Start of a busy week

Ahhh, Mondays. Don’t you just love how they get your week started, get your heart pumping, and your brain moving in anticipation of all the stuff you need to do for the rest of the week? Yeah, I know, not really, but it is nice to get moving on the week and check a bunch of things off my perpetual to-do list.

Already today I’ve dropped off one of the vehicles at the shop for a steering issue which will undoubtedly be exciting to pay for. Taken the fluffball dog to her grooming appointment since she was getting a bit matted. Caught up with a neighbor I adore while chatting in our driveways. Checked my book ranking on Amazon…can’t help it, numbers are addictive.

Still on the docket for today: picking up the fluffball, going to a dental cleaning appointment, picking up a part for the big rear-tine tiller so I can get it running so the Helvetican can prepare the garden, writing, finding my desktop. And that’s just Monday. You should see what the rest of my week has listed.

Oh, by the way, my blog is part of a big, two-day blog hop coming up on Thursday and Friday, celebrating birthdays. There will be a couple of grand prizes for the hop, and I’ll offer a prize of my own here. I’ll post more about it tomorrow.

What does your week look like?

Playing Catch Up

Wow, almost a week since my last post. Granted, leaving the tribute to my dad up for a while was part of the plan, but then the weekend got away from me, and, well, here we are at Tuesday.

So, here’s a quick peek at Lucy’s Life at this moment:

• I’m prepping for my first big Amazon promotion for Mending Fences.
• I’m working on Finding Refuge, the second in this loosely tied series begun with MF. Tentative release is May ’12.
• I sketched out a novella yesterday (at least I think it will be that short). It’s a time travel romance with a twist. Tentative release is June-July ’12.
• I’m also spending time on the first in a sort of SF-ish paranormal romance series. I’ve had the individual books partly written for ages. Now I’m working on the overall series structure to make sure everything works together as well as separate. Some serious alpha males in this series, very bad boys. The first of these should release this fall.

Outside of writing, this week’s list includes spring cleaning the house, including the mess that is the storage room. It also includes finding the top of my desk, which should be declared at least a local-level disaster. The dogs need grooming, the roses need pruning, and the tree guy is coming to advise us on proper shaping of fruit trees on Friday.

Doesn’t sound like a whole lot. Trust me, it’s enough to keep me out of trouble for the week.

Please come back and visit on Thursday for the start of the Mending Fences promo!

Almost there

I’m knee-deep in converting Mending Fences into the proper formats for uploading to various sellers. It’s a bit of a learning curve, but I’ve never been one to sit back and let others do for me what I can surely learn to do myself. Which has occasionally led to very long projects, like rebuilding the broken sprinkling system when we moved into our house.

Don’t get me wrong, there are certain things I do not attempt. I don’t do major car repairs. That’s best left to the experts, and we have a fantastic couple of shops we’ve used for years. And I don’t do stuff with electricity. Well…I change light fixtures and plugs. I know how to make sure the power is completely off where I’m working, and I test it to be sure. But aside from those two things, experts are required. I can play with the plumbing all I want, but not the power. Because if you mess up the plumbing, you get a watery disaster that can simply be cleaned. If you mess up the electricity, it can kill you.

So, from that tangent back to where I’m at. Almost there. The book will be live this Friday, February 10. I’m also doing a Createspace edition for anyone who prefers a paperback to an e-book, but that will take another week or two.

Oh, and I’m almost 10k words into the next book. See that gray challenge icon to the right? Yep, supposed to hit 60k by the end of the month. I’m thinking the next time I take on a challenge like that, I shouldn’t be trying to launch a book at the same time. Once it’s up, I’ll dive in fully to the WIP. The goal is to launch that one by May 1. Yes, it’s ambitious. Wish me luck!