Gone Fishing

 

It's being a week, folks.

See you next Wednesday.

Sticky

A few years ago, five, I think, I planted a peach tree in the front yard. It was a weedy little thing at the time, barely two feet tall. 

The next spring it bloomed and we got a few tiny peaches that never ripened. 

Ever since then it's been touch and go, the bloom getting hit by frost or the peaches being carried off by squirrels long before they were edible. 

This year is different. The bloom didn't seem that heavy, but there are so many peaches the tree can't hold itself up properly - one of my neighbors volunteered her laundry poles keep the branches from snapping. (One of her laundry poles snapped instead.)

And while there have been peaches scattered up and down the block, there are too many for the squirrels to handle on their own. I've got multiple bowls in the kitchen, waiting to be turned into jam, and on Sunday I did the first batch of five half pint jars. 

That was plain peach. Next up is peach vanilla, and after that peach jalapeno. I'll do another batch of plain if the squirrels leave any by that point.

A few days later, and I'm still waiting for it to totally set up. I thought I messed up, but after doing some reading, it seems that peach jam takes its sweet time to find its set point. 

I care, but I don't. It tasted so good in the cooking process that I'll just pour it over ice cream and call that a victory over the squirrels.

Day Out

I took a mental health day on Monday. Both of the people I generally work with were out, so I decided to follow their excellent example.

It's been a long time since I had the opportunity to do anything on my own. The job doesn't take up that much time, but getting out at 1 p.m. means I come home and write or do things in town; I wanted to get away for a while, so I made a plan.

The plan almost got canceled because there were things I had to do in the morning, but I got them done: laundry, making a batch of ratatouille (so much faster in the InstantPot), doing a quick run to the corner store. But I was done by noon and walked a half mile down the road to catch the trolley to Media.

Media is the county seat for Delaware County, a town that's almost as charming as it looks, filled with cafes and restaurants and cute shops (which were mostly closed on Monday). I treated myself to lunch at a cafe, did some edits on Shifting Stages, then walked down State Street to the park at the end of town. It was nearly 90 degrees but it didn't feel that hot, maybe because I was moving at the speed of mud - because I didn't have anywhere to be and no one was expecting me.

I walked back slowly, looking in shop windows, stopped at Trader Joe for a few things that would fit in my bag, and caught the trolley home. I was back at my desk by 4:30, got a bit more editing done, and by the time my husband got home, I'd even vacuumed the living room.

I was gone for about 4.5 hours and it felt like days. Sometimes you just need to give yourself a break.

Still here

Just a catch up post this week. Not a lot happening worth writing about, though I seem to be busy most of the time. 

My husband repaired the living room screen and I also bought two cheap adjustable screens to put in front of them. Belt and suspenders until Rufus forgets how easily he did that. 

The garden is finally coming along. Wax beans, some tomatoes. The beets drowned. The zucchini perished from a strange malady that wasn't squash vine borers. The cucumber, which I thought wasn't doing well, actually snuck under the tomatoes and appeared on the other side with three stealth cucumbers. Go figure. 

The most successful element in the garden was the trellis I built this year from 3 craft show grid walls. Now to see if the lima beans actually develop. There are lots of tiny pods, but they haven't puffed up yet. It's still an interesting construction back there, even without food on it. 

In non-garden news, I'm working away on edits on the next book. Just started the second section, while part of my brain is thinking about the next next book. I've made some notes and I'm ignoring them. 

The heat wave is broken, and I think I'm going to talk to the husband about taking a shore day before it comes back. I'll get sunburned, either way, but I don't need to be broiled and fried at the same time. 

Hope your summer is going well, your gardens are producing, and your pets are better behaved than mine.

Adventure Cat

This post is late because cats are fun. I mean that sarcastically.

Look at that face. Unrepentant. Pissed, even. 

That is the face of a cat who caught what I thought was a mouse at 1:00 a.m. and taxes all over the house, him growling, it squeak. It took over an hour to make him drop it. I covered it quickly so I could dispose of it later (it being the middle of the night and me being excited).

Rufus ran upstairs. I followed more slowly with Tessa and arrived in the living room to see his hindquarters going out the window. 

Look again at the photo. See the hole at bottom left?

I thought I was tired. That's before I ended up on the street at 2 a.m., barefoot and in my nightie, wrangling an angry cat. 

By the way, it wasn't a mouse. It was a BIRD.

How did he catch a bird in our house? He's not talking.

Look, Ma, I'm on the TV!

Six or so weeks ago, I mentioned that a crew from the local public television station had been filming in my house. I got word last Friday afternoon that the episode would air that evening. 

Cue frantic letting-everyone-know scenario.

This is easier. 

I'm pretty pleased with the segment overall. I was curious how it would come out, since they were in my house - and talking with me - for over an hour. Interesting what makes the 3.5 minute cut, but I loved some of the cultural references they snuck in.

Embedded above is my segment of the program; the link here is for the entire episode, which is well worth watching. (I'm at about the 2/3 point).

Writing and Publishing News

So about a year ago, I was contacted on Instagram by a literary agent who had read - and loved - my Tudor books. She knew I was an indie author, but asked if I would be interested in having her represent me and possibly sell the books to a traditional publisher.

I thought about it (after I researched the agent; I'm no fool) but eventually decided against it. If those books belonged to a publisher, it would then be in their responsibility to keep the money coming in. I could - potentially - get a substantial advance, but what if they screwed up the marketing or dropped the ball or just decided, after a month of lackluster sales (because that's all trad publishers really give you to succeed) that the books weren't worth pushing?

I may not make that kind of money on them right now, but half my income is from the Tudor series, and it will only expand over time, as I get better at marketing. 

So I said no, but thanked her for the huge compliment.

We kept talking, though. I mentioned that I wanted to do translations of my books but didn't know where to start. We talked about hiring a translator vs. selling foreign language rights to a publisher who would do the translating for me, on their dime.

Hiring translators is expensive, and as I can't read the language, I'd also have to hire a fluent proofreader to assure me they got it right. These days there are AI translations with human checkers, and I've heard good things about them, but the Tudor books, at least, have some 16th century archaic words that might not translate. I didn't want to risk a bad translation. The agent actually offered me her list of foreign contacts if I wanted to attempt DIY. Again, I thanked her.

A few weeks ago, I realized it had been a year since our last conversation and I still hadn't done anything with that list. I reached out to her and asked if she'd be interested in selling my foreign language rights. I got a response back within several hours. "YES!!!"

So that's where we are. Conversation had, contract signed, and now we wait. 

A few writing friends have questioned my getting an agent when I've always liked doing things on my own, but this is a different circumstance. The books that she'll be attempting to sell are already done, and are making as much money for me as they can in their current state. If she can sell them to foreign markets - and thus increase my income - I'm happy to give her 15% of that for work that I just don't have the bandwidth to do.

Sometimes you have to learn not to try to do everything yourself. I'm still learning.