Fall is here.
Posted: October 12, 2013 Filed under: NaNoWriMo, Odds and Ends | Tags: cool temps, Fall, Melissa Stevens, nano, writing Leave a commentThis means cool nights and days under 100 degrees. I have to admit, I’m really enjoying it. The downside is more than a little wind, but that’s okay. I’m willing to deal with the wind to get cooler temps.
In the mean time I’m trying to get notes and plans together for this year’s NaNo, I’m not sure what I’m going to write yet but either way I’m sure I’ll stay busy. Are you planning on doing NaNo this year?
Surgery recovery, the ups and the downs.
Posted: September 28, 2013 Filed under: Odds and Ends | Tags: character, character background, healing, surgery, wisdom teeth, writing 1 CommentTuesday morning I had (my last two) wisdom teeth removed. I spent the rest of Tuesday and most of Wednesday sleeping. By Thursday morning I was doing pretty well. I was still taking the pain meds, (I’m still taking them today, at least to sleep,) but I was no longer miserable and my swelling was down. It wasn’t completely gone, but was way better than it had been. All in all, I’m feeling pretty good.
The pain meds are strong enough to kill the pain, but not something that hugely affects my mental capacity. I can think straight but I have trouble with the complicated processes of plotting out what happens in a story. But that hasn’t kept me from working… I’ve been keeping myself busy with character sketches for the new people we’ll meet in the next Kitsune book. I’ve been working on plotting for sometime and I always have a number of people we meet for the first time, this one is no different. I’m using my relaxing and down time for a good use. I’m hoping that taking some extra time now will save me some later on, make the actual writing move faster once I get there.
Ready for the end of summer.
Posted: September 17, 2013 Filed under: Odds and Ends | Tags: heat, life, September, softball, summer, weather Leave a commentYesterday, as I stayed inside working on revisions of my next release, I watched the indoor/outdoor thermometer. Mostly so I could be glad I wasn’t out in the heat. Then my girls had softball practice…. and I sat in 108 degree heat for an hour and a half. Not my idea of fun. Not my idea of pleasant. I mean really.. it’s the second half of September already, let’s have some cooler weather!
I’d love 70’s, but I’ll settle for not triple digits… please!
I love back to school.
Posted: August 12, 2013 Filed under: Odds and Ends, Robin's Nest | Tags: back to school, kids, Melissa Stevens, Robin's Nest, writing Leave a commentAside from the killer sales on writing supplies, it also means that I’ll have some peace and quiet to get something done.
No more “MOOOOMMMMM can I have (insert thing you really don’t need permission for)?” 50 times a day. No more standing beside me and touching me (because I have my headphones on so I can’t hear their irritating children’s tv shows or babbling) 4 times in the span of one song. Don’t get me wrong, I love my children. Most of the time. But they can also be some of the most irritating little shits on the planet.
Either way. They’re all back to school and I’m celebrating the release day of Robin’s Nest. Have you picked up your copy yet?
Gimme Minions!!
Posted: July 30, 2013 Filed under: Jade's Peace, Odds and Ends, White Mountain Chanat | Tags: Jade's Peace, knitting, minions 2 CommentsI’ve decided I need minions. Since no one seems willing to hide in my (non-existent) basement and do my bidding, my second best option is to knit me one or five. I picked up yarn in the right colors yesterday and I got started this morning. They’re not big projects and I thought I should be able to make them very quickly.
I didn’t count on my fingers being out of knitting practice. The bodies are 54 rows. I’m on row 20 and my hands ACHE. So I’ll set it aside for a little while, dig out my arnica gel and go back to work on Jade’s Peace for a little while. I’m not really sure what I’ll do with them. I’m sure the kids will get a kick out of them, but right now I’m wanting them for me.
Heart-Blind
Posted: July 20, 2013 Filed under: Change, Escape, Fight, Hunt, Jade's Peace, Odds and Ends, Robin's Nest | Tags: Escape, Heart blind, Jade's Peace, Kitsune, Melissa Stevens, Robin's Nest Leave a commentDay after tomorrow will mark four weeks since I got that heart-rending call. Nearly a month since I found out that my sister-in-law had left this world and it was up to me to notify my husband (her brother) and her father. In a lot of ways, I’ve been numb since then.
Strong emotion has always been difficult for me to express and this has been no exception. It didn’t help that my grandfather passed away in March and since I don’t live close to him, it’s been easier for me to pretend (at least in my heart) that it didn’t happen.
I’ll admit, when my grandmother passed away it took me more than six months to deal with it, and I was used to seeing her every day. Granted, I was thirteen at the time, but that’s kind of typical for me. I’ve dealt with my share of loss. This he was my fourth grandparent to go and I lost a step-sister when I was 18, but I don’t handle it like most people. I probably cry less than most men. In sixteen years of marriage my husband can probably count on one hand the number of times he’s seen me cry. I’m not kidding. I just don’t do it, or I don’t let anyone see it when it happens. I’m much more likely to vent my emotions by yelling, screaming or hitting something (not someone, something). It’s just me. I know it’s odd. I know it’s not normal, but it’s me.
What do I mean my heart-blind? I mean I’ve been in this locked down place where I couldn’t feel much emotion, good or bad. This made writing a romance very difficult, especially the one that I’m working on.
Without giving too much away, I can say it’s not an easy story. When I started it, I had in mind a quick, fun read, but Steve and Jade have slowly revealed to me that their stories aren’t either quick or fun. Now that I’m starting to feel emotions again rather than just surviving, they’ve started talking to me again. The story is already longer than I had intended for it to be, and I don’t see the end any time soon. They are telling me bits of what will happen in the immediate future and bits that will happen a little further off… I know how it will end, but the bits in between are what’s the most fun to find out. This current story is called Jade’s Peace (it’s a sequel to Escape) and you can find the first chapter at the end of Robin’s Nest. Eventually it will make it to the website, but that won’t be until I have a release date.
And for those of you asking me if there’s another book in the Kitsune series. Yyes, there is at least one more book in Nickie’s story. I’m not yet sure if there’s more than that, but there is at least one more book.
It’s been a rough couple of weeks.
Posted: July 11, 2013 Filed under: Odds and Ends | Tags: death, family, life, Melissa Stevens, odds and ends Leave a commentAbout two and a half weeks ago I got one of those calls that everyone dreads getting. One of my sisters-in-law had been in a car accident and she hadn’t survived. She had been a single mom, with three teenage daughters. The oldest was 18 and had been away at college, though she was home for the summer, but the other two have not yet started high school.
It fell to me to relay the news to my husband, as well as his father. I’ll just say there’s a difficult relationship between my father-in-law and most of the children from his first marriage, and leave it at that.
Thankfully, it’s summer and my own children are not currently in school, as soon as I got the first call, I started them packing their things. After I made my calls, I started packing myself. By 6:00pm we were on the road. We drove all night and the trip took 13 hours.
We ended up staying two weeks. It was difficult for everyone involved, making decisions about where the girls should go and how to deal with it (their father passed away several years ago,) planning services, high emotions and general family drama.
I was glad to get home. I’d missed my bed, my own pillow and the quiet comfort of not having to walk on eggshells to keep from inadvertently hurting someone’s feelings.
I’m not quite back in my work groove, but I’m getting there. I’ve been doing a lot of not-actual-writing business. Getting ready for an appearance and household stuff that was just put on hold when we left. I’ll get back where I should be, but it may take me a few more days.
It’s summer…
Posted: June 5, 2013 Filed under: Odds and Ends | Tags: heat, Melissa Stevens, pool, summer, swimming Leave a commentWhich, here, means hellish heat. Right now it’s almost noon and the official temperature is 90, however, the outdoor thermometer at my house says 105. Yesterday’s official high was 102, I actually saw 114, it may have gotten higher, but that’s what I saw. Have I mentioned that I’m not fond of the heat? I had a bout of heat exhaustion when I was 18 and I’ve been sensitive to it ever since.
So, summer here means I hide in the house or I find a pool to live in. Since I refuse to have a pool at my house (for several reasons, insurance and maintenance costs not the least of them) the pool thing is more difficult. Until now. I recently found out a family gym not too far away that has a pool, for the monthly membership fee I can take the kids over and we can play in the pool as much as we want while they’re open. That’s where we’re headed this afternoon. I plan on a couple hours a day, at least most days, for the rest of the summer. It should help us stay nice and cool… and it wears the kids out!
Annual camping trip, part three, Bonus! The trip home.
Posted: May 27, 2013 Filed under: Odds and Ends | Tags: camping, Melissa Stevens, part three, the trip home Leave a commentFor those of you wondering, yes, I did go fishing… but I didn’t do the whole get up at the crack of dawn and sit there for hours waiting for a bite thing. The old man got up and took the younger two out, I dropped them off, then went to the ONE small spot around the lake that gets cell and internet signal, I spent about 45 minutes checking messages and dealing with business before going back to camp where Kid 1 was still asleep. At noon, the kid and I went back to where the family was fishing.. I took my kindle. I sat down, Hubster handed me a pole and within 20 minutes I’d landed 5 trout. We limited out (24 for our family) in 2 hrs. That was my fishing. I was done.
Back at camp, Hubster cleaned the fish while I got stuff ready to make dinner and do a little bathing (sponge baths are bathing while camping.) over all, we had a good day.
Then there was the trip home.
It started out all right, and we were about half way home when another driver took advantage of a passing lane to let us know we had a problem. We pulled off at first opportunity and found that the fresh water tank that we’d had remounted under the trailer in March had fallen out, it was scraping the ground under the trailer and the strap that had been holding it up was dragging and throwing sparks. Hubster crawled under the trailer and determined we couldn’t get the tank all the way out, so we wove a rope (the one we’d used to tie up the dog) across the frame to hold it up, we cut the strap loose so it wouldn’t be scraping anymore, but we also discovered that the flapping strap had cut two tires, one pretty badly so we had to put the spare on that one.
We eased it the last 20 miles to the next town where we stopped and got bungie cords to help tie up the water tank and headed home. It was a long trip, that ended up taking only 30 minutes less than the trip up (which is big, anyone who does much mountain driving will tell you down is always faster than up.)
In the end, I was glad to get home, glad to get a shower, but I miss the cool weather. I don’t think we had a day that got over 75 and the 100+ here are not fun.
Annual Camping Trip, part two.
Posted: May 22, 2013 Filed under: Odds and Ends | Tags: camping, fun, springerville, trip, weather Leave a commentThis post was written on 5/15 and posted after I returned.
We’ve been up here for about five days now, honestly, I’m losing count. The only way I’m able to keep track of the days and the date is my laptop, which I’m charging in the truck each night so I have the battery to write with the next day. Speaking of writing, I’m doing well, closing in on the end of this tale!
The weather has been nice, at least I think so, mostly temps in the mid-60’s though yesterday it clouded over and rained a bit. Hubster complained about the rain, I thought it was nice. I’m reminded how much I’d like to live up here. Maybe in town (Springerville,) or outside it, where I would have power and internet service, not up here at the lake where I have neither.
While the fishing hasn’t been great, they did catch enough to have for dinner last night. No, I haven’t been fishing yet, and I may not go this trip. It’s not that I don’t like fishing, but that I detest the 40 mile hike out to Hubster’s favorite fishing spot. Okay, so it’s probably closer to half a mile, but it’s over rough ground that turns my ankle, besides I’m having a hard time breathing in the elevation this trip, I don’t want to risk it. If were going to be here longer I’d get used it better, but as it stands I’m content to stay at camp and do things here.
Nothing hugely thrilling over the last few days, we’ve been able to have a camp fire each night and cook dinner over it and the kids are loving s’mores and roasting marshmallows. We’ll be here until either Saturday or Sunday, so that means either three or four more days. I’ll enjoy them, but I’ll also be glad to get home, not the heat (it was 106 there yesterday!) but my bed and my shower, those I’ve missed. And my email, I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s missed me having regular access to my email.
