Grand Rapids Comic Con and a TV interview

November is always a busy month for me. I'm in the midst of my 14th year of participating in National Novel Writing Month. Yes, I am working on two projects, one new, one continuing, so rebelling a bit, but even with taking three days mostly off of writing for the comic con, I'm still on track, if not a smidge ahead.

Last month, I traveled over toward Detroit to do an interview on Indie Reads TV with Pages and Promotions that aired on CMNTV. If you're interested in checking it out - I always find it interesting to see how people talk and act in person compared to what I'd imagined online - its now available on YouTube.

Grand Rapids Comic Con was a lot of fun and a success for meeting readers and selling books. I shared a booth with a few other authors, because while we're all swimming in cash from the huge successes of our writing careers (that's sarcasm, in case that wasn't clear), we like to pool resources.  My booth included Judith Wade, G.S. Scott and Remearis Brown. It was a long three days of peopling, but we all survived. And because I'd built up a good word count buffer, I didn't fall behind on my NaNo endeavor.

Wearing my festive hat. That was all fun and good but I kept reaching up thinking they were my reading glasses,
which I often wear on my head. Surprise, the hat didn't help me see better.

While I do have four, maybe five more events coming up this year, I'm sticking close to home. Why? Well, for those of you not familiar with the fickle Michigan weather, to give you an example: Fall lasted five days. That was early last week. It was nice. So pretty with changing leaves gently falling from the trees. Then Winter arrived with freezing temperatures and snow flurries. Yesterday we got a foot of snow. Schools were closed. Roads didn't get plowed until late afternoon. Everything was a mess. 85% of us didn't get out during those five lovely days to rake the leaves. Most of the leaves were still on the trees! Now, they're in giant clumps on top of the snow and that will make a fine wet mess if we get a melt before we get hit again.

So yes, if you're looking for me, I'll mostly be in Holland with a trip to Kalamazoo and possibly Muskegon.

Hope your November is going well, and if you're participating in NaNoWriMo, get off the internet and go write your novel!

IWSG: June and Ren Faire Adventures

Another month has flown by. I've been busy out promoting Trust and my other books at various events. The past couple weeks, I've ventured into Ren Faires and it was a blast. And rainy. And muddy. But fun despite all that. Got to love the erratic Spring weather in Michigan.

I also finished sewing my first dragon.  It took a lot of time, but I had no idea how much until I started keeping track with the next two that I'm working on. Once those are done I'll be bringing them to events with me to sell as my first dragon has been quite popular, but as he is my test dragon, there are things I'm doing differently with the next ones. Do you have any name suggestions? I've been taking suggestions, but I haven't picked on yet. Feel free to drop yours in the comments below.

Onward to this month's Insecure Writer's Support Group question:

If you're not familiar with 

the Insecure Writers Support 

Group, check it out here.

Of all the genres you read and write, which is your favorite to write in and why?

I'm partial to writing Science Fiction, though Fantasy is a very close second. When I first really started reading as a kid, I dove into Mystery, because that's what my Mother read. It didn't take me long to wander into the Science Fiction section, probably because the kids books were all on one wall in our small indie bookstore. Horror followed soon after and then I branched into Fantasy and Paranormal.

With that mash up of inspiration, I like to incorporate aspects of all of those genres into my own writing. It's no surprise that I ended up writing speculative fiction.

Science Fiction has always been my favorite, probably because of the major what if factor and how your imagination has so much freedom to play with the answer to the question. I did read a good deal of hard sci-fi in my late teens and after, but slowly gravitated to the softer side of things and have stayed there.

And on that note, I'd point you toward Trust, my long-time sci-fi favorite project.

Penguicon is always a great time

Last year I'd heard mention of this mysterious con in one of my NaNoWriMo groups. A place with low cost, multiple tracks, and a friendly environment for everyone. And free beer.

Is it wrong that that's the detail that sold me? Come on, it's a variety of really good Michigan Craft beer.

We had such a good time last year that we headed off to Penguicon again this past weekend. This year we gathered another friend for our room. I invited some author friends too. And again, I meet a bunch of great people and reconnected with those I'd met last year. It's three days of non-stop stuff to do. I'm still catching up on sleep. All that peopling saps a lot of energy.

One of the many fun things about Penguicon is gathering ribbons for your badge. My ribbons were getting so long that I was stepping on them, at which point, it's a generally accepted practice to either start rolling them up, wear them as a scarf or start placing them sideways. I did all of those at various points. Bathroom trips are particularly precious otherwise.

Ribbons are supplied both by the con and attendees and most everyone gets into it. Elevator rides turn into ribbon swapping festivities. Panelists lure attendees up to talk to them afterwards with ribbons. You can earn ribbons from the con staff by doing things throughout the con. Many of the attendee ones are inside jokes you'll never be in on, yet they're still funny in their own way. I was a big fan of "Safety Third!?". I handed out ribbons that said "I'd rather be reading", which at a con full of introverts, was quite true for most.

There are so many different things to do throughout the day! There are panels and activities going from 9am to midnight and beyond. Everything from programming, gaming, crafts, writing, anime, to a wide array of adult-oriented programming, such as the Saturday night Burlesque show.

One thing my tongue is still recovering from is the abundance of flavors of Liquid Nitrogen Alcohol Ice Cream. Oh man, the flavors! I believe this one is Mudslide. We tried Watermelon Pucker sorbet, Peach Cider with ginger sorbet, Chocolate mint, Spicy Chocolate, Rumchatta icecream as a root beer float and so many more. That last one was amazing, by the way. They're all sooooo cold, yet so good.  

The con does a wonderful job of offering an abundance of lit panels and support for the participating authors. They provide a staffed bookstore where we can stock our books so we can go have fun all weekend rather than sitting at a table to sell them ourselves. Did I mention they do this fee free? They do. The con staff is awesome. They also had an afternoon writer's reception for us with the best cookies ever. Freshly made. The chocolate in my chocolate chocolate chunk cookie was still melty. Yum!

The Westin Hotel is great. The rooms are quiet and the curtains actually make it dark. The beds are perfect and there are plenty of pillows. The hotel staff is super friendly and most of them get into the con by wearing fun tshirts or even getting in on the cosplay.

I presented three panels this year. One of which I didn't get a photo of, but they were all a lot of fun and well attended. We had some good discussions, and from the comments I received afterwards, offered helpful information to aspiring writers. Mission accomplished.

We also got to do readings.

As a word of warning, I highly recommend not going out to most of the room parties the night before or enjoying two nights of tongue numbing Liquid Nitrogen ice cream before doing a reading. Words are hard when you can't keep your eyes open and your tongue feels like it's twice it's size. The year before, I did my reading on Friday night and I think that was a far better plan than Sunday morning.

However, we made it through and had some laughs over my tongue tripping. People bought books later, so my performance must not have been too detrimental.

Will I be going back next year? Hell yes. If you're at all near the Southfield, MI area next year in May, I recommend you check it out too. Penguicon just might be your new favorite weekend getaway.

ISWG, NaNoWriMo and Where's My Clone?

If you're not familiar with 
the Insecure Writers Support 
Group, check it out here. 

Full disclosure, as I write this in October, I'm neck deep (as in someone else standing on my shoulders and we're talking about their neck), in NaNoWriMo and preparing for upcoming Author Events for all you book-loving holiday shoppers.  I love when you comment and I'm very glad you stopped by, but I can't promise that I'll get to check out your own blog post in a timely manner.  I will get there. Eventually.  

Hence my need for a clone. Has anyone got that process dialed in yet? I've noticed a trend in my blogging habits the past couple years. With the new year, I'm all refreshed and energized to spend blog time with you wonderful people. By the end of April's A to Z, I'm dead. And things only get worse from there. By mid-summer I'm down to once a month IWSG posts. I'd say this is a trend I'm hoping to change with the coming year, but again, I'm not going to make any promises. Maybe this is a sign I shouldn't dive into A to Z this year. Hmm. Things to ponder.

My tiny assistant Bitsy, kept

me warm while selling books

at Pumpkinfest in

Montague, MI.

So what's this NaNoWriMo thing? It's my yearly major writing binge where I join hundreds of thousands of other people around the world by writing 50,000 words in 30 days. Traditionally, that's supposed to be the rough draft of a new novel. This year, I'm aiming for 50K of whatever project my eyeballs and fingers agree on that day. As of this morning, my goal is to work on a total rewrite of 2007's NaNo YA fantasy endeavor that is half finished. I'd like to get another YA title out to accompany A Broken Race. I'd also like to generate a few new short stories to get into submissions early next year. I'd also like to get a million dollars, but as I don't play the lottery, the odds of me productively writing are far more likely.


In the further need for a clone category, I'm also on year 10 of acting as an ML for my region for NaNo. This means I'm organizing and hosting events all month, moderating a forum, writing regional emails and answering questions and encouraging the hundreds of writers in my region. While writing my own project. I also added a few extra tons of insanity and booked three weekend days of author events during November. Because who needs sleep? Can I write in my sleep? We'll find out.

This month's IWSG Question: How has your creativity in life evolved since you began writing?

The dress I made my daughter

for homecoming. She wanted

something 50's housewife.

Oh man, it's been a major evolution. When I first started writing, I had time to paint, draw, do needlework, sew, and more crafts than I could name in the time that I have to write this post. My creative endeavors were all over the board. But since I started writing seriously, about eight years ago, almost all of those things have fallen by the wayside. Though I still enjoy doing other creative things, my brain is stuck in creating worlds, characters, and plots.

I have dipped back into sewing in the past few months. After brushing the mental rust off and a lot of swearing at how hard it is now to thread the damned sewing machine needle even with my glasses on, I think I've got following a pattern and the improvising part of things figured out again. After this next project, which I really should do a post about, is finished, I think I'll put the distracting sewing machine back away. There are so many things I could do with it...but writing calls.

So many free books

Do you like free books? Well you're in luck! Check out these links for some great free fantasy and scif-fi reads. You can also find my book, Destiny Pills and Space Wizards there.

This promotion runs May 14-20 and includes both BookFunnel and Instafreebie books.


Need more books? Here are 24 more to choose from. This promotion runs until May 25.


Still need mooooore? Here are 119 Sci-fi, Fantasy and Horror titles to choose from. This promotion runs from May 15 to May 31st.


And if you've stocked up on books and want to have fun with some questions about writing, critiquing, gardening, chickens or hair color, I'll be over at Ask Me Anything from May 16-23 with answers. They may not be the right answers, but they're mine.

Summer Project: Building The Pond

No, I'm not writing a book about The Pond. In between attending author events and book signings, I've been busy digging and lugging and getting downright muddy with a real pond.

I thought this was a lot of rocks...ha! 

You may remember this photo from a previous post.

See all those rocks flowing down the hill? I collected those from a house across town van load by van load three years ago. Then I unloaded them in a big pile. A year later, I moved them all to this hill. Who needs a weight set?

The digging has begun.

Well, I decided it was finally time to do what I intended with those rocks rather than let them be the haven for snakes and weeds they had become. So this summer, it was time to build a pond. Two of them actually. But it started with moving all those rocks again, but only a few feet to either side this time.

I'm not good at stopping to take pictures when I'm in the middle of a project, but here's where I was after several days of moving and digging. The top pond was difficult as the first foot was hard clay, rather like cement. Thankfully, nature took mercy on me and provided sand for the rest of the depth. The top pond is 3 foot by 5 foot and 2.5 feet deep.

I tried to give the waterfall some
angles to make it more interesting.

It appears it was spring when I first began this project because the tulips are just done blooming. Summer really rushed by this year!

There are 23 feet between the top and bottom ponds. All of which needed to be made into a series of waterfalls. I spent a lot of time standing and staring at the hillside. It was much like contemplating a scene when writing. A lot of chin scratching, some scrunchy faces, tipping of head from side to side, walking up and down the hill and standing in various places along the way. Days passed, summer moved along.

My collection of rocks included two nice slabs of marble, which I planned to use for my upper and lower fall. The smaller falls used various flat rocks that I had around. With the fall as long as it is and as wide as I ended up making it, I ended up having to borrow from the newer pile of rocks I'd bought and moved here this spring. There was much moving of rocks, a bit of swearing, and two blackened fingertips that were caught between rocks as they shifted into place (and quite a lot of swearing at those moments).

I hit up my local Lowes for their clearance broken bags of stones and pebbles to fill in the gaps.

As you can see from the photos there are a lot of tall plants next to the waterfall. They weren't tall when I planted them there, but we have super soil. That meant I spent some time digging out a lot of overgrown plants. Though I was able to give some of them away, several of my prospective plant takers failed to get back to my and my patience ran out. I did expand some of my flower garden area on the hillside to accommodate some of the offending plants, but the rest got pitched out into the field. Hard as they are, they may grow there and naturalize the otherwise boring field of weeds. If not, oh well. I have plenty more of those particular flowers.

Work began on the lower pond. I wanted this one to be deep enough that the bottom (hopefully) wouldn't freeze. I also wanted it big enough to support fish and plants and help fill the space on the hill.

The first foot and half was again hard work, though not because of clay this time, but because when the house was built, the excavators had shoved all the yucky piles of debris onto the hill because the soil was good. Unfortunately, it also included a lot of what had been tree roots and stinky black dirt. It smelled so bad! Once I got through the two feet of random wood bits from the excavators, I got live wood bits thanks to tree roots, both from trees still here and those we had removed before building. There was much clipping of roots and swearing and hacking of roots with shovels.

The shovel and I grew very close over the weeks that passed.

The lower pond is 5 feet by 9 feet and has steps at 2, 3 and 4 feet, with the lowest section at 5 feet deep. Even more fun than digging all that dirt out was deciding where to go with it. I don't mind digging. Lugging carts full of dirt is not my favorite thing. It's not even something I sort of like. In fact, I dislike it very much. After awhile I enlisted my husband to take the dirt carts away with the lawnmower to patch up the lawn wherever he wanted.

Then came the issue of doing a pond on a hillside. Where does one determine the level of the pond when one side is significantly higher than the other? I decided to make a step on the tall side and raise up the short side with some of the dirt from the pond to even out the difference.

There was much anticipation while
I waited for the top pond to fill and
water to start down the fall.

Just when I thought the digging was over, I remembered I would need to dig a trench along side the whole thing for the pipe to bring water from the bottom to the top and for the electric that would need to come down from the house to the pump and filter in the bottom pond. Oh good! More digging!

I ended up going with 1.5 inch irrigation hose for my waterline because of the distance from the pump. This allowed for a good flow of water down the fall. It makes for a lovely rush of water sound that draws birds, butterflies, and frogs. Yesterday, a heron came. It was pretty, but it better not eat my fish. Hopefully, the dogs in the yard will chase it off again like they did today.

Yes, there are fish. The top pond is home to a lively guppy population. (There's a post about the originator of my guppies out here somewhere. Yes, the progeny of the great guppy mother have prospered). I put them out there when the top pond was half full and beginning to teem with mosquito larvae. Euw! The guppies feasted. Sad to say the waterfall and lower pond took much longer to finish than I had originally anticipated due to weather, limited time, and my energy level. By the time the lower pond was ready for the pump, the top pond was so green and dark that I was sure there was nothing left alive in it.

The first fall is the longest.

Once I had the pump and filter installed and all the lines run between them and the ponds, it was time to switch the whole thing on. Slowly, and with the help of some barley tablets, the water began to clear. Surprise! The guppies had multiplied like the guppies they are. Baby guppies everywhere!

It took a few days of tweaking stone placement, one day of letting it all dry so I could use pond foam to fill gaps and further direct the water flow, and a week of wondering where my water keep going (dirt settled on the rim of the top pond, creating a slow overflow area that was well hidden), before I was finally happy with the project.

Not all the way happy though. Those two nice slabs of marble I mentioned? They survived the move over from their previous home, they were moved here several times. They were walked on and shuffled here and there. But when I finally placed the lower one near where I wanted it? It broke in half. Yes, you guessed it, more swearing ensued. I did install it for now, but I will replace it next year. Right now, I just want to finish the landscaping and buy a bench so I can enjoy watching the fish and frogs.

It only took a week before the frogs
started arriving.

The bottom pond is home to 14 goldfish. The ten cent kind. I learned my lesson with that with my other pond. If it's not the heron, it will raccoons feasting on expensive pond fish. It's also home to about half of the guppy population. How? Well, when the water started flowing, it pushed all those babies right off the surface of the top pond and propelled them all the way down to the lower pond via the waterfall. An amazing amount of them survived. There are also several full grown males down there. Sad for them, because all the full grown females were smart enough to hang out at the bottom of the top pond. Baby guppy explosions will be on hold for a while.

There's still some work left to do. The electric needs to be finished, but it's running off an outdoor extension cord for now. The landscaping needs some of my time, but I'll get to that when the mood strikes. Mulch will come when it's on sale at the end of the season. One of these days I'll finish digging the hole for the filter system, but it's okay in its half hole for now.  One day I might hang a nice flower basket from the top of my electric post or decide to chop it off further down. The pond needs plants. All tasks for another day.

 I'll leave you with the view from upstairs. Don't mind the hose and shovel. We've all grown quite attached this summer.

When I'm not writing, I'm playing in my flower garden

I'm so glad we're not in this stage anymore. 

 When we built our house into a hillside three summers ago, the hill was nothing more than a pile of dirt and a couple trees. But I had a vision.

At our previous home, I'd created flower gardens all over: around the vegetable garden, the house, the shed, the garage, the mailbox, around various trees, and a couple big beds out by the roadside. As you may imagine, this meant there were flowers all over the yard. While this was very pretty, it was also a lot of work. So when it came to designing my new flower garden from scratch, I decided to keep my ambitious flower tendencies a bit more in check to correspond with my time and mid-life energy levels.

Who thought gardening on a hillside would be less ambitious? Ha!

Which brings us to summer number two. In which I planted and mulched around a whole lot of things. Many of these plants were brought over from my previous flowerbeds and survived a hard winter in pots and some of them even in plastic bags (because I ran out of pots). Others had been brought over years before and had resided in a holding garden. The rest were clearance finds. I allow myself a handful of full priced plants a year and even that pains me. I love the clearance table at my home and garden store or most any nursery I pass by.  I love them so much so, that I've rather run out of room for new plants already. Ooops!

Notice that rock pile coming down the middle of the hill? *We'll get to that in another post.

Everything grows like mad here!

Now were up to our third summer, well second living here, but you get the idea. As you can see, everything has filled in nicely. Some so nicely, that I've had to split plants and expand the garden another five feet toward the roadside because I hate tossing perfectly good plants in the mulch pile.

Iris is my favorite flower, followed closely by daylilies. I have a lot of other things in here too, but those two far outnumber the rest.

You can see how well the creeping sedum groundcover likes it here too. A year ago I had a few springs from my sister in law. I tucked them between the rocks. Next thing I know, I can't see the rocks anymore. And I've pulled out handfuls of the stuff and spread it elsewhere. The rocks are completely covered again!

In other rock pile project news, I decided to take care of my hillside ramp that started at the six nice rock steps we could afford (those suckers are pricey!) at the top of the hill and break it up into steps of my own with other rocks that I'd purchased this spring. So now I have a slightly less dangerous and more traversable slope. Wet mulch on a steep incline was slippery!

It's funny to see these pictures from a couple months ago. That sedum has mostly covered these new steps too. I'm not complaining. Everything that covers means less mulch I have to buy next year.

You may notice the wall of large rocks to the left of the last photo. I put a bunch of different varieties of sedum between those last year. It filled in beautifully.

We get a lot of dragonflies and butterflies in the garden, as well as bees from the neighbor's hives. That's all fine and dandy until that creeping sedum flowers. While it's lovely to see the hill covered in tiny yellow flowers, it makes spotting the yellow bees difficult, yet necessary when the sedum covers the path areas. Yes, wearings shoes also a wise choice.

This particular dragonfly was in no hurry to leave its warm rock and let me pretty much put my cell phone on top of it to take a close up. I wish butterflies were as patient.

Please, may I eat another sky raisin?
They're sooooo tasty.

Who loves the flower garden even more than me? My little dog. Bitsy spends hours weaving through the iris and lilies chasing sky raisins (flies). This is a rare picture of her sitting still in the sun. I wouldn't think flies would be all that tasty, but she must. If nothing else, it's good exercise and the world could do with a few less flies. Not that I want her licking me anytime soon after eating one. Euw.

The lovely black-eyed susans are transplants from a corn field next door that was left to its down devices last year and soon filled with wildflowers. When I moved a few plants here, I thought they would never make it. They shriveled up and looked dead. Yet, this year they came up all over the place and I just might regret planting them a little. I pulled out quite a few of them already before they took over.

*That new rock project? I'm creating two ponds and a long waterfall between them. Watch for photos once I get that project done.

Until then, I'll leave you with this last photo of flower hill.

My low cost garden: How I take a break from writing

While I love my flower garden, I like to grow vegetables too. However, I haven't been able to do that for the past couple years. I've missed the daily excuse to get outside and get more dirt under my oh-so-lady-like nails.

The flower section of my old garden, complete with a pear tree, but minus a partridge.

For years at our previous house, we had a large garden, fenced in, with strawberries and raspberries, grapevines and plenty of room for anything I had the urge to grow. Over the years the kids helped plant seeds. We chased untold numbers of rabbits out of the fencing. Squirrels and raccoons leaped down from trees to rip up my corn and decorate the branches above with the stalks after they were done with their stolen feasts. We composted for years, slowly turning the sandy dirt into a nice dark and fertile soil.

And then came building a house. No time to garden, no sir. We barely had time to eat or sleep, for goodness sake. Ignored, our beautiful garden was quickly overtaken by weeds and eagerly expanding raspberries. Then we moved. I'm sure you know how much fun that is and how long it takes to settle in. Egads!

To supplement our fresh veggie intake during all this, I joined a local farm CSA program. If you have one nearby and don't have the time, space or inclination to have a garden of your own, I highly recommend it. We learned to like all sorts of things that I wouldn't have otherwise considered trying from the grocery store or planting myself.

Now, finally, in our third summer in the new house, I had time to make a garden. It's not that we don't have space. There's plenty of that, but where to put it? The majority of our land is low, meaning it gets wet fast and floods in heavy rain. It's also mostly shaded. The back of the house is much higher and in full sun, but filled with dune grass and beach sand, because nothing says contrast like our yard.

So much dune grass...

The full sun won. I rototilled the dune grass. Three passes to get it good and chopped up.Then I covered it with landscaping fabric and lined the edges with rocks. You'd be surprised how fast dune grass grows. I ran out of time for the weekend at that point. So it sat that there for a few days until free time and weather allowed me to get back out there. You'd think that all of my efforts would deter the grass a little, wouldn't you? Ha! It was already starting to sprout up through the fabric!

So I pulled all the fabric back and lined the area with layers of newspaper. With the fabric back in place overtop and the addition of four inches of cedar mulch. I thought I was in good shape.

What's in the pot? Raspberries. I learned my lesson with those. Contain them!

Time to build boxes. We had a lot of random lumber left over from building the house and deck. I didn't want to spend anything if I didn't have to, so while my boxes aren't pretty, other that one box of screws (because I ran out of my leftovers), they didn't cost a thing.

We're also working on a landscaping project in the front of the house and happened to have a delivery of dirt come in for that. I took what I needed to fill my boxes with good dark composted soil and lined those with newspaper too for and extra deterrent.

The one thing I did splurge on was a pre-packaged drip irrigation system from Lowes. I did put this garden out in the full sun right up next to the house for goodness sake. The least I could do was to give it a fighting chance. So a $60 drip irrigation system went in. It was super easy to do and maybe took an hour so two.

If you're wondering what the deal is with the random corner blocks, I left most of them how I found them so that I could add fencing or drape row covers over the plants if rabbits or deer became a problem. So far, thankfully, they haven't.

Next, I ran to the tractor supply store down the street and grabbed up a bunch of seeds while they were on sale and picked up a few tomato plants while I was at it. Though the last frost was still looming, I just wanted this project done so I planted half a packet of everything. Good to have that other half to fall back on if something fails.

You can tell how often the kids use that trampoline. The dogs like the shade it provides though.

Now, two months later, the flowers are starting to bloom ( some, because they're edible and marigolds to keep the rabbits away), and everything is looking lovely. We enjoyed our first zucchini with dinner last night and have been enjoying fresh spinach and lettuce for a couple weeks.

It takes me five minutes every other day to keep it all weed free. And dune grass free, because yeah, all my efforts did was slow that down a little. That's persistent stuff! But it gives me an excuse to get some sunshine. Those randomly long posts at the corners make good handholds when bending over, woo exercise!

Now I'm going to go clean the dirt from my fingernails yet again and think about what project I'm going to work on next.

One Word Resolutions

In 2012 I happened across the idea of a one word resolution to carry me through the year. It's worked fairly well because, well, its one word and that can be interpreted in so many ways. It's hard to fail. Not that I haven't, but it's harder than saying I'm going to lose weight or work out more or eat better. More of a theme for the year than a specific thing.

So let's see, 2012 was the year of Less. This helped me overcome my habit of over obligation.

Healing from that problem, 2013 was the year of Me. In which I focused a little more on myself instead of doing everything for everyone else.

2014 was the year when I said I would Write. Remember when I said I failed? Ahem, this was that year. Shit happened. Goal denied.

2015 was sort of a do over year. I tried to work toward solving my problem from the year before by choosing Time. Making time to do the thing I wanted to do: write. Because, well hell, no one else tells you to sit down, stop doing all the things, and write. You have to do that yourself.

After all the stress relief and making time, Relax was my word for 2016 and I'm happy to report that went pretty well. I bought myself a comfy chair in which to spend my mornings. I met up with friends for lunch now and then and connected with others, enjoyed local breweries and the winery, took some days off from work beyond weekends (something I rarely do). Lots of deep breaths, a few massages, and lots of dog snuggles.

And this year, yes, six days into it, I finally have made the decision on my one word. Life has been busy, but it's been a good sort of busy. My kids are growing up and don't require every waking hour of my attention. After fourteen years of volunteering, I'm down to one pseudo time sucking school-related obligation. I have my own space for me time. I've decreed mornings before 9am are my time to write, and woe to anyone who disrupts that sacred hour or two.

So this year, my word is Enjoy. I say this surrounded by incense, which I haven't used in a very long time, but love smelling. The candles are lit. My feet are up. There's a furry warm blanket on my lap and a sleeping dog on the floor beside me. I'm gazing at my own books on my desk while working on a new one. I'm thinking fondly of Tuesday nights when one of our favorite breweries has half off flight nights where we go meet our friends for a hour or two each week. My bills are paid. My lazy kid is in college and paying his own way (Yes, I know that doesn't make him sound lazy). My younger one is responsible to a fault, which is a vast relief after all the nagging I had to do with the other one. My husband's band is back out playing so he's got his own creative outlet to fill his time while I write. We spend the last our or two of the day on the couch together with our dogs, watching Netflix.

Right now, life is good. I'm going to enjoy it.

July Eye Report

July has been a whirlwind of evening and weekend activities. I started the month off by participating in a close by author event with thirty-some other authors, most local and some from distant shores.

Other than that one day, I took the month off from all things writing in favor of relaxing and showing our young Spanish guest around town. We spent a long weekend up around Mackinac Island, did a lot of biking, and ate a lot of pizza and ice cream. We did a lot of local sightseeing as well, visiting beaches, nature parks, malls, museums, and a large assortment of restaurants, shops and tourist attractions.

Now that she's gone, its back to cooking dinner, cleaning the house, hanging out with the chickens, gardening and, of course, writing. The first round of edits are in on Trust so I'll be hitting those hard and then waiting on round two and working on edits of Sahmara. Ah the joys of edits. I do actually enjoy them for the most part.

Speaking of chickens, two of the girls have finally started earning
their keep. We got our first eggs this week! I'm pretty sure these two are discussing the finer points of egg laying. Once all six get going, we should have enough eggs for all the friends, family and neighbors who have been inquiring about getting on the receiving end of our eggs.

While I've been taking a break from writing, I've been enjoying a great deal of reading and watching...

Top of my reading list, the first three books of the Outlander series. These 800 to 1000 page tomes have been good company to relax with out on the porch while the chickens roam about the yard. (We have a lot of predators around so they only get to roam while under supervision.) Now if only I could figure out how to turn off the Scottish accent that has invaded my head. Only a pile more of these giant books to go, I'm have a feeling I won't be hearing the last of that accent for a good long while.

On the watching front, we sped through The Shannara Chronicles now that all of the first season is available on Netflix. Our teen Spanish guest and our daughter enjoyed this. My husband and I mocked the incredible amount of angsty open mouth and round-eyed looks, guessing the predicable dialogue before it was spoken and counting the cliches as they flew by. But we did see the season out and would probably watch more if for nothing else than it's a fantasy series we can watch with our teenager. While there was some implied sex, it didn't venture into uncomfortable to watch together territory. I haven't read any of the books, though I hazard to assume they must be better than that show, and may attempt reading one in the future. I guess in that regard, the tv series did work.

We've also been working our way through the second season of Wayward Pines. I'm liking this season more than the first because of the exploration of the world rather than focusing on the reveal-centric themes of the first season. However, they've managed to kill off the majority of the main cast so it feels like either the writers are doing a lot of house cleaning or the series is going to hell fast. Time will tell if there is a third season.

My horrible sleep cycle (sleep sound for 3 or 4 hours, wake up for 1 or 2 and then sleep good again for 1 or 2 more), has allowed for a lot of early hour viewing with earbuds in my comfy chair where the light of my laptop doesn't bother anyone else. How badly have I been sleeping? Let's just say I've worked my way through ten seasons of Supernatural.

The Heat is Here

Summer has finally hit Michigan in full force, bringing hot humid weather that some hate, and I generally enjoy. Yes, it can be miserable, but I prefer to appreciate the heat while it's here, knowing we'll be back to ice and snow soon enough.

The tomatoes are growing. Blueberry season is beginning and I've discovered this hybrid melon that tastes like a golden delicious apple. It is in fact, delicious.

July brought a halt to writing with the arrival of our student from Spain, who is spending the month here in Michigan. We had a great time with the student we hosted last year so we're doing it again. While our guest is quiet, on a level that rivals my daughter, we're managing to take some time each day to go do something fun, even it's just taking a walk to the dog park. Next weekend will bring a short road trip, but until then it's little adventures here and there.

In the midst of forth of July celebrations, I totally overlooked this months ISWG post last week. Oops! I shall make up for it next month.

For now, I'm off to enjoy the weather and an outdoor concert this evening. Next month I will have edits on Trust to dive into. I hope you're enjoying your summer too!

Time For A Garden

It's been a while since my last blog post. Either April burned me out far more than I'd realized or its one of those life got in the way things. More specifically work, but either way, my writing and blogging time has been relegated to the backseat for the past few weeks. I like to think it's sitting back there, making notes for when I allow it back into the passenger seat - hopefully not notes on how to do get back at me for making it sit in the back seat for so long. Because knowing the types of characters that I write, that's exactly what they are doing.

In the last post where I shared my garden, Andrea asked how to make time for yard work. Well, that's what we're going to chat about today.

As a mother who spent a lot of time on her flower beds from before kids onward into having teenagers, the first rule is: Plan to be interrupted at any given moment and work accordingly. This means, pick a small section, a corner, around a tree, the side of the house, whatever area doesn't feel entirely overwhelming. Acknowledge upfront that it won't get done in a day, or even maybe in a week. 

Get your tools together and check on the kids, whether they are in the house with someone else or running hilly nilly through the yard, and then get to work. If I'm going to be planting a new flowerbed, I'll spend the first round of time marking the area and then clearing the grass (or weeds). Then I'll dispose of whatever I just cleared - ideally in the mulch pile that I keep in the back of my yard. At this point, I could be done for the day, or if everyone is behaving, break up the dirt and make a plan for what I want to plant there. Again, I could be done for the day.

If all is well, I'll begin planting. This is a point where I really try to keep things picked up as I go along because if I've made it this far into a day, it's very likely I'll get pulled away by someone. If, by some miracle, I manage to get everything planted, its time to break out the hose, give it all a drink and then toss a bag or two of mulch around everything. The mulch is an important step and should be done as soon as possible after the dirt is broken up because weeds will pop up very quickly in that nice loose soil. Mulch will keep them to a minimum. Mulch is your friend.

Eventually one little area spreads into another and another and before you know it, or years later, depending on your level of interruptions and ambition, you'll have a lovely garden to show for your efforts.

Things to keep in mind:

Gardens take perpetual upkeep. Even with my gardens established, cleaned up and mulched, I spend around ten to twenty minutes a day walking through and plucking out weeds while appreciating whatever is flowering that day. Only make the garden as big as you feel you have the time to maintain.

Mulch has to be replaced every year if its not put on thick enough, and every two years to keep it freshed up and make up for decomposition. I used around 9 yards of mulch the first year and only 5 the second to fill in the thin areas and then make it all uniform in color. Around here, 5 yards of mulch is about $150. Another thing to keep in the budget.

Flowers will need to be thinned or replaced depending on how well they do.

Roses are pretty, but can be finicky and need pruning. I enjoy them in other people's gardens.

Avoid shrubs that need yearly pruning. Unless you have time for that sort of thing. I thought I did at my old house. I was wrong. I'm opting for less time and stress in this garden.

A curved bed is more visually interesting than a straight edged one. Lay out out a hose to get a feel for the edge line does work nicely. If you have a riding lawn mower, be aware of the types of curves it can and can't mow in one easy swoop. You don't want to have to break out the weed whip every time you mow because you made the curves too severe.

Beds with a border are easier to maintain. Bricks and edging blocks cost around $1 each and make a great border that can be mowed right over. At the current house, I opted for the cheap black plastic edging that get's half buried in the ground. Seems like it was $20 for 50 ft or thereabouts. Make sure to keep enough above to hold 3-4 inches of mulch back from your grass. Rocks can make a natual border, but you'll need that weed whip to keep things looking neat, and it doesn't do a spectuacular job of keeping your grass and flowers seperated wherever the rocks meet.

Perennials are awesome. They come back year after year, will spread, and can be divided. Check when they flower and try to mix them so something is always flowering in each bed. Generally, once established, perennials take a less watering than annuals. 

Ornamental grasses, dwarf trees and shrubs add interest beyond the usual flowers.

Ask friends and family for pieces of plants you like from their gardens. Free plants! I've lost track of how many people I've given plants to over the years. I have plants from both my grandmothers that I moved from the old house to this one. It's a great way to remember people once they are gone and, even better, you can continue to pass them on to others.

Watch the clearance racks at your local nursery or home improvement stores. 95% of everything I buy is clearance or on super sale. Sure, it won't look great the first year, but next the year, it will. Just make sure to avoid anything that has mildew, or anything that looks like a disease. The majority of clearance plants are there because they're done flowering or the season is winding down and the nursery just wants to clear out all this stuff that's totally root bound. July is a great time to snag plant deals.

Don't worry about it being small the first year. Plants grow. A $1 perennial will look like the $9 pot of the same thing next year.

You can put perennials in your pots, or mix them with annuals for more summer color. When fall rolls around, transplant the perennials from your pots into a new flower bed and you'll have a head start on next year's gardening project. Or, if its a fairly large pot, keep them in the pot and move the pot to a protected area by the house to minimize damage from freezing.

Rocks add interest to flower beds. Stack them, spread them out, use them as a border, throw one here and there. I happened across someone wanting two cargo van loads of rocks out of the backyard of a house they'd recently purchased. It didn't cost me anything more than a lot of sweat and the gas to drive across town.

Gardening is an excellent workout but don't forget to wear sunscreen, because unlike the gym, the sun will get you while you sweat.

How long does it take to make a flowerbed the size of mine? That totally depends on how much time you have. At my old house, I had a lot (a whole lot) of smaller bed areas that equaled the size if my now one giant bed. I created those small beds, as dealing with my infant to teenage kids allowed, over 18 years. At the new house, with self-sufficient teens, I created the bed in two and half months. It was a long and sweaty, exhausting two and half months, but well worth it to have the whole thing done.

Spending time out in the flowers is a wonderful place to go while pondering plots or when your characters stop talking to you.

Happy gardening!

June IWSG

This year seems to be flying by and by the end of each day, I wonder where the time has gone. Things have been super busy with the oldest graduating last week, getting his Eagle Scout rank this week and finishing up on the financial paperwork for college. All things both stressful and exciting. The youngest is wrapping up her last few weeks of school, which means I get to play chaperone on a school trip to Chicago this weekend, along with an orchestra concert and honors ceremony also this week. I guess that sort of explains where time is going lately.

It certainly hasn't been going toward writing.

One of my giant flower pots.

Stepping stones my daughter and

I made years ago and moved to

our new house to create a path

down the hill

After signing the contract on The Narvan last month and diving in to edits on a couple short stories, I was brimming with energy. Then, overnight, I crashed hard. And so, sitting at the bottom of the enthusiasm well, I decided to step away from the laptop and get outside and enjoy what good weather Michigan has to offer.

We get about six awesome days a year. No, seriously. We went from dead of winter to summer, then back to a couple days of spring, back to winter, and back to summer. Bodies should not have to go from winter coats to shorts in a matter of two days, and back and forth. In between all that was a lot of rain, which turned everything into a swampy mess. It's currently summer but the mosquitos haven't yet gotten the memo, so it's enjoyable to be outside.

The front of the house walkway flower garden.

We found this old plow on the property when we purchased it.

Though it's broken, it makes a good garden decoration.

The garden I started last summer needed a lot of weeding and five yards of mulch to cover all the thin spots from last year's application. And all of that was up hill. It was a good workout and I managed to get my first sunburn of the year in May.

I'm amazed how well everything is coming in already. 98% of what I bought and planted last year was on clearance. Meaning it was either half-dead, mostly dead, root-bound to or the extreme. Yet, all but five plants have come up and gone crazy. The pansies from the one pot I had on the porch last year seem to have seeded themselves all over my garden. Which is awesome.  Free plants! I prefer not to buy annuals other than to fill my pots. Everything in the garden is perennial. In fact, most of what I put in the pots is too. I just pull it out in the fall and put it in open places in the garden.

These were all rocks we either found on the property, that

we transported over from our previous house, or hauled out

of a backyard for a guy we found on Craigslist in the middle

of the hottest part of  last summer. Let's just say there's a lot

of sweat involved with these rocks.

The plants are coming in so well that I will have to split several of them already after only one year. They really love this soil! Plants in the garden at my previous home didn't look this good after ten years. It's pretty neat to see plants actually grow like they do in the pictures in flower catalogs.

The ground cover I planted last year was honestly just a few little sprigs and now those pathetic little bits are lush mounds that have spread all through the rocks. As rain washed over the rocks and broke tiny pieces off, depositing them down the hill, they've spread all over. At this rate, I won't need much mulch in a few years.

Next year's project is putting in a pond with a couple waterfalls, but for now, the rocks are in place to fill that area. Now that the hard gardening work is done for the year, I can sit back and enjoy watching things grow. And, of course, get back to writing...right after I stain the deck.

.

Take this. It's free.

I've always been a fish person. Maybe it's a Pisces thing. There's always been an aquarium in my house somewhere.

Angel fish are my favorite. Finicky and violent, but beautiful with their long, flowing fins. I've also done stints with gouramis, tetras of various sorts, and black moors along, with a lot of little fish to round out the tank. Most recently, before the move a year ago, I'd purchased two dime-sized angel fish, one black and one white, and watched as they grew. Unfortunately, they hated one another and only one survived the move to the new house, being in the middle of an arctic freaking winter. Several other smaller fish were also casualties.  

With only four surviving fish in my twenty gallon tank, I began to contemplate shutting it down. As much as I do enjoy watching the fish, it's work to keep the tank up with scrubbing the outbreaks of hard red algae, medicating sick fish, trimming of plants, keeping the water level up, and the vacuuming of poo. And well, I've been doing it for a very long time. Maybe it was time to put the tank to rest. What would it be like to sit on the couch and not hear the constant drone of the air pump?

As if it was a sign, the eight inch long pleco that I'd had since it was just a little guy, turned belly up. Green algae overtook the red within a week and the tank really started to look nasty. But it sits right by my dining room table, and I don't like looking at nasty when I eat. So I scrubbed it. The algae returned within a week.

The angel fish died, well, no, to be honest, it was stupid. One of the other remaining small fish had also died, and the angel fish thought it looked like a great meal. Except it was a little too big. So here's my beautiful black angel fish swimming around with half of a dead fish stuck hanging out of it's mouth. I gave it a few hours, but it didn't manage to solve the situation on its own. Again, not what I want to see when I'm eating.

So, taking a deep breath, I reached in and removed the dead fish from the other fish's mouth. Mmmm tasty. But it was a wasted effort. I don't know how long the angel fish had been stuck with it's mouth full before I'd spotted the problem, but the angel fish turned up dead the next day.

Yep, that means one lonely tetra in a twenty gallon tank. To shut it down or clean it up and make a run to the pet store? I debated for a few days. The answer came when my daughter announced she had to go to the pet store to get food for her cockatiel. Well crap, now I'm there anyway. And they had fish on sale.

With ten bucks worth of fish in hand, including a new pleco to deal with the algae, I followed the fish retrieving employee to the counter where he bagged our carefully chosen purchases. There, already sitting on the counter, propped up against a container of rubber bands, was a single guppy in bag.

"What's the story with that fish?" I asked.

"Some lady brought it back. Said it kept having babies."

I peered at the slim guppy through the bag. "They do that. I've had several of them over the years. I even have a baby fish box from when I had that same issue. Never had much luck with the babies though. The other fish always managed to eat them."

"Take this." He handed me the bagged guppy along with the other fish. "It's free."

Happy with a free fish, my daughter and I made our way out into the frigid winter air, and introduced our new fish to their home.

I spent the next few days policing the tank, making sure everyone was behaving and, more importantly still alive. They all seemed to be doing fine. The pleco was doing its job. The gourami and the long-surviving tetra weren't picking on anyone, and the guppy and four long fin zebra danios were fun to watch while we ate. Ah, tank life was good.

Then, as is the way of fish, once the seven day replacement guarantee was up, they started dying. I swear they know when the seven days are up.

"No, Phil, you have to wait to die until tomorrow. Then she can't replace you. No one can replace you, Phil! Just hold on one more day. You can do it!"

One by one, they all died. Except for the guppy. And the tetra. With a whole two fish left and certain this was a sign that I should have just closed the stupid tank down and saved the ten bucks, I decided to still feed them, but otherwise let nature take its course.

Green algae ran rampant. Without me trimming them back, the live plants grew long enough to gather on top of the water and block most of the light from above. In that dark and murky tank, the guppy and the tetra made some sort of fish pact to never die.

Bleary eyed and not really caring anymore, I opened the tank one morning to feed them. What the hell was moving around in the plants? I turned on the aquarium light, not that it helped much. They were everywhere. Baby guppies.

Eyeballs and a tail. I counted about twenty of them. They were in the rocks at the bottom, in the plants at the top, and the silver specks of their tiny stomachs glinting in the murk in between.

Contrary to every other time I've had an explosion of guppies in my tank, the tetra and the mother guppy didn't view this development as a glorious feast. They went about their business of not dying and discerning if the thing in their mouth was poo or food as if nothing had changed.

According to my count, two weeks later, not a single baby guppy has perished. They're all thriving in the filthy tank that I can't clean for fear of sucking up half the babies.

This may be the last round of fish, or maybe it won't if the guppy and the tetra continue their pact. I may never know the silence that is the absence of the air pump. But for now, I'll enjoy peering through the overgrown plants and the green haze to watch the tiny guppies grow in the freedom of the whole tank, where as long as they avoid looking like poo, they'll be left alone to live.