May I Write a Novel?

As I said a few weeks ago, I've begun to find my way forward in the next book. 

As a rule, I'm not much of a joiner, but there are times when I make exception. I've occasionally done National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) in November, but the only year I ever hit my goal was 2023, when I was working on The Son in Shadow. It helped that I'd already started, and that I was trapped in airports / on planes for a significant part of that time. 

NaNo is no more, for reasons, and anyway, November was never a good time for this project. I was always impressed with how many people managed to write 50k words in that month. (I never went that hard - 30k was generally the goal.)

I belong to a Facebook group called Successful Indie Author, run by Craig Martelle, who used to organize the 20Books conferences. He has set up something he's calling May I Write a Novel?, which lasts, obviously, for the month of may. I decided to sign up, along with at least 125 other people, and with my usual 1,000 words per day goal. 

Craig keeps us organized with a spreadsheet where we can post our daily word count, and it calculates the percentage of our goal that we've completed. I'm ahead of myself so far, but that's not surprising. I like to start strong so that if I have a few slow days, I'm covered. At this point, I'm shocked that simply signing up and "writing" with a few other people has motivated me this much!

Obviously, the book won't be finished this month. I'm doing something new and different and working from an outline, which is jarring for a discovery writer, but it seems to want it. We'll see how it goes.

Did you ever try NaNo? Did you win or did life?

Topsy Turvy

It's craft show season again, folks. I have to say, I'm not as enthused about it as I used to be. Part of it is getting older and not wanting to spend an entire day on my feet, it's also that the writing has become the more substantial part of my income, and I would rather devote the time to that than standing outside and selling.

But I do still love to sew. And I have a ridiculous stash of fabrics that need to be either sewn or given away, and I'm not ready to give them away yet.

So I've cut back . I'm only doing shows within a short driving distance. Since I don't drive, that means my husband has to spend his day either at the craft show with me or driving back and forth, I feel like slacking off benefits both of us. 

I had to show this past Saturday, which got rained out and moved to Sunday. Sunday was clear and sunny, but cooler, and with the wind that almost made everyone wish for rain. Tents blew over, tablecloths flipped up, displays all over the show were going down. I had a mother and child at my table when the second layer of my display blew off, on top of the kid. Being an 8-year-old boy, he was more excited by being showered with stuffed animals and really didn't notice that he had a record crate on his head. He happily picked up everything for me and dusted them off, and I told his mom he got his pick of the animals for being helpful and a very good sport.

I got off lucky. A few people I knew had really bad days - one artist lost a lot of work when it blew down the street, another one lost her tent. Outdoor shows are not for the faint of heart, but indoor shows are infrequent until the holidays. I'm just not sure that craft shows and climate change play well together.

Light in the darkness

I've been stuck lately, on whatever's coming next. I know, theoretically, what's next. The current books feature the three daughters of the main character from the Ava and Claire series, and French Lessons was the eldest daughter's story.

Next up should be Thelma, the middle daughter. Except Grace, the youngest, is the one who's been talking my ear off. And I would write out of order - I write books out of order, so why not series? - but since Grace's story takes place later, I'm afraid any mention of her sister could potentially throw off Thelma's timeline. 

And Thelma has been stubbornly silent. 

I know she's a dancer. I know she gets into the Philadelphia theater scene. I've purchased two research books about Philadelphia theater, though I haven't sat down and read them yet. That might help. 

But last night, doomscrolling Instagram while trying to ignore my husband doomscrolling the television, I encountered not one but two posts from dancers. I don't follow any dancers on instagram, though apparently I should, because the text of both these posts apply to what I think Thelma's story will be. 

I was telling my husband this morning that I thought I found a way in, and explained the two posts. He added a story that he'd heard in a film interview, which completely related, and now I still don't know what happens in her story, but I know her entire main conflict. 

Huge exhale. Huge. 

She's still not talking, but she did sit up and turn on a light bulb, and at least I now know where I am, and I have some vague idea of where I'm going.

Post vacation reality check

So clean, yet still comfortable.
I don't know how to do that.

Y'all, somehow we've been home for two weeks. It feels like both minutes and like we were never away. Life just overwhelms and sucks you right back where you were. 

I'm trying to hold on to that Paris feeling, though. Not the urge to see everything, everywhere, all at once, but the example they set to slow down and enjoy life. I saw surprisingly few people speeding along the streets, looking stressed. If they were moving quickly, it was because we were moving slowly. 

The other thing I've really noticed since we've come home is how much stuff we have. The apartment where we stayed was not an Airbnb rental, but an apartment whose owners rent it out once or twice a month, so we were living in a space normally occupied by a Parisian couple. Talk about togetherness. My kingdom for a door beyond the one to the toilet. 

But the one big closet held all the clothes, all the linens, the vacuum, the iron and ironing board, a few small extra kitchen gadgets, and that was it. The kitchen cabinets had the basics. A drawer in the kitchen table held all the silverware and knives. 

When you have to carry it 
up these stairs, you have less stuff.

I probably have more stuff in two cabinets in my kitchen. We won't even talk about the closets. 

But on the other hand, it's the right time of year to have this realization. Animal Friends of Lansdowne, our local cat rescue - and where Tessa and Rufus came from - has there annual yard sale fundraiser in May, and I have been building an enormous pile for them. Some of it is vintage that I intended to sell, but it's just too large/heavy to deal with USPS, but most of it is stuff that is just here and I don't know why. I pulled a half dozen mixing bowls out of a cabinet in the basement. I have a half dozen in the kitchen. Who needs twelve? 

I do this every once in awhile - lightening the load. Having a few less visible possession seems to take some weight off my brain, and that's never a bad thing. 

What about you? Could you do the Parisian minimalist thing or do your possessions comfort you? No judgment - I'm never going to be a minimalist. I would just like to be slightly less maximalist.

View from the bedroom window.

As promised, more Paris

Rue Mouffetard, near our apartment.
I could have sat here all day.

The courtyard below the Centre Pompidou,
the modern art museum

Flower seller around the corner 
from where we stayed.

Husband's bucket list meal. He ate
the whole thing. (I helped a little)

Walking along the Seine.

Paris from inside the d'Orsay museum
(former train station)

The restored Notre Dame.
Crowded but breathtaking.

So much van Gogh at the d'Orsay.

Luxembourg Gardens with
the Pantheon in the distance.

Paris and more

Paris was amazing. Of course it was. It's Paris. Sharing a video here which says more about the trip than I ever could, even though I'm supposed to be good at words. 

The words I want to share are something that went with me to paris, though I didn't really want to pack them. 

On March 6th, a few days after the book came out, I had a mammogram. My first. Don't judge, at least I got there. The next day, I got a message that I needed to schedule a follow-up. Now the tech had told me that was likely to happen, because they didn't have a baseline to compare my images to, but here I was, thinking I was special.

I called, and the first available appointment they had was the day I got back from Paris. So I pushed it to Friday, just in case there were delays. I did think that if they'd seen something they considered serious, they would have got me in immediately, but you never know. The woman at the clinic told me to put it out of my mind and enjoy my vacation, which would have been easier if the University of Penn healthcare system didn't text me every single day to remind me of my upcoming mammogram and ultrasound appointments. 

I managed to enjoy my vacation, but my problematic boobs were never off my mind. 

We got back Wednesday evening, and on Friday morning, I met up with one of my best friends - who's been through this rodeo - and had my follow-ups. It was the kind of appointment where they evaluate your results immediately and move on to the next thing, which at least takes the suspense out of it, and when I scheduled the appointment, even though I was told it was probably nothing, if it was something, I wouldn't leave the office without a follow-up appointment and to treatment plan. So there was that. 

Long story still somewhat long, the right breast was fine, and there is something in the left that they believe is still not a problem. They gave me the option of following up in 6 months or a needle biopsy, and when I asked the doctor if she was really concerned would my only option have been the biopsy, she said yes. So now I'm willing to kick it down the road for 6 months, knowing that if they had even a vague suspicion that it was bad, they wouldn't let me. 

So, a huge exhale. Remember how, in my last post, I said I didn't talk about Paris because I was afraid of jinxing it? I didn't mention this for the same reason. 

I'll pop back over the weekend, if I can, with more Paris photos. Otherwise, that's a lot to look forward to next week.

Au Revoir!

By the time you read this, we'll be heading for the airport. 

I haven't wanted to talk about our upcoming vacation for fear of jinxing it - the last time we were supposed to go away was March, 2020, and everyone knows how that turned out. Then there were two reschedulings, with corresponding family crises that made us cancel.

But here we are. On the way to Paris. This was the trip in 2007 that made us a couple. Eighteen years later, Paris has a lot to answer for. Most of it good.

Can't say I'm not a little twitchy about traveling, for all the usual reasons and even more so for all the new ones. But it will be fabulous, and when we get back, I'll be sure to share a ton of photos.

And because I'm that person, I'm also taking a copy of French Lessons with me, so I can photograph it in all the places the story took place.

No post next week - that's the day we're coming home, but I'll try to pop in before the following Wednesday with some lovely Parisian photos.