Five for Friday; Things I'm going to need during NANOWRIMO

 

Well friends, here we are. I have no idea how we got to the last week of October already and I've blogged so little this year. Well, I mean, sure, Covid hassles stopped being funny a long time ago, and let's be honest, I never did get back into my real life groove after being in lock down. I mean, who would want to go back to a rigorous schedule of exercise and writing in the afternoons where there is SO MUCH TO WATCH on streaming services?

So yeah, I'm lazy. Completely lazy.

But it's the dawn of a new November. A new stab at National Novel Writing Month (Nanowrimo).  Last year I managed to complete the 50,000 word challenge and the end result was publishing "Deal With a Devil." This year, I'm way behind where I wanted to be with my next work in progress, a fantasy-dark comedy-romance-internet thriller I have lovingly called "Suburban Princess" for almost twenty years when the idea of it first came into my head.  If I can get over myself and actually write the darn thing, it might be the best thing I've ever come up with.  Certainly the cover is cool!

But soon I will be locked into another Nano challenge and I've already promised this book will be published next year.  So obviously I'm going to need some stuff from you, my readers, if I'm going to really be able to buckle down and get this book out!   

5)   COFFEE, COFFEE, and MORE COFFEE.

I don't eat while I'm writing, but I do drink. A lot. And much of it is coffee!  (Okay I drink coffee a lot anyway, but when I'm planning to sit up into the wee hours of the day, I need more coffee. 

4)  WINE!

Okay, a wise person once said (or maybe it was one of my refrigerator magnets, I get those two things confused) "Write drunk. Edit sober." Friends, I am in the meat of the writing part.  Traditionally, writers have drinking problems, this we know. And the chic writer beverage has been, historically, absinthe.  However, You can only drink so much absinthe before that green fairy becomes a bit too real.  (Which is hard to do since in the US all the fun stuff that's in old timey absinthe that made one hallucinate the green fairy  is taken out!  ((stupid FDA, harshing my fun)) . So my writing adult bevvy of choice is pinot noir. I'm not fussy. Only only cheap bottle will do. Or pricey bottles.  Did I mention I'm writing a dark-comedy-romantic-fantasy-thriller?  Hot tea is NOT going to cut it!

3)  CLEANING and COOKING services.  (OR...mystery food just delivered to my door!)

Hubby is great and all, but let's face it, he works too.  And Skippy isn't one to cook or clean just for funsies.  So, the Bradley manse is going to be a big old mess since I'm planning on ignoring housekeeping duties more than I do now.  So...you know...if you're not afraid of dirty dishes or dirty bathrooms or dirty...you get the picture.  It's going to be dirty.  And the guys are going to be hungry.  ('Cuz I'm going to COOK less than I do now...which is saying something.)  Basically, you can pretend my family 's on the prayer list at church and the guys are going to need casseroles. LOL

2) 5 star Amazon reviews for my other books!

Friends, I have 16 other books of various genres. I've always said I'm not in the writing business for the money. I don't think any author gets up in the morning (or stays up late at night) because there's a big payday at the end of a novel. There typically isn't. Unless your last name is King, Grisham, Roberts, you know, something like that.  

The authors I know get up and write because they have to.  They have stories to tell. Yes, there's a business component to everything we do, but at the end of the day, it's about the art of it. Every writer and author I know has a day job.  Every writer and author I know wishes they could make just enough money at their craft to quit their day job and write full time.  We authors, we don't dream of yachts and summer homes.  We dream of long stretches of time building worlds for others to enjoy.

A storyteller needs an audience and in this digital/internet world, the audience for book lovers is Amazon.  Amazon tracks the number of reviews a book gets and every book needs X reviews to gain visibility on Amazon so that other readers can find the book.  

I've been selling books now for more than a decade, to people who across the board have told me they love my writing.  (Not a brag, I'm just saying.) And I've been pounding away every November for the last ten years, laying the groundwork for a new book.  My reviews on amazon, while generally great, are very few and far between. So I'm putting out this plea, PLEASE LEAVE A REVIEW.  

You don't need to be a best selling author to leave a book review on Amazon.  Simply click the 5 stars.  That's literally all you need. If you want to leave a comment, all you have to say is, "I really enjoyed this book."  Every review gets me closer to visibility on Amazon, closer to other readers reading my story. As a storyteller, this is the dream. Getting my stories to the biggest market possible.

And during Nano, seeing reviews for my books goes a long way to boosting me and reminding me that there is a point to what I do. People are reading my stories. They are loving my characters. I have a reason to go on!

1) Don't judge! Just send me encouragement! (But NOT on my phone!)

November is not only Nanowrimo, it's also the beginning of the holiday season. People laugh when I say I'm just about done gift shopping, but I have to be. November is all about the work.  There is nothing else.  In other years I've cut my Nano time short because of Thanksgiving, because I have to spend time with family and whatnot.

Not. This. Year.

That's how serious I am about this book.  It's going to be good. But not if I can't focus. So yes, I'm going to do some mildly social-family-holiday stuff, but I'm not planning on spending any kind of heavy duty quality time ooh-ing and ah-ing over my mom's turkey (I mean, it's not going to be good anyway, but this year I'm not even going to try and lie about it. That just takes up time. LOL)  I'm going to avoid social gatherings (more than I do now!) and I'm going to turn down invitations. Please don't judge. Just understand.

And send me messages, but not by phone. Cheer me on via Facebook or Sarah's Twitter.  Give me funny memes about writing, coffee, encouragement. Just say you wish me well.

This blog might sound like I'm going off to do something difficult and draining. I am. But it's something I love and this year...this year I'm going to put everything I have into it. And I'll be able to do it.

With a little help from my friends!

On a side note, it's NOT TOO LATE to sign up for Nanowrimo if you want to give it a go. It's FREE.  (Well, no money is involved.)  And I'll be your buddy!

NEWS FLASH: MISSING IN MANITOWOC IS AVAILABLE TOMORROW!

Hello all!  

I know on Tuesday that I promised you five days of previews of my new novel, which will be available on Amazon.com TOMORROW, November 1, and is available in print for in the Create space store RIGHT NOW BY CLICKING HERE.  Unfortunately, my beloved grandmother passed

away yesterday.  Thursday I was able to go see her one last time and she had a most amazing last day with family all around her. Her mind, though she was weeks away from her 99th birthday, was sharp.  Finally it was her body that wore out. She was actually a little miffed, I think, at God for not taking her on Wednesday when she collapsed in the bathroom, but God knew her family needed one more day with her. So tomorrow, Sunday, we put her to rest next to her husband of nearly 70 years.

That said, I am managing to give you a few more pages of MISSING IN MANITOWOC right now. I'm so excited to start on this journey with Nora Hill, a woman who has been tested by God in so many ways.  I hope you enjoy it too.

Again, this book will be available for kindle on Amazon tomorrow. I'm hoping all other digital platforms will also be ready to go today or tomorrow, and that includes Nook, Apple, Kobo...all of those.

Meanwhile, here's another few pages to whet your appetite!  Enjoy!

“Is that your Subaru?”

            I look at the mechanic in his coveralls. I wonder if his wife even attempts to wash the grease and oil stains out of the heavy denim union suit. Maybe she makes him leave it outside on the back porch.

            That’s what my mother would do. “Germaphobic” is a huge understatement for her dedication to avoiding all things filthy. Probably why she married a minister, thinking he’d never come home with anything worse than maybe a small purple stain from serving Communion too vigorously.

            She lived in a very tidy world, my mother did, until I came along. My two older sisters, born in her own image, never gave her a minute of grief. I swear, if you believe anything those three tell you, they were toilet trained immediately upon exiting the womb and never left a trace of themselves anyplace in the house.    Call it my creativity, call it a willful streak, call it Original Sin…I was that kid in every family who was always three degrees off. You know, the kid who always had a scraped knee. The kid who always spilled something at a family reunion or church pot luck. The kid who was always tearing a hole in her ‘Sunday best.”

 I never felt like I was born into the right family, you know?  At  my eight Christmas during the big family dinner with all the relatives there as witnesses, I asked if I was adopted. I mean, it’s a logical question. My sisters are seven and nine years older than I am. They are both tall and well built women. I’m short and frail looking. Kinda like one of those kids on those Christian Children’s Network commercials, the ones where kids are starving and have no clean water to drink, but a buck a week will keep them fed for a year.

So I asked the question. By the time I was eight I knew there was definitely something different about me that had little to do with my physical looks. It was clear, from the shocked reaction of those around the table, I’d struck an uncomfortable chord. True to my nature, however, I managed to spill an entire bowl of black olives on myself. So before anyone could think of a good answer to my question, the tension melted into laughter. Well, except for my mother. She dragged me into the bathroom to wipe the black, oily, juice off my Christmas dress.

My questions about why I’m so different from the rest of my tribe never have been answered. I dropped the adoption question that Christmas Day when Mom growled at me, “Don’t be ridiculous, Nora.” Some time ago I just accepted it. I’m that dirty kid every family has, the kid that is just never quite clean.          Or normal.

Since then I’ve put distance between my family and me. It’s better this way. At first, sure, they protested. I shouldn’t be traveling alone. I might get hurt. I wasn’t being safe. I would one day be found dead in a ditch.

“Dead in a ditch.” That’s my mother’s biggest worry for all of us. Didn’t return a phone call? “You might have been dead in a ditch for all we knew!” Came in late after curfew? “You had us so worried that you were dead in a ditch!” When I started traveling for work, that was her biggest, and only, concern. “Nora, you have to promise you won’t camp out in your car. I couldn’t bear it if you were found dead in a ditch.”

I promised her I wouldn’t camp in my car anywhere near a ditch. She didn’t see the humor in that.

 Sure she protested. I mean, I’m her kid, right? Of course she loves me. I’ve noticed, she has returned to her tidy way of life now that I’m not living there full time. She’s as happy as a clam. I don’t go home often. I don’t like to wreck her bliss.

            Wow, I’m off track. Now is not the time for these sorts of thoughts. Now is the time to get my car out of this garage and get out of this town before anyone recognizes me. Over the years I’ve changed my look, what woman hasn’t?  But I’m still me…no matter how hard I try to change the fact.

            “Yes, that’s my car.”

            The mechanic wipes his hands on his coveralls and stares at my car as if seeing something rare and strange. While Subaru Foresters aren’t that uncommon in most of the world, around here it is. It’s not a pick-up truck, and there isn’t a boat hitched to the back of it. I don’t have to dig too far in my memory bank to recall my high school days when everyone drove a pick-up truck. Everyone, of course, except for me. Back then, the Forrester was new, a gift from my parents for my sixteenth birthday. While not wealthy, my father was one of those rare people who just knew how to save a dollar and turn it into five dollars. Each of us girls, first Rose, then Lily, then me, got a new car on our sixteenth birthdays. Rose and Lily have long since traded their cars in for an upgrade, of course, but I’m still driving mine. Some call it loyal, some call it cheap. I call it not wanting to clean out the car and put my stuff in a new one.

            “Haven’t seen a Surbaru in a long time. Most people around here drive pick-ups and minivans. I do remember this one girl in high school…”  With that, the mechanic’s voice drifts off and he turns his attention back to me. He stares at me. Hard.

            I feel the start of a headache…the kind I get when I know something I don’t want to happen is about to happen.

            “Do I know you?”

            And that thing I didn’t want to happen is now starting. My headache is getting worse. We are about to get into an uncomfortable spot here. He’s recognized me.

            “Nora?”

            That’s it. I officially want to fall through the floor. I want to hide away and not continue this conversation. I’ve had this dialogue a hundred times with people who knew me growing up, but I have absolutely no recollection of them. I remember places, experiences, and feelings with super high-def clarity. I can recall names, lists and lists of names. But faces, faces I can’t remember at all.

            It’s not laziness on my part or a quirk I have. It’s not like those funny mental ticks we all live with, like how my brother-in-law never knows where his glasses are or how my oldest sister goes through the names of all of her kids before hitting the one she wants to yell at. It’s a medical thing. I have something.

My “something” has a name that’s a mile long: prosopagnosia. That’s what they call it on the health channel. Most people call it face blindness. Simply put, I don’t remember faces, even those of people close to me. If I see someone, and then they leave the room for five minutes or so, I completely forget their face.

            This includes my mother’s face and my father’s, when he was alive, my sisters’ faces, too.  Plus, while I can differentiate between male and female voices, I have trouble sorting out specific voices. Not uncommon to us face blindness folks.  Most of us have some other “thing” along with the prosopagnosia.  It’s like God sent us through the neurological cafeteria before we were born and wasn’t just happy with us having the main course.  I’m “face blind with a side order of distorted hearing.”  Others might have Asperger’s or autism.  There’s no end to the fun combo packs available.

            When I’m home, I’m able to sort out my mom and sisters out, so long as they’re sitting in a certain spot. It has nothing to do with their faces, but rather whether or not they’re  in their favorite chairs. Lily likes the green love seat. Rose curls up in my father’s brown recliner. Mother seats herself in the white wing backed chair, a chair so pure white only she could sit in it, by the way.

If my mother ever gets new furniture, I’m doomed.

As you can imagine, this causes problems at family gatherings and whatnot. I can’t count the number of times I hear the whispers, “Oh, that’s Nora…she’s terrible with people.”

I’m not terrible with people. I’m terrible with faces.

Then again, it’s almost better to be thought of as careless and rude, as some of my relatives do, than to be thought of as mentally deficient, as some of my other relatives do. Seriously, I think everyone in my extended family would just feel more at ease with me if I got a seeing-eye dog or a helper monkey or something. I know, ridiculous. But still, it’s family, right?

            “Nora Hill, is that you?”

            The mechanic is still looking at me and I really, really want to run away. I have nothing to say to this person who may be a friend, but right now is a stranger to me.  And since he recognizes me and knows my name, I’m already at a huge disadvantage.

            This is why I don’t like being around people.

So, what exactly is rock bottom for this particular addiction?

Good afternoon!

In case you missed is, I have a NEW NOVEL available for sale RIGHT NOW!  (Okay, I have four novels, two humor books, and one short romance for sale...but let's focus on one thing here.)  CLICK HERE to check our "A Hero's Spark." Also, in case you missed it, this weekend only, Elsie W.'s OTHER BOOK, "Unsafe at Any Speed" is FREE to Kindle users.  So...CLICK HERE to get that book for FREE!

It's Independence weekend...Elsie is FREE!

Now...on Monday, which most of you know is my "Marathon Monday" where I work from 7 AM until 8 Pm at Stuff, Installed, all so I have a glorious three days every week where I don't have to wonder just how Captain Nubbin is going to find a way to either be MORE useless or be a BIGGER obstacle in my day.  Anyway, on Monday, I sat at my desk, as I have several of these last Mondays and watched horrible storms roll in.  I was convinced, as I've been the last several Mondays during this fantastic unstable weather season we call Summer, that I was going to die at my desk as high winds, wild rains, and a smattering of hail threatened to break through the shoddily installed windows in our showroom.  (Note:  We at Stuff, Installed did NOT install those windows.  We do not install shoddily.)

So I was sitting there at my desk watching yet another Monday's edition of Weather Armageddon when I get a text from Hubby.  

There's No Power.

Crap on a cracker...I hate no power days.  Granted, compared to other houses I've lived in, and compared to other neighborhoods in my area, we've been pretty blissful when the power goes out around us. So I guess it was our turn.  Still, he sent the text at 6, and that gave the power company almost two and a half hours to get out there and get my AC and my TV turned on.

It's not like I've never been without power before.  I have.  Why do you think I wish we still used manual typewriters?  Power outages when I was a teen was NOTHING...I mean, back then we'd only had electricity for what, three, four years?  But now...everything depends on electricity.

This is one shelf...one of many.

Now, the joke in our house is that without power, we'd still have light because of my cache of Partylite candles.  And that is true.  I have enough candles to pretty much fully light my house for a week or two, brightly enough to read, sew, fold laundry, whatever.  I'm not exaggerating.  I love candles.  I have a lot of them.

So light, we've got light.  And we've got food because you do not need electricity to grill or cook on the top of our gas stove.  Again, having a ton of candles means I have enough of those long stemmed candle lighters to go on tour with...pick a band, I don't feel like being mocked for my music tastes at the moment...and have a lighter to last through an entire summer of power ballads.   Hubby hit the grocery store, got steaks for Skippy, Other Daughter, and me.  (Hubby is a vegetarians, he grilled some sort of sweet potato/corn mixture.)  Peaches, as most of you know was in France, enjoying French food cooked in a building that probably had electricity.  I can't swear to it, mostly because everything I picture in Paris is from 1944..I've been watching A LOT of World War II pictures lately.

So, light, and food.  And I have enough light to read and enough wine to stay in good humor.

But, as I picked my way through the downed trees and outed stop lights between Stuff, Installed and my house, I knew that was NOT going to be enough.  As it happens with most summer storms in Wisconsin, while there was a wild wind, there was also a heavy, sweaty humidity.  People think we're always cold up here, and that's true for 8 months out of the year.  Then we have two weeks of lovely spring and two weeks of lovely autumn, and in the middle of all that is three months of sweaty, sweltering tropical weather, complete with mosquitoes as thick as a sweater.

AHHHHH, lovely Wisconsin.

When I arrived home everything smelled good. Between the two dozen scented candles and the steak grilling in a tiny corner of the driveway just out of the rain, the place made your mouth water.

But inside the house was like one of those movies in set in the tropics where guys wear Hawaiian shirts and everyone is shiny.  Other Daughter and Skippy were splayed out on the leather furniture, afraid to move lest they stick and wind up having to peel layers of skin off just to get off the couch.  (Sort of that frozen tongue on the flag pole thing, but in reverse.)

Hubby was cheerful, having cooked a delightful meal and consumed a couple beers.  We have a gas water heater, so he was cheerfully elbow deep in a sink of soapy water, washing dishes.


I'd been at work for 13 hours. I wanted AC and TV.  

I would have done better in chemistry class if this had been
the table of elements and I had been the age I am now.

We ate the steaks, they were wonderful.  I even read a little.  I didn't have any wine, although I should have.  Perhaps a couple glasses of wine would have helped me fall asleep without the cooling breezy of my oscillating fan and the calming hum of the central air.

And oh yeah, I always, ALWAYS, ALWAYS fall asleep with the TV on.  ALWAYS.  I can't tell you a night in the last ten years where I haven't.  (Well, okay, when Marie and I are having fun with our "Two Moms and Three Glasses of Wine" idea for a podcast, then yeah, I may have fallen asleep without the TV, but I still have a fan.)

So there I am, lying in bed, sweating. Hubby, who seriously can fall asleep anyplace, any time, was already asleep.  I took a cool shower.  That comfort lasted about eight minutes.  And I started sweating again.  I hit the Tylenol PM and took another cool shower. But the silence in the house, the black screen of the TV and the humidity battled me a long time until, I guess, around midnight I fell asleep.

At 1:19 Am the power came back on. How do I know?  Well, I'd turned on the fan, I'd turned on the exhaust fan in the bathroom, and I'd switched on the bathroom light in the hopes that they'd come on and I'd relax.  What actually happened was they came on and I awoke in a gleeful state!  I jumped out of bed joyfully...
and I turned on the TV.  I turned on a rerun of "Friends" (thank you Nick at Night) set the sleep timer to 60 minutes.  I lay down, floating on a cool breeze and the gentle hum of the central air...and I fell asleep in about two minutes.  I didn't even make it through the "Friends" opening theme song.

So...I'm thinking this is not how a normal adult woman should be.  I mean, clearly there's an addiction I wasn't aware of.  I'll admit to being addicted to checking my Kindle Self Publishing stats.  I'll admit to being addicted to Grumpy Cat memes and big giant Hollywood period movies.  I'll even admit a tiny addiction to wine with french onion dip and low fat chips.  (Thank you, Marie!)

But TV, and AC...yep, I'm an addict.

Is there a twelve step program for this?  When do I know if I've hit rock bottom?

Was Monday night my rock bottom?

Is there someplace BELOW where I am now?

Okay, so, Americans, Happy fourth of July!  England, enjoy getting the first couple legs of the Tour de France!  And speaking of France, Peaches, enjoy the rest of your time there!  We miss you, but we know you're having a blast!

AND EVERYONE!  Please buy my books so I can quit my job and spend MORE time standing lines and driving among idiots!  CLICK HERE to help make that dream a reality!