Sometimes you just have to take a break and dig in the garden, sort through old photos, or crochet a couple of baby blankets. It has been that kind of May, and I’m thoroughly enjoying it. I even enjoyed the big snow we had and was happy to see it didn’t do much damage to my garden except for snapping off one of the tomato main stems. I splurged on a much bigger tomato plant to replace it. I’m always hopeful I can finally get at least a couple of homegrown tomatoes that taste the way they did when I was a kid. Always the optimist!

Now, however, I need to let the garden grow and spend a little more time here on my blog. I’ll have two or three guest author/bloggers coming for a visit soon. And I’m ready to start some posts of my own on the writing life and my critters, Sassy Dog and Katie Cat. Here are a couple of examples. Sassy begs to get in my lap while I’m using the computer, hoping I’ll bring up some cat and dog videos instead of this boring stuff.

She will even rest her muzzle on my hand on the keyboard while she waits, patiently, as if she knows I can’t do much typing that way and will give in to her video wishes.

I’m also thinking about writing a series of posts featuring “Things I’ve Learned Over the Past 75 Years.” That’s a series where I could try out humor writing!

I’ll have a new book coming out in November, so you’ll be reading a little bit about that. I just saw the proof of the cover art and hope to do a cover reveal soon. Five Star’s artist team always does a fantastic job.

I’m registered for the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Colorado Gold Conference in Denver in September (early-bird registration ends on May 31st) and have signed up for an agent pitch (which means I better get one of these three manuscripts finished up soon), a new author headshot, and an author reading. These readings take place in the evenings after other events have wrapped up, and writers can read from works in process or published novels. I’ve attended as a listener a couple of times, but this will be my first time as a reader. That should be good practice for promo events where I need to read aloud.

And finally, I have a book recommendation for you. Timothy Ferriss put together a huge collection of interviews of all kinds of successful men and women, plus some of his own essays on various topics. The book is called Tools of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers. I don’t advocate following all of the advice you’ll find there, especially some of the stuff about exercise and drugs, but I think reading the whole book provides a wealth of information to get the creative juices flowing and broaden our worlds a little.

Ferriss is on Facebook and Twitter, and he’s about to launch a new show on Direct TV’s Audience channel called Fear(less).  If you check out his blog, you can sign up for informative blog posts and get some of the materials he offers for free from his blog and publications.