News/Musings
Meet the newest member of the Oliver family. Her name is Minerva. She’s a German Shepherd mix and is just a little over one-year-old. She’s been the major source of the chaos that has ensued in these early days of 2023.
She is tall, smart, and has way too much energy. (My daughter was supposed to be looking at small dogs, yet her hubby fell in love with this giant!) She can reach the counters and has run off with all manner of things, including serving tongs and a butcher knife!
For some crazy reason, we thought our cats, who had been pals/tolerant of Serenity, our large American Bulldog, wouldn’t have super issues with Minerva. Sure, we expected an adjustment period, but not what we actually got! Boy, our big bully cat, went into sheer terror mode. He’s run away from home several times. The kids keep trying to introduce them to get him used to her, but it’s going to be a long battle. Whee!
Mellow, our drama queen, who I expected the most trouble from, has been the one taking things more in stride. She’s more than happy to take a swat at Minerva when she invades her space. She’s climbing from place to place though, getting on the floor as little as possible.
New pets mean new expenditures. But we also realized our fence needed to be replaced as Minerva found ways to get past loose slats! (Did I mention she’s a force of chaos?) After we shelled out for that, we found we have a pipe leak! (That’s not on her, but the timing was atrocious!)
This type of thing comes in threes. Not looking forward to what the third $$ eater will be. Eek! 😫
Sleep and energy have been in short supply around here. 🤣 (Remind me to tell you about the Writers’ Group Zoom Meeting debacle if you didn’t see it on FB.) 😱
How have your first weeks into 2023 been? Do tell!
Writing news
My red-headed stepchild of a novel is finally DONE! I reached the bittersweet point of getting to write ‘The End!’ Woot! The Secret Humankind, an urban fantasy thriller, is complete! I wasn’t sure I’d ever get there. (I had shunted it to the side for at least two other books.)
You can see that final bit in the image below. Now I just need to get the final chapters to the crit group, make the fixes, and send it off to the editor!
I’m trying to be more organized for 2023 and I am shifting/compiling the order to get books written, polished, get the blurb, the cover, the editor edits, setup pre-orders, etc. Should be eye-opening to see what works and what doesn’t. 😎
After procrastinating about this for so long, I finally knuckled down and finished a new Book Trailer for Black Jade! I’d used someone from Fiverr to make the original, but with the new covers in 2022 and the new blurb for 2023, it was time to do a new one. 😊
