starting my weekend at 4:30 on a Sunday

This was a weekend of cleaning.

It isn't that I need my place to be spotless before I can settle down and write, but I really need it to be in a mostly cleaned and picked-up state before i can focus. And my place had gotten pretty cluttered and disheveled, with many tasks needing to be done, and some of the underlying cleaning really needing attention. So this weekend, I tackled those projects. I finally put away my winter clothes! I had them washed and half folded, but not boxed away, and that project was just looming over me because it involves finding room to put away those boxes, which the space they were in previously always seems to vanish.

So, now, I am tired but triumphant. And I probably won't do much more than noodle about with some stories, but the weight is lifted.

baking cookies

Baking some oatmeal raisin cookies tonight for a pot luck tomorrow. I go a little light on the cinnamon and heavier on the nutmeg. It's a nice excuse to indulge in some cookies, and I'm really glad that the temps outside aren't too awful. It's never fun to turn on the oven when it's warm! If it had been hot, I definitely would have chosen something like gelatin mold!

NineStar Press -- 40% off code

NineStar Press has a special for Pride Month! And I have a story there that is part of an anthology:
https://ninestarpress.com/p…/once-upon-a-rainbow-volume-two/

Once Upon a Rainbow, Vol. II

The True Love Curse by Tray Ellis – True Love would be wonderful, but the curse keeps getting in the way.

Definitely take advantage of this! (Even if it's not my story, there's so much good stuff there, you'll find something that floats your boat!)

new weekend, new energy

Last weekend I got skunked and ended up doing everything for everyone else and did not get any writing time at all. This weekend, there are still a substantial number of things on the To Do list but I have much better odds at finding time to do some writing. Now I have only to figure out which draft will spark the most energy for me.

Simmer, don't wait

I definitely had a very good stretch where I had a lot of short stories accepted for anthologies, but now time has passed and the anthologies are going to be retired. This is another of those.

Simmer, with Dreamspinner Press

https://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/books/simmer-5594-b

My contribution was 'Operation Wild Thumb":


Zucchini and squash have sprouted at the home Heath shares with his divorced sister, Sara, and are growing in abundance. Never one to pass up the opportunity for a prank, Heath decides to leave the vegetables on his neighbors’ doorsteps. One neighbor catches him in the act, but luckily Alex seems as into the humor as he is into Heath. When the night comes to an end, there might be more on the burner than zucchini pancakes.

The thing I really loved about this anthology were the recipes that came with the stories! Each was associated in some way with the story that had been told. So, for mine, I have a zucchini pancake recipe -- which was a lot of fun developing. I made the pancakes several times, trying different variations of the recipe until I had something I thought worked really well. (My first try had everything way too soggy, and it wasn't as delicious as I wanted it to be.)

So, if you were waiting to grab this particular anthology, grab soon.

Purple Potatoes

Got these at the local Farmer's Market this weekend and turned them into delicious homemade chips. They don't taste different from other potatoes, but they're very pretty.

catching up on rest

It was a busy winter, and I finally hit a wall. I haven't done much of anything today except nap, but I think I needed to work off some sleep debt. I've definitely been working a lot lately. I'm eyeing later spring for a return to writing more regularly, and storing up ideas of things to work on. I keep having daydreams of opening the windows to let in the soft, warm, fresh air.