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?