To tell the truth, I already had spring flowers before the bomb cyclone winds and snow arrived in Colorado this week. And in spite of the blizzard conditions yesterday, my purple crocuses popped right back up through the snow today. I do love Colorado weather (especially when I can stay inside with a cup of hot chocolate and a good book).
The Blood-Red Pencil
If you’ve ever tried to follow the advice of a best-selling “do it my way” author and failed miserably, you might enjoy my post at the BRP blog: There’s No One-Size-Fits-All Solution for Procrastination. I read The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. I understand the concept of “Resistance.” I flunked “showing up to work like a pro.”
What Else I’ve Been Reading
Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love by Dani Shapiro
A highly readable story of a woman’s suppressed suspicions about her ancestry and what happens when she takes one of those DNA tests. Highly recommended!
From the Ground Up: A Journey to Reimagine the Promise of America by Howard Schultz
This sort-of memoir has a lot of information I didn’t know about the history of Starbucks and a lot of information about the kind of president Schultz might be if he were to run as an independent and get elected.
Most Gracious Advocate by Mary Birk
This is a very fine mystery set in Glasgow and focused on young au pairs who go missing. It’s the fourth book in the Terence Reid series.
Five Star’s Anthology The Spoilt Quilt and Other Frontier Stories: Pioneering Women of the West
The cover art for this anthology is not available yet but will be coming soon. The title story, The Spoilt Quilt, is written by the wonderful Sandra Dallas, one of my favorite authors. I’m so pleased to also have a short story included. Good Work for a Girl is set in 1811 central Illinois (before Illinois became a state).
The ToDos
Wrap up the self-editing phase of my new historical novel, Trouble in Sangamon.
Figure out what I’m going to write next.
Continue my depth year efforts to de-clutter, use up the yarn stash, and not buy new stuff.
Read lots and lots of books.
Try more new recipes (most recently, Chicken Marsala. It was pretty darned good).
What About You?
Have you read any good books this month? Have a novel or short story in the works? Experienced strange weather recently?
And would you like to be a guest on my blog this year?
I’m so sorry to be late to this party, Pat! I hope that you have an easy spring. I really like the sound of the books you’ve been reading lately. I’ve always liked history, and thought it was really interesting, especially people’s individual histories (e.g. memoirs and stories like that).
We’re having lovely spring-like weather this week, Margot, especially later in the week. We get spoiled like this and then end up shoveling snow again. My little crocuses are still blooming, and even if the tulips and daffodils show their colors, they will also bounce right back from a snow. We should all be so resilient.
Congrats on the short story!
“Resistance” is rearing its ugly head around here a lot lately. Sigh.
Right now, I’m reading Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier for the IWSG Book Club. I read it way back in school and enjoyed it. It’s very different from I read now, but I am absolutely seduced by the lush, romantic/gothic suspense of it all. 🙂
Hi Madeline! I have a copy of Rebecca sitting on a table right by my desk. I pulled it from my upstairs “keeper” bookshelf to take downstairs and add to my reading stack. I also read it years ago and had recently gotten the urge to enjoy it again. We seem to be on a similar book wavelength.
Apparently there are others out there who feel that Resistance is a necessary part of letting creativity simmer instead of trying to force it into a work model. I’m going to explore the books suggested by one of the comments on my Blood-Red Pencil blog post. Maybe Resistance should get a new name.
So glad you got through the storm with your hot chocolate and book.
My daffodils have poked through but not my crocuses. Hmm. The deer?
We rarely have deer or rabbits show up in our neighborhood even though we’re pretty close to the hills. Probably too many fences on this side of town. They sometimes wander in along the canal to the parks and natural areas but can’t get into the yards. That keeps our gardens and trees safe. And those tough little flowers seems to handle snowstorms just fine. They pop back up through the snow as soon as the sun comes out.
North Carolina always has strange weather.
Crocuses are such tough little flowers. They were always the first to bloom in Oregon.
I’ve been reading submissions and editing upcoming books. Does that count as reading?
Reading submissions definitely counts as reading, Diane. I’m now reading a book to blurb it and have 3 or 4 waiting to read and review.
Cool you have a short story in the anthology.
You had a blizzard and we’ve been in the seventies this week. Weird weather.
And it just keeps getting weirder, Alex. Next week we’ll have warm, spring-like temperatures while knowing March and April are usually Colorado’s snowiest months.