Work, Edits, Racing, Illness
Posted: March 14, 2016 Filed under: Odds and Ends, Risking Alex | Tags: Melissa Stevens, racing, Risking Alex, white mountain chanat 2 CommentsAnd that’s just the tip of the iceberg in my house. I’ve got yet another cold, though I’m on the recovery side of it now. I’ve been making weekly trips to the racetrack in Tucson (3hrs away) for the last 5 weeks for racing (I’m a Paramutual teller, that means I sell the bets) and I have one week left. I am working on the edits for Risking Alex so I can get it out to my ARC readers, and that’s on top of kids, food, house, etc. that has to happen daily. I have more going on but a girl needs to have a few secrets….. What are you all up to?
Risking Alex Cover Reveal
Posted: February 8, 2016 Filed under: Risking Alex | Tags: cover reveal, Melissa Stevens, Risking Alex, white mountain chanat, WMC Leave a commentI know you’ve been waiting for it…And I’ve been teasing you, leading you on, but here it is… Finally.
Matt’s lost his wife and child and has spent the last two years existing. Moving from one day to the next without much interest in life. He had a hard time. Then he encountered Alex. She’s everything he’s not. Young, happy and full of life. She could also be his mate. Though he loved his wife, he’s never felt the draw of a mate before and he’s not sure he can resist it. But… what can he give her? He’s a widower more than ten years her senior, who’s heart is dried up and gone. Or is it? Should he take a risk on loving Alex or will she break his heart too?
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Annual Camping trip, The beginning.
Posted: May 20, 2013 Filed under: Odds and Ends, White Mountain Chanat | Tags: arizona, camping, camping trip, Melissa Stevens, white mountain chanat, white mountains Leave a commentThis post was written on 5/12 and posted after I returned from the trip
We didn’t get out until 10:30pm on Friday evening. That’s really not too bad considering Kidlets had school and Hubster worked until 5 that day. We finished packing up the trailer and pulled out, Yes, I know camping with a trailer is not truly camping, but I like having a bed, and a bathroom doesn’t hurt either.
We could have waited until the next morning, but it’s a long drive and we like to drive at night. Other than giving us a head start on the trip, it also lets us avoid high traffic times as we go through Phoenix. The kids slept off and on for most of the trip, until we pulled into Show Low at about 4:30 and stopped to eat. (Another advantage to the trailer, we can put the dog in there while we eat / shop and he curls up on the sofa and is content, as well as protecting it from anyone who might want to break in, as long as the weather isn’t too hot that is.) We finished our grocery shopping (I always do this, get most of the food and water up here so we’re not hauling it so far,) and made the last hour and a half up the mountain to the lake. I won’t tell you the exact lake we go to, we like to keep it a secret, I’ll just say it’s in the White Mountains of Arizona (yes, near where the White Mountain Chanat series is set, where do you think I got the inspiration for it?)
We don’t camp in the Forest Service campgrounds around our favorite lake, instead we head to what locals call the Overflow Camping. We like having fewer people around, the downside is once the Forest Service limits fires, we can’t have one. We got there early enough this year it wasn’t an issue.
Anyway. We spent most of Saturday getting camp all set up, the trailer leveled, the generator set out, unload the trailer (since EVERYTHING is packed in it. We had to clean out the fire pit and get it ready for our own fires. We strung a rope through camp and hooked the tie cable for the dog to it, so it would slide the length of the rope this meant he had access to almost all our camp, but couldn’t wander off and disturb neighbors or get into the road. Hubster and the kids played a little softball, and we had a small fire to burn all the burnable trash we’d gathered (both from unpacking and what the previous campers had left behind.) It took us most of the day to get everything set up, and by 5pm we were exhausted. I fixed us a quick dinner and we were all in bed by the time it was dark.
Sunday morning Hubster got up and got his fishing stuff ready, and took kid 3, aka The Boy, out fishing. The girls and I cleaned up the trailer from breakfast and they went out to play with the dog. they quickly discovered that if they would put pine cones on the t-ball tee that we brought for the boy, and hit them toward the dog, he would chase them. The dog loves this game. He chases the pine cones and as soon as the girl hitting them has put a new one on the tee, he’s back to her, barking and jumping for her to hit another one. They played at this game for at least an hour, until everyone involved was exhausted.
Switching Gears
Posted: April 29, 2013 Filed under: Escape, White Mountain Chanat | Tags: Escape, Melissa Stevens, sequel, white mountain chanat, writing Leave a commentI’ve spent the last several weeks working on revisions, editing and formatting, getting things ready to publish. Now I’m back to work on the yet untitled sequel to Escape, and let me tell you, making my brain switch gears is not the easiest thing to do.
I generally do revisions and editing with the TV on, an old movie I’ve seen a million times or reruns of some series to keep me company while I work. I can’t do that when I’m writing. I need more solitude than I can manage with the television on. If I’m home alone I crank up the music, if my family is home I put on my headphones. I use my music to ‘close the door’ to put myself in my own little world and let the story flow. Once the main story is down, I can let the world back in as I rewrite.
Of course, I also have to get off the internet and get busy… Damn, Facebook is distracting.
Updates from the growing fires of the third circle of hell.
Posted: April 20, 2013 Filed under: Escape, Hunt, Secret Project, White Mountain Chanat, writing, | Tags: Escape, Hunt, Kitsune, Melissa Stevens, new project, white mountain chanat Leave a commentIt’s getting to be that time of year here, when the weather’s hot and dry and stepping outside feels like you’re climbing into a convection oven. The heat shocks the breath out of you and the wind sucks all the moisture out of your skin. This means I spend a great deal of time inside hiding from said heat when I can, having three kids playing baseball this spring means I have practices and games I have to ferry them to and attend, despite the heat.
Since I’ve had the time, I got a lot of work done on HUNT and it is now available. I’ve also got another story ready to go, it will be released near the end of the summer, I’ll share more about it soon, and I’ve started working on a sequel to ESCAPE. If what I have in mind works out, it will be another series, this one a little different, as each story will center around a different couple. That should be done about the end of this year, or very early next year, depending on how it goes. I’ll let you know more when I can.
I took my washer for granted.
Posted: April 10, 2013 Filed under: Odds and Ends, White Mountain Chanat | Tags: clothes, Melissa Stevens, repair, series, take for granted, washer, white mountain chanat Leave a commentUntil it started leaking and I couldn’t use it for nearly a week. Now, *hangs head* there’s a huge mountain of dirty clothes piled up in my pantry. No, I don’t normally keep clothes in the pantry, but we had to clear the laundry room so we could work on the washer. My kids are complaining that they have no clean clothes, but I know the truth… they have no clean clothes they *want* to wear. We’re almost out of clean towels, and I know it will take me days to catch up (especially since I don’t run the washer or dryer during peak power rate times (noon to 7pm here.)
The repair man will be here any time, with the part in hand, and we should have me up and running in short order. Oddly, I’m actually eager to start the washer running. It’s been a while since I could say that.
What parts of your life, automated, electronic, or human, do you tend to take for granted?
In the mean time, the kids are back to school and spring sports are back in session, meaning I spend little time at home after 3pm. Most of my evening writing is done at one ball field or another while waiting for kids to practice. But the good news is I’m getting back into the swing of the White Mountain Chanat series and making decent progress on the next book.
A long spring break leads to a tired writer.
Posted: April 6, 2013 Filed under: Escape, Odds and Ends, White Mountain Chanat | Tags: eegees, Escape, Melissa Stevens, new project, spring break, white mountain chanat Leave a commentTo start with, we were supposed to leave last Friday to go camping. I had been watching what the weather would be like, cool, but nice. However, I’d forgotten to check road conditions. So I spent three days working and working to get things ready to go, only to discover within an hour or two of leaving, that the roads are still snowed in and we can’t get there.
Hubster insists nowhere else will do, we can only go to this one lake. So we’ll wait. We knew when we scheduled this early that there was a chance we wouldn’t be able to make it. We planned for the possibility of delaying. So Hubster canceled his vacation and the kids stayed home with me for spring break (which was how we’d planned to do it if we couldn’t go this early.)
On the upside, this meant I got to finish the revisions on my latest project (more on that soon) in the comfort of my home, with conveniences like electricity! On the downside..it’s hot here. Mid-90’s already, and I think one day, we actually hit 100, though, not officially.
Things went along fine, until I went to the grocery store on Wednesday. There, I discovered the card I use for all my purchases has expired without the bank sending me a new one. Talk about embarrassing. I apologized to the clerk, told her I was going to have to cancel the order, and we came home. I got a hold of the bank, there’s a new card on the way, in the mean time, I’ve pulled a different card out to get me by.
Then there was Thursday. I was doing laundry like normal, everything was fine, until I noticed water pooling in the laundry room floor. I looked up my washer model online and did everything I could find or think of to find/stop the leak… no go. I had to call a service person. They’ll be here Monday, no clue how bad the damages will be.
Today, Kidlet 1 and I made a trip to Tucson. It’s a 4 hr drive each way. We went, picked up a truck load of furniture, a party pack of Eegees and came home. It was a long day and I’m exhausted but it was a good day.
The other really great part of the week was finishing the revisions on my latest project. No, I’m not ready to tell you all about it yet, but I will say it won’t be another nearly year before you get another book from me. It’s a great feeling. It also means I can go back to work on the next White Mountain Chanat book. Yes, a sequel to Escape is in the works, and going well so far. No, I don’t have a title yet, but I’ll let you know when I know more.