2023 Was Not My Best Year
It didn’t help that I lost a good third of the year to cancer issues and associated stuff. I keep telling myself that when the obnoxious part of my brain tries to lash me for only putting out one book in 2023.
But after a week or so of relaxing, watching a lot of HGTV shows, knitting, and doing some small projects around the house, I will get back to work on High Tide. After that, I finish Hurricane Warning, then pivot to To Love a Wild Swan.
Just a warning, however. We have an absolute buttload of expensive repairs that need to be made to the house, and the only way we can afford to do them is if I pick up some contract technical writing/instructional designer work. Which means book production may slow down since I’ll have to spend eight hours of the work week selling my labor to other people so that we can fix our foundation and replace the dead air handler downstairs (those two issues alone will run us about $20-25K). It’s unfortunate, but it’s what I have to do until the books start selling better.
Is It Possible To Have Flashbacks Of Your Own Books?
As you know, Bob, when I wasn’t working on High Tide in November I was cleaning my house for a guest visit (which went very well, thank you). An interesting side effect has been that I’ve been spending an hour a day doing general cleaning (sweeping, emptying the litter boxes, feeding/watering the cats, wiping down counters, laundry, et al) and in-depth cleaning on a single room. I know from experience that this will last until I get sick, get a big project dumped in my lap, or some other time sink happens to swallow all available seconds, but for the moment it’s nice.
That being said, I keep having the weirdest experiences while cleaning, or cooking dinner to be honest. I keep getting what I can only call flashbacks of settings from my various books. I’ll be dusting a bookcase or vacuuming the living room, and suddenly I get hit with a memory of what the Hellene Royal Palace looks like, or Henry’s house from Shadow of the Swan, or the hunting lodge from Crystal Blade.
None of these places are real, mind you. They’re an amalgamation of places and buildings I’ve seen throughout my life, but for some reason they keep popping into my head in full 3-D color. And I suddenly really, really want to write another story set in that universe.
I think my creative brain is trying to tell me to get the lead out with High Tide, get it and Hurricane Warning finished, then get to work on either To Love a Wild Swan, Mage of Fire, or Crystal Reflection. The original plan was to take the last week of December off, but it now looks like I’ll be writing all the way through it. But hey, I love my job so that’s all right.
The Worst is Done
High Tide Episodes 29: A Little Flirting, 30: Leave It to Bever, and 31: I’ll Keep You My Dirty Little Secret are live on Kindle Vella. Go forth, read, enjoy.
Oh. My. God.
After a month of intensive work all of the public rooms are guest-quality clean (well, except where Jessie peed outside a litter box this morning, but that area is drying in preparation for sweeping and disinfecting). What’s guest-quality clean, you ask?
- All extraneous stuff is put away (frankly, this probably took the longest—Ramón and I have a bad habit of depositing stuff everywhere)
- All surfaces are dusted (including corners of walls and ceilings, undersides of counters, and window frames)
- All carpets are vacuumed/cleaned
- All hard surface floors are steam mopped/washed
- All curtains are washed
- All windows are washed
- All kitchen appliances are cleaned
- All furniture is dusted/cleaned/polished
And yes, this took a month to do because I’m 1) old and fat, 2) recovering from surgery, 3) trying to finish a book, 4) running a small business, and 5) cleaning up after an absent-minded engineer and four cats.
Mind you, I still have to fix the downstairs toilet’s intake valve, get the fridge water filter installed (considering that the last time I did this the intake didn’t shut off and flooded the kitchen floor so this will require Extra Steps), see if I can fix the springs in the living room chair so that humans can sit in it without losing circulation in their lower legs, clean my office, our bedroom and bathroom, then prep the guest room for Friday (aka kick out the cats, vacuum and dust, then make up the bed).
But the back of the really intensive cleaning has been broken. I may actually write today, then have a lovely dinner with my aunt and uncle who are unexpectedly in town. Whee!
NaNoWriMo, Day Seventeen
Today: 1,675 words
Total: 28,518 words
I’m sorry, but I think this is the last NaNoWriMo post for 2023. I am getting slammed with all the cleaning I need to do for the oncoming visitors, my right shoulder and left knee are screaming at me from all the activity, and I just don’t have the extra spoons to chunk out that much wordage every day. I already know I’m going to finish this book. I just may not do it by November 30th.
On the plus side, I discovered that there is a shoulder brace available on Amazon that should give the pranged shoulder a certain amount of relief. Truly, what I really need to do is stop cleaning but that’s just not an option at the moment so mechanical help it is.
NaNoWriMo, Day Sixteen
Today: 1,689 words
Total: 26,843 words
Today, I did something that I haven’t for quite a while. I headed out on a road trip. A writer buddy of mine lives out in Tyler, which is about two hours east of Plano, and I drove out there to have lunch with her, hang out, play with her cats, and talk writing.
Despite the construction hell that is I-635 and every truck in Texas picking today to travel eastbound on I-20, I needed this. I’ve been doing nothing but writing or cleaning this month and I kinda needed a chance to let some fresh air through my mind and decompress my subconscious. Also, we went shopping and I bought some really smenty wax melts, which is always fun.
Even better, we may be able to get her back into my writing group (she was one of the founding members) since they’re virtual these days and she has Zoom. I’ve pinged the group leader to extend an invite, and I really hope she joins us next Tuesday.
NaNoWriMo, Day Fifteen
High Tide Episode 28: The Fine Art of Diplomacy is live on Kindle Vella. Go forth, read, enjoy.
Today: 1,689 words
Total: 25,154 words
Officially halfway through NaNoWriMo and I’m on track, whee! The story is getting more complicated, the battle scene was a ball to write, Rian had a BIG decision to make after that and I think he made the right one, and now hijinks are ensuing, as they should be.
In other news, there is something simple yet wonderfully satisfying about filing all the bills and receipts. I always feel better when I know all of my financial information is safely put away in the filing cabinet. And yes, I know, “Why don’t you keep it digital or in the cloud?” Because I know clouds can be hacked and digital storage fails. Paper, on the other hand, is pretty reliable.
Also, is it TMI to say that I bought 10 pairs of underwear on sale and they arrived today? And they’re all lovely (a number of them are Christmas and NYE themed)? They’re currently in the laundry basket waiting to be washed (yes, I wash everything I buy before I wear it for the first time) and I think I may need to weed my underwear/sock drawer to make some room.
NaNoWriMo, Day Fourteen
Today: 1,690 words
Total: 23,465 words
I’m approaching the midway point for NaNoWriMo, which feels good considering the other fifteen million calls on my time this month.
What are those calls, you ask? Let me tell you. So I have seasonal decor in our home. We have a wreath or some kind of decoration on the front door, garland that hangs in swags over the front door (plus a little wreath or decoration if I have one), flowers in tall tin vases in the sidelights flanking the front door, and as of last year a garland different from the one over the door that is swagged on our fireplace mantle and entwined with fairy lights (we did this last year with our Christmas swag as a kind of nightlight for J.J. and realized it looked really cool so we added lights to all the other garlands).
Normally I change out the decor at the beginning of each season. The winter decor goes up in January, the spring decor in April, the summer decor in July, the autumn decor in October, and the Christmas decor goes up with the tree. Needless to say, this year I was a bit preoccupied with other things in October and the summer decor has stayed up. Since I’m cleaning the house, however, I figured what the hey, even if it only stays up for three weeks I’m gonna put the fall decor up.
Cut to me climbing a ladder and swearing under my breath as I try to get the door garland hung evenly, then discovering that the new wreath hanger I got to replace the old one that broke a couple of weeks ago doesn’t have a little loop on the inside for the small decoration that I usually hang there. Climb down the latter swearing out loud now, hunt around for a big ol’ pushpin, climb back up the ladder and stick it over the door right under the fan light … and realize that I can’t put the usual cornucopia there because it will hit the door every time we try to open said door.
The cornucopia is now hanging in the kitchen (hey, it’s apropos) and a little autumn fruits wreath is hanging on the pushpin. The autumn flowers are in their vases, the fireplace garland is up and glowing prettily, and I even completed my NaNoWriMo word quota for the day, so there, nyah.
NaNoWriMo, Day Thirteen
High Tide Episode 27: A Chance of Family is live on Kindle Vella. Go forth, read, enjoy.
Today: 1,668 words
Total: 21,775 words
I believe I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel with High Tide. It’s either that or an oncoming train, I’m not sure.But I feel much more comfortable with where the story is going and how the main triad are interacting with each other, which is a good thing. Now I just have to finish the fukaktah story.
Also, I am nothing if not a thing of grace and beauty. I just managed to whack myself in my right cheekbone … with my hairbrush. While brushing my hair. I ask you.
Ow.
NaNoWriMo, Day Twelve
Today: 2,350 words
Total: 20,107 words
Et voila, my shortfall has been made up and I am back on track.
Of course, the moment that happened I had yet another brainstorm about a character that is supposed to be an antagonist to Poseidon and realized, “Yeah, that’s not a good idea.” So I had to switch the antagonist position to a third character, go back and make all of those changes and hope like hell that I haven’t missed something, then update all the changed pages in Vella so that anyone reading along will get the most updated version.
And then I started cleaning again because incoming relatives and all that. As a result, Jeremy and Jemma are not pleased with me. For lo, while Ramón did battle with the backyard fence I began the process of digging out and cleaning the guest room (which they assume is their bedroom).
They weren’t allowed to come back in until all the crap was moved out, everything was dusted and vacuumed, the furniture was moved into guest arrangement (the last person to sleep in there was me after my knee surgery and I shoved the bed into the corner because I like sleeping with my back to a wall), and the freshly laundered mattress protector was on the bed. Worse, they’re going to get turfed again tomorrow while I dust the blinds, wash the window, and put the newly laundered curtains back up along with the quilt I made for the room.
Look upon me, Catdom, and know that I am cruel. Muwahahahahahaha….
NaNoWriMo, Day Eleven
Today: 234 words
Total: 17,577 words
Yeah, yeah, I know. But it’s Saturday, I’ve spent the entire bloody day putting stuff away and fixing stuff in addition to doing the regular shopping, laundry, cooking, and cleaning.
Not to mention the little adventure I had today. I was sitting at the laptop working when I looked up and saw a little white poodle in a blue harness trotting across my front lawn. I waited, but there was no human following with a leash.
Well, crap. We don’t usually have dogs running around unleashed here—if they are, it means they’re lost or they’ve gotten out of their yards. Plus we have coyotes and bobcats (and some large raptors) who would look at that poodle and think, “Mmm, lunch.”
So No-Bra Muggins here headed out the door barefooted to try and grab the damn dog before it could trot out onto Hedgcoxe and get hit. By the time I got to the sidewalk it was only a few houses away from that very busy street and was having a merry old time sniffing bushes, running up to various houses, and blithely ignoring my claps and calls (since I can’t whistle with a numb lip).
As I inched closer an SUV pulled up and my heart went into my throat as the dog darted towards it. A woman got out and I explained that I saw the dog running around and was trying to capture it.
She replied, “Oh, that’s my dog. Someone must have let it get out the door.”
I figured “good enough” and headed back home so that the dog wasn’t scared by me and she could grab it. Anyway, good deed done for the day, I now know where that white poodle lives in case of future escapes, and I got some fresh air. But I didn’t make word count for the day as a result. Never mind. I’ll just have to hit it hard tomorrow and make up for lost time then.
Nicola Cameron Writes 