedding gown storage) for more than sixty years. It had more sentimental value to them than value as a vintage garment. Even so, it was hard to make that first cut.

I embroidered each woman's initial in the center of a rectangular panel, and then pieced strips of the satin around it. The fabric has such an exceptional glow that I wanted to use pieces to catch the light. Since she asked if there was a way that the covered buttons could be incorporated, I made two rosette-style flowers and used buttons as the centers. The backs of the pillows are a patchwork quilt that had been on their parents' bed their entire childhood.

I finished the pillows on Friday and she stopped over on Sunday to collect them. I love making people cry.

What's next: The Son in Shadow

Now that Ava & Claire are fully launched into the world, I've gone back to my first love, the Tudor era.

I thought there were going to be five full novels in the series, with a collection of short stories to finish it out, but it turns out that there will be four and the collection. The fifth book just isn't taking shape properly, and everything I've been working on with book four tells me that it's the proper end of the series. 

When the book is that definite, I don't argue.

The illustration here is AI. There is a completed cover, but it's not yet for public consumption. Here's the blurb.

The Son in Shadow: A Tale of Spies, Love, and Rebellion in the Elizabethan Court 

Will Hawkins has spent his life under the thumb of powerful men, but no more. He's finally carved out a comfortable existence for himself, working in Elizabeth's court for the esteemed Cecil and Walsingham. His future appears secure and full of potential, especially with his burgeoning love for the delightful Kit Rowan, his niece's governess. 

But Kit unknowingly harbors a dangerous secret, and when she comes under the watchful and unforgiving eye of Walsingham, Will's carefully constructed world begins to crumble. He's forced to make an agonizing choice: his future or the woman he loves. 

Desperate to save Kit from the spymaster's clutches, Will finds himself partnering with the last person he ever expected - his domineering father. Together, they embark on a perilous journey, navigating a web of deceit and political intrigue. Can they find a way to free Kit from Walsingham's grasp, or will their efforts be in vain, costing them not only their hearts, but their very lives?

Drama, drama, right? A blurb has to suck readers in, and I'm hoping this will do just that. Now I need to keep writing so that the inside lives up to what's written on the cover.

Catchall

This week it's just sort of a piecemeal, patchwork, catch-up affair - nothing major has happened. 

I had a birthday, it was 60, we went out for a lovely dinner at our favorite French restaurant. The Ava & Claire omnibus dropped, the cats are still hissing and spitting but getting along better than they were, and we're going to need an entirely new flat roof on the back of the house. All of which makes me tired.

I'll be better by next week. In the meantime, enjoy the children competing to see who looks better in the chair that gets the afternoon sun.

And then there were two

So I've been saying almost since the time we got Rufus that we needed two cats. But after a few months without one, and not finding any bonded pairs at the local rescue that appealed, we got Rufus and decided to find a second one when the time seemed right.

But the time never seemed right. All the cats shown were either too old or too young or needed only cat households or had expensive health problems.

Then came Tessa.

She'd been rescued sometime last year with a litter of kittens. They'd been put in a box with the trash, and the rescuer happened to hear them. Tessa had stayed with her kittens, and the whole box of them got brought home. The kittens were adopted quickly, but Tessa sort of fell through the cracks. Once the kittens were gone, other high profile, dramatic rescues happened and she somehow wasn't even on the website.

Once I saw her photo, I asked to meet her. She was sweet, but a bit shaken up, because her foster had a dog that was chasing her around. The next day we picked her up and brought her home, and over the last 10 days we've been gradually introducing then to each other, swapping out their rooms, letting them sniff at the door, doing supervised face-to-face meetings.

Look at his offended little face!

Last weekend we opened all the doors and let them free range. There's been hissing and growling and a heck of a lot of chasing, but no claws or teeth or bloodshed. 

Rufus went from extremely territorial to doing this stiff legged Pepe Le Pew dance before prostrating himself before her. He wants to play. She looks at him like he's a fool and either walks off or smacks him on the head and walks off.

They'll get there. It's enemies to lovers, not insta-love. But it's nice having two cats again, and Tessa's a cuddler. It's been a long time since I've had a cat curl up on the love seat with me to take a nap. My productivity may take a nosedive.

Snow day, rain likely

It snowed the other day, for the first time in a solid two years. We've been having a lot of rain, but I'd rather have snow - it's prettier, it makes everything quiet, and nobody gets a rain day off work. I had my husband at home on Friday because the university closed. 

The downside with snow is that it's also water. And that water began dripping through the corner of the back bedroom ceiling Sunday night. It's the outside corner of the roof, where it attaches to the downspout, so we figured it was most likely an ice dam - though I couldn't see anything from ground level - or the roofing surface had peeled back from the flashing at the edge and water was getting in that way. 

Either was bad. 

The water was dripping down the bookshelves in my husband's office. Bookshelves that hold his collection of graphic novels and comic books. Thankfully he is one of those collectors who puts everything tightly into a sealed plastic bag, or the weeping and wailing would have been tremendous. As it was, there was just sprinting with arm loads of damp plastic and the hallway still looks like a bookstore. Nothing is going back in until we're certain that the problem has been solved. 

After we got everything out of harm's way, I called a local roofer highly recommended by the town Facebook group. His wife got back to me promptly and he came out Monday afternoon. We've been in the house for six years now, and we really should have had the roof coated at some point. Note to self: that's what always happens when you put off a job, it comes around to bite you in the ass.

There's rain in the forecast. Fingers crossed it only occurs outside the house.

Storytellers

I come from a family of storytellers. Not writers - they wouldn't have thought to do that - but they could tell stories, and many of those stories built a world in me that came out on my Ava and Claire books.

My great aunt Margaret (my cover girl) talked about the Depression. She was very nearly the same age as my characters. My dad wasn't much younger, but he had a very different upbringing. While my great grandmother kept up a pretense of gentility, even when they were poor, my dad was the youngest of a dozen kids, who stopped going to school at 12 to get a job, and who told me about going to the rail yards at night with his friends to pick coal off the tracks and to see if any of the boxcars were unlocked.

A different world, and one I tried to reproduce.

For anyone who's read the Ava and Claire books, the prequel novella about Claire's wedding and the Thanksgiving epilogue will only be available as newsletter bonuses until the end of the month. After that they'll be included in the new omnibus and the freebie will be Tudor-themed, as my next book will be a return to that series.

If you want the freebies, you can sign up here. I won't spam you - after the initial sequence confirming you've downloaded your bonuses, I check in once a month unless there's a sale or a new release to tell you about.

Handwork

This Monday I went to my town's fiber arts meetup. I always intend to go, and I've only gotten there a few times before. 

It started during Covid as a meetup in one member's backyard so the makers in town (and there are many) could get out of their houses while still keeping their hands busy. Now it's held in the local maker space, which is less personal, but warmer and with better light.

The reason I've often ended up not going is that when I'm working on a project, I plow straight on to the finish. And for this meetup, I need hand work. Over the weekend, I finished piecing four custom Christmas stockings made from baby clothes, and I held off doing the applique and embroidery work because I knew I could do that on Monday night.

And I actually got them done. It was nice to sit there with coffee and a half dozen other women and catch up on our projects and our lives. It happens every other week, and I'm going to try to make it a more regular occurrence.

What about you? Do you like getting together with others or do you prefer your creative pursuits done alone? No judgment here - I'm firmly in both camps.

2023 Recap

Indulge me a little, if you don't mind.

A few friends (the ones on the snarky scale) tell me that I worship at the altar of productivity. They're not wrong; they just mean it in a negative sense but I've always seen productivity as a positive. Maybe it's not healthy, but I've always judged myself by how much I've gotten done. I think it's the remainder of that bored only child - I can't be bored if I'm busy.

So, in writing/publishing, I put out two books this year: Coming Closer and Coming Together. I've assembled the ebook omnibus for the Ava & Claire trilogy, and that will be released on my birthday in January as Coming Home.

I've taken workshops on marketing and advertising; I've edited two books for other people; I've commissioned covers after trying (and failing, again) to design my own. The answer to the question, "Would I be better off writing?" is almost always "yes."

In animal news, we lost Harriet in February and acquired Rufus in April, after two very strange cat-free months. At some point, Rufus will get a friend because he's insistent upon being a cat and not a cuddly, non-verbal family member, and I want a writing and sewing buddy.

The garden was both out of control and very productive this year. I neglected to pull the volunteer tomatoes before they set fruit - and then I feel bad about yanking them - so I ended the season with eighteen plants, enough jars of sauce for the next two years, and a lot of happy neighbors. Produce and canned goods are currency in my town. The fig rree also put out its fair share, and that turned into nineteen half-pint jars of jam. 

There was no "real" vacation this year because we lost the credits for our thrice-postponed trip, but we did end up going to Vegas for my writing conference, which was a half-decent vacation when I was able to focus. I'd never want to go there for any other reason, though. I have nightmares that look like Vegas felt.

Even though I'm not usually the type to write it down, when I make my next day's to-do list lately, I've been writing down three things that I was grateful for during the day that just ended. It keeps me looking out for those good things throughout the day, and no matter how bad the day was, I can always manage to be grateful for my husband and coffee, and then I only have to find one more.