Waiting Mode

Those of you who've been around, know I was diagnosed with ADHD in 2024. One of the features of this is something I call Waiting Mode. It basically means I can't do anything if I have an appointment or something scheduled later.

It doesn't matter if my appointment is at 3pm and it's 8am. I will have a level of anxiety looming that prevents being productive on anything.

Because I'm waiting. Because I'm worried I'll get involved in something and forget the appointment. Because even though I have reminders setup on my phone, I don't trust them enough to not go into waiting mode.

There's nothing logical about this, but here I go again. Into Waiting Mode.

I'm writing this on Saturday. My new mattress is supposed to be delivered between 11:30 and 1:30. I am struggling to do anything beyond writing this short blog post, and even while I'm talking about waiting mode, I can feel that low-level anxiety starting.

Do I have everything ready?

I took off all the bedding. I actually wrestled the mattress and box spring off the bed frame so that I could vacuum and dust before the delivery team arrives. I have the bedding in the dryer right now. I have the new covers for the box spring and mattress on hand and organized by size. I have the gripper thing for between the mattress and the box spring folded and ready to go. (I ran it through the dryer to get the wrinkles out and folded it.)

And I'm still worried I forgot to do something even though I can't think of anything to do.

There are things about ADHD that I dislike more than this, but Waiting Mode is pretty annoying. 

Continuity

I was brainstorming a new idea and needed to know what the first hero and heroine looked like. I always go out online, looking for pictures that I save to reference. It helps me not get hair or eye color wrong.

Usually, if it's a multi-book series like Paladin League, I will go out and find all the heroes and heroines, although I didn't for this series idea.

That was fine. I actually was right about what color hair the next two heroines have.

It was the secondary characters that tripped me up.

The heroine's best friend. Clearly, she's brunette. I can see it clearly. And another secondary character, the best friend's little sister? Obviously a blonde.

But while I was looking for pictures of heroines 2 and 3, I started glancing around for the two secondary characters.

And discovered I was completely wrong about their hair colors. Not even close.

The best friend? She has auburn hair. Her younger sister? She's the brunette.

On the plus side? I'm not writing this story yet (I have two more Paladin League books to finish before I start another series), so there was nothing to fix. On the minus side? I keep thinking what if I didn't look for pictures of the two secondary characters? What if I did start writing the book and then found out later I was completely wrong? What if I had to do a search and replace and I missed something?

I know. I'm getting worried over nothing, but it was a reminder of why my OneNote is stuffed with photos of artifacts, characters, places, cars, and anything else I need. Not only so I know what they look like, but to avoid continuity issues later. 

Writing Planner Thoughts

I've been rethinking my writing planner lately.

The big one I'm using is a 7x9 dashboard planner and I don't like the order of the days. Instead of going down and then across, it goes back and forth on the across side. This means I have to buy stickers to cover every single week.

I'm not the only user of this planner who has had trouble with the layout. Others on YouTube have complained about it and also reorder their days like I do.

But stickers get expensive and the best bang for my buck is a small business in Ohio, I believe. And the post office is a major headache. My last order went missing on March 31st (after being mailed on March 24th) and then it sat with no updates. I filed a missing package report on April 7th and nothing.

After waiting for a while longer, I contacted the small business and she sent out a second order. And then on April 23rd, the original package was finally delivered and I had to refuse delivery to get it returned to the woman I bought the stickers from. Not fun at all.

I'd been testing out a different planner to be my writing planner. This one is a pocket size Tomoe River Paper planner with a horizontal weekly layout. It's not bad, but it's too small for the circles that I color in for every 250 words I write. With ADHD, I'm very reward oriented, and yes, coloring in circles is a reward. Go figure. :-)

The plus with this planner is I don't need to buy any stickers at all. The minus? there are a bunch of blank pages at the back that I'm not using. So now I'm not going to be able to throw away the planner at the end of the year because I can't waste that paper, and yet it's not something I need or want to use. If I put writing notes in there, I'll just have to transfer them at the end of the year and what else am I going to write in there?

The writing planners other authors have created just don't work for me no matter how much I wish they did. I really only keep track of a few things that help me keep moving forward.

I really am thinking ahead to 2027's writing planner. I know I want one, I just don't know what I want to use. Maybe a bigger version of the pocket planner I'm using if the company releases the horizontal layout in their Core planner, then it will be perfect because Core has almost no extra pages, but it only came out in vertical this year and vertical weekly doesn't work for me.

And yes, sorry, I really am thinking aloud here. I'll stop now. 

Broken Block

Well, well, well. Guess who started knitting again?

A friend was working on a shawl called Nightshift and it looked so awesome that I wanted to knit one, too. I had already purchased the pattern moons ago, so all I needed was the right yarn.

And then there was a big yarn sale on the type I needed for this shawl

I did watch a couple of videos on how to start the shawl and pick yarn colors. The one on how to start the shawl was very helpful.

The picking yarn colors? Well, I still messed up on a couple of choices and they ended up being too close to each other in shade. I decided I can live with it. It's sort of a tone-on-tone thing and transitions into the second part of the shawl, so it's fine.

The best part? It's an easy knit, but not boring. At least I'm not bored. It lets me listen to podcasts or watch television while I knit.

The bad part? I was already way behind on my reading for the year and this made it worse. Now I'm knitting instead of reading.

 

I'm actually a little farther along than this, but this is the last picture that I've taken.

Do I use shawls? Almost never, but I keep knitting them because I'm still afraid of sweaters. I really need to gather up my courage and do a sweater. For real.

Cover Reveal: Wicked Attraction

Newsletter subscribers got the reveal last month, so if you're not a subscriber, head over to my website and sign up on the Coming Next page!

Wicked Attraction is the 2027 release in the Paladin League series!

The pre-order is not up yet. That will go up in June, closer to the release of Wicked Temptation.

Wicked Attraction is Book 9 in the 10 book Paladin League series.

This is Ian "Rusty" Sinclair and Ellis Vandenhoff's story.

We're starting to wrap up the big arcs in this book as we head toward the final story in 2028.

Here is the cover copy I currently have for the book:

He’s a soldier clawing his way back from disgrace.
She’s a scholar desperate to prove she’s more than a prodigy.
Together, they’ll face a mission that could cost them everything.

Special Forces Sergeant Ian Sinclair has fought to rebuild his career and the trust of his team. One wrong move could send him back to probationary status, and he refuses to risk it. The last thing he needs is a civilian complication—especially Ellis Vandenhoff. Brilliant, restless, and bold enough to follow the trail of a centuries‑old treasure map she never meant to find, Ellis is determined to step out of her ivory‑tower life and into the real world.

But her discovery has put her in the sights of Jorge Torres, a ruthless arms dealer who believes the Lost Treasure of Trujillo will secure his legacy—and make him untouchable. Twice the Green Berets have tried to bring him down. Twice he’s escaped justice. This time, failure isn’t an option.

Now Ian’s mission is clear: protect Ellis, even if it means risking the career he’s rebuilt. For Ellis, survival means trusting the soldier whose relentless focus on safety both infuriates and tempts her. As bullets fly and passions ignite, they’ll discover the greatest danger isn’t Torres or the treasure—it’s the attraction that could shatter their defenses and change their lives forever.