Category: Check-in

Sunshine and Shakespeare

Look at what we found in the yard. A Fivespot! A volunteer fivespot since we have no idea where it came from, and we haven’t been scattering wildflower seeds yet.

Volunteer Fivespot in the yard

Fivespots are annuals in Minnesota. Perhaps this little one self-seeded and somehow survived the brutal winter. If so, it’s resilient.

In any case, it was a nice surprise.

This week, I managed to combine my Shakespeare class and gardening. Part of the course includes studying an adaptation of one of the plays. This week, it’s The Gap of Time by Jeanette Winterson, a retelling of The Winter’s Tale.

The library has the audio version, so I’ve been spending hours working in the garden while someone reads to me. It has been lovely.

In writing-related things, I’ve been doing some preliminary work on book three, The Rose Rebellion. There are things I need to know before I tackle revising The Marigold Miracle. Rose has presented her story to me as a series of sent and unsent letters.

Yes. Because I can’t make anything easy on myself. But I’m having so much fun writing these letters, and I’m hoping that I can (fingers crossed) make them work in the overall narrative.

Next week looks busy, what with an author workshop, but I’m hoping for more Shakespeare and sunshine nevertheless.

The quiet contentment of writing longhand

I spent this last week quietly working through all the notes I have for not only The Marigold Miracle, but also The Rose Rebellion (book 3), The Dahlia Dilemma (possibly book 3.5), and a manuscript to be named later (but maybe The Florence Fiasco).

Yes, I love me some alliteration.

I refined the old notes (things change as I write) and made new ones. As you can see:

Stack of notebooks
Blurry view of notebook interior.

Actually, that’s not all the notes I’ve made while writing this series, just the most recent ones.

There are all sorts of studies about the hand-to-brain connection. I love writing longhand. The main problem I have is searching for the information I’ve written down. Clearly, my handwriting is nowhere near good enough to scan into a digital file (if only).

So, I’ve further refined my notetaking technique by adding plot points and characters in the margins. That way, I can page through and quickly find what I need.

The other thing I’m doing is double-checking my world-building. I really don’t want to end up needing to retcon (retroactive continuity) something.

I’ve really enjoyed this process, and I plan to keep at it for this coming week. Not interacting with any kind of digital technology for several hours in the morning has been unbelievably refreshing.

Book-packing event

I was going to write a bit more about libraries, along with how I’m approaching this current revision. However, I attended a book-packing event yesterday at the Little Free Library headquarters in St. Paul.

It was so much fun. Between packing books for shipment across the country and taking some for our own libraries, I think we cleared out the two big bins of donated books. I was able to restock my own library, which has been looking a little thin lately. Someone has already snagged the really cool dinosaur book I brought back.  

But now? Well, now. I. Am. Tired.

So I’ll save my musings for next week, but leave you with these beautiful murals on the building’s exterior. I especially love the optical illusion with the butterflies.

Reader mural
Butterfly mural

Snow and Shakespeare

As I stepped outside this morning, the tiniest snowflakes were falling from the sky. It’s clear now, but cold. Not sure I’m going to make it into the garden today. It’s just a little too chilly for comfort at the moment, but we’ll see.

The cold reminded me that last year at this time, I was traipsing around Italy (and Florence in particular), so I scanned my photos and found this view of the Duomo from the Boboli Gardens:

Which is a great view for a Sunday.

When I did second-quarter planning, I thought I’d spend some time on the short stories I didn’t write during the first quarter of the year.

This is not happening. This is probably a surprise to no one but me.

My head is in King’s End completely, and I suspect it will remain there until the entire series is drafted. So be it. It’s not a bad place to be.

I’ve made it through my first Shakespeare lesson. This week, I’m looking forward to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Tempest, and the Hamnet watch party. Whew. It’s going to be a BIG Shakespeare week.

Shakespeare and Sunshine

Yesterday was cold, rainy, and blustery—the perfect day to watch King Lear. Which is exactly what I did, since I’m taking a Shakespeare course through the folkloric lens at The Carterhaugh School of Folklore and the Fantastic.

Because, of course, I am.

Today, though? Today, while still cloudy, is promising sunshine. Things are turning green. I really need to venture into the garden, start pruning, and generally prepare for the growing season.

It’s already 62 degrees. I’m going to assume the sun will make a grand appearance later in the day. So, I’m heading outside to stomp around in the mud for a while.

Happy Sunday, everyone!

First Quarter Reckoning

So, I am still (loosely) following the Ines Johnson Page Turner Planner system. Part of that is to reflect after each quarter—a good practice. It’s so easy to think you haven’t accomplished anything at all. At least, it is for me.

But in tallying up the first quarter of 2026, I discovered I did quite a bit.

The biggest, obviously, is getting a solid draft of The Marigold Miracle, which is now spell-checked, formatted, and resting quietly.

Other things I did:

  • Started Booking Through Thursday.
  • Submitted two short stories, one of which is in the final round of consideration.
  • Got a BookBub Free Reads deal for Must Love Ghosts that was tremendous.
  • Added a funnel to The Pansy Paradox at the end of Coffee & Ghosts book four—a short excerpt with a link to the extended preview.
  • Updated my WordPress template.
  • Migrated my email newsletter list to a different provider. This was not fun, but I’m glad I did it.

Things I didn’t do or dropped:

  • I wanted to look at drafting short stories, but my entire attention was on The Marigold Miracle, so this didn’t happen. It may happen in the next weeks while the manuscript rests. I’m fine with this. My entire brain was in the world of King’s End, and that’s where it needed to be.
  • The Jane Eyre slow read. I don’t know if it was the audio version or what (and yes, I know I could switch to a print version). But Adele sounded like a fifty-year-old French woman, and I’m not even sure what Mr. Rochester sounded like, except for wrong. But since it felt like a relief to stop, I think I made the right decision here.

And that’s my first quarter. I hope you take time to reflect and discover that you also did so much more than you imagined—even if it wasn’t exactly what you planned on doing.

It’s done! (Well, mostly.)

This draft of The Marigold Miracle is done!

Well, mostly.

It’s not the final draft, but it is the draft that has all its moving parts—or, at least, most of them. If someone read this particular draft, they could follow the story. I filled in all the missing scenes, wrote a new beginning, and picked up where I left off with the epilogue.

In the previous draft, I stopped writing in the middle of that epilogue. Yes, really! It was in my head, the last line in particular, so it didn’t really matter if it was on the page.

What comes next? I’m going to run a spellcheck, since when I draft, I never use spelling or grammar checking or turn on anything that provides “helpful” hints. (And Copilot is even more annoying than Clippy.)

After that, I’ll put it in manuscript format and then let it rest.

For how long? I’m not sure. I’m thinking between four and eight weeks. Then I’ll print that monster and do a paper edit.

And it is a monster of a story: 160,000 words, y’all.

This is the longest book I’ve ever written, beating The Pansy Paradox by 20,000 words. I did add a point of view (Marigold’s) and wrote a new beginning, so this makes sense.

I will streamline things in the edit, but I know my writing process well enough to know that I won’t move the needle that much. I tend to streamline and cut in one place only to add in another.

But for now? It. Is. Done.

Well, mostly.

Spring has (sort of) sprung!

What a difference a week makes! Last week, we were in the middle of an epic snowstorm. Yesterday, I took my first walk of spring.

It was in the 70s yesterday! Of course, today, it’s a bit colder. This is Minnesota, and we won’t get true spring for a while. Still, winter is (mostly) in the rearview mirror.

I had my root canal on Tuesday. Here’s a public service announcement about that:

Take the next two days off.

No, really. Do so. I did not, and I really wish I had. Also, if there is another root canal in my future, someone, please, gently remind me that this post exists. Future me will thank you.

So, in the spirit of taking time off, I’m going to keep this short.

Wishing everyone a restful Sunday.

Snowbound

We’re still in the middle of that promised snowstorm.

Can you see the deer in the woods there? Poor things. I’d invite them inside except:

  • I doubt they’d accept
  • With two dogs and a cat? Chaos.

Can you imagine? (Actually, I can imagine—I see them gathered around a table, like dogs playing poker.)

This week, I discovered that you can scrupulously brush and floss, see the dentist twice a year, and still need a root canal. In my case? According to my dentist, possible childhood trauma—the sort where one’s mouth meets the metal bars of a circa 1970s play structure. Apparently, this sort of injury can linger for years (even decades) and suddenly decide to abscess.  

So, I have that on my social calendar for this week.

The reason for my subscriber-only post yesterday was to test its functionality. Does it really work? Does the text end up in the RSS feed, either on WordPress or over on Goodreads, and so on?

It does work!

Here’s what I’m thinking of doing:

A read-along for The Pansy Paradox in the run-up to the release of The Marigold Miracle.

I need to review Pansy anyway before I dive into the full revision of The Marigold Miracle. But I wanted to do something as a thank-you for everyone who has stuck with me for all these years, both here and on my email list.

I could simply offer up the e-book for a limited time. But I wanted to do something fun, provide some behind-the-scenes writing-related content, and the like.

Of course, I have no idea if anyone will read along. That’s the risk of this.

So, this week, I’m going to assess the feasibility of a read-along. If I determine that it’s sufficiently fun for me, then I’ll go for it. In the same way that Booking Through Thursday is, and The (Love) Stories of 2020 was.

But today, I think we’re going to hunker down and hope the power doesn’t go out.