Tag: romance novelist

Catch Up Time

A full summer combined with RWA in San Antonio at the end of July has left me wondering where summer went. Are you there, too?

Dorm Socks for Kiddos
Dorm Socks for Kiddos

Both kids leave for college over the next two weeks–one for his last year undergrad and the other for her freshman year at university (do you hear the sob/chortle combo? It’s the sadness of the baby leaving the nest, with the joy of freedom for moi woven in).
Besides the omnipresent work with stories demanding my attention, the offspring have asked for “cozy dorm socks.” In appropriate university colors. Actually, oldest asked for them because a hat I knitted him was waaaay too big (Saskwatch proportions) and since I’d used super wash wool, un-shrinkable. But I’d started a lovely shrug (think Jane Austen) for my daughter, who informed me “um, Mom? I’m never going to wear a purple shrug.” Shrug ripped out, yarn re-purposed for dorm slipper-socks. Need to get the boy’s done this week. I only allow myself to knit after the words are on the page. Will I do it?

The View from a Paver Patio

These Remind Me of Orange Sherbert
These Remind Me of Orange Sherbert

It was a lot of work, time and effort but the spring push to get an additional paver patio put in that offers me a better view of the mini-forest behind our house was worth it. I have a place to sit and write to my heart’s content, and the birds aren’t afraid to come in for a visit. I will try to capture some of my feathered buddies over the next months. For now, I offer you some pics taken from the new patio. I took these photos only a week or so ago and the difference, day by day, is amazing.

Future Tomatoes
Future Tomatoes

It’s like that with writing, too. One paragraph, one page of dialogue may seem minuscule when faced with an entire novel to compose. Yet each word is a seed. Some words sprout into sturdy, tough plants like my tomato. Others are more fragile like the clematis who is so very tentatively starting to climb up the trellis I painted for it.

My View As I Write
My View As I Write

I don’t have control over what will bloom or not in my garden, not really. I can only do the research, consult experts, and time my planting as close to Mother Nature’s schedule as possible. Of course she, like my story, changes like the wind, like a mere few strokes of the keyboard.

Plant a seed today. In your life, in your words, in your garden.