The Liminal Zone

This is one of those weird stretches of time where the book is finished (Wicked Ambition), at least from the creative side. Copy edits and inputting copy edits and formatting for release are still ongoing or waiting to happen.

But even though nothing requires the creative side of my brain, I still can't write anything new. Not yet.

I can only work on one story at a time, and in my mind, Wicked Ambition is still that book.

It's also strange because I feel like I should be working on something. I've been writing and writing and writing and now I'm not. It's bizarre.

The other thing, of course, is that I haven't had time to think about the next book (Wicked Temptation) except in a very high-level kind of way. I know my hero and heroine. It's Cal "Baggs" Baggnell and Iona Desmond. I know they had a relationship that ended, but that neither one of them have moved on. And I know who the bad guys are in this book.

That's about all I have at this point and it's definitely not enough.

Once my mind is off Oz and Ayla, I'll get out my notebook and start brainstorming, but my head isn't there. Not yet.

Read-A-Thon Results

Let's talk about the read-a-thon I did and my results. I realized I kept talking about it in general terms, but didn't give specifics.

I kicked butt! I didn't think I would get as much reading done as I did because I was working on revisions while it was going on, but I had breaks between the rounds of revisions and was able to get through a lot of awesome books. (And a few clunkers.)

But I found two books that were five-star reads for me! Both were authors I'd never read before. I love when that happens!

One was a book for the Recommendation from Someone Else prompt. It was a mystery with a strong romance in it, but I was unlikely to have read it (even with the recommendation) if it weren't for the read-a-thon. OMG, I loved it! I stayed up way too late on a Saturday night to finish it. Um, like 2am.

The other I found accidentally. It was for the Has Less than 300 Pages prompt. I originally had a book from my TBR slated for the prompt, but it was like 296 pages, so it was still long. I thought that there had to be something shorter and quicker that I could read. I started out going through more eBooks that I own, but it took so long to check them out one by one.

Somehow, I spotted something about short reads over on Amazon, clicked on the banner, and went with the first book listed. It was 101 pages. It was also so awesome that I've got more books from this author wishlisted at the library.

The read-a-thon also had me plowing through the Jayne Castle (Jayne Ann Krentz) Harmony series. I owned 7 of the books but hadn't read them. I wish I'd read them all in order, but I started with the third book. I love this series and literally couldn't read fast enough. Now I need to get my hands on the books that I don't already own.

Overall, the read-a-thon was a great experience, but it was also exhausting trying to read so many books in a month. I would maybe only do a couple of these a year. Maybe one in the spring (like this one) and one in the fall. And I know I didn't need to max out my points, but well, if you can't ace the thing, why do it?

Yes, I hit the highest level, Haunting Herbologist. Yes, I finished every book prompt. There were categories related to plants, like take a nature walk or make a vegetarian meal that I didn't complete, but anything involving reading? Nailed it!

A Conundrum of Minor Proportions

My primary planner has monthly pages, daily pages, and vertical weekly pages. I don't plan weekly because it doesn't work for me, but I use washi tape to split the page into three sections.

Section 1: The day's weather

Section 2: Weekly projects and things that need to be accomplished that week.

Section 3: Writing information. When I'm writing, I put my daily word count goal and what I actually wrote that day. When I'm revising, I just write "revisions" and keep it simple.

Section 3 is working really well for me, no changes required.

Section 2 is still a work in progress even this deep into the year. I keep trying different things. Keep in mind that I began the year with a separate weekly planner and that didn't work at all, so I pivoted quickly to this process. Having everything all in one book is the right answer, but now it's a matter of formatting.

Section 1 is where I'm confused. Not about keeping track of the high and low daily temperatures. That's easy enough. My question is the actual weather.

You see, I have a set of rubber stamps for Sunny, Partially Sunny, Cloudy, Rain, Thunderstorms, and Snow. The problem is what do I stamp. For example, the other day it began cloudy in the morning, then it was partially sunny, then it rained, then it was partially sunny again, and then the clouds returned.

What do I stamp? Rain? Cloudy? Partially Sunny?

I don't want to do multiple stamps. For one thing, there isn't room for it. For another, it would be overkill, and while I'm obsessive, I'm not this obsessive.

Should I do the most notable weather, which would be the rain? Should I do the vast majority of the day, which would be partially sunny? Should I do what it was like when I first woke up? That's cloudy. I'm so confused.

Everything All at Once

I'm laughing at myself. Apparently, you can't make me happy when it comes to eBook versus audiobook.

For example, during the readathon, one of the prompts was to read a book with more than 100,000 reviews. I wanted to pick something I already owned, and after checking book after book, I ended up with Inferno by Dan Brown. I already had the audio version.

The nice thing about audiobooks is I can listen to them while I do other things, like cook or do the dishes, or work out.

But the book is so suspenseful that it's giving me stress. Maybe it would be easier to read it? Then I could skim ahead and know that Robert Langdon and his co-lead will be safe. But it's long book. More than 17 hours in audio.

Which leads me to another prompt: Pick a book from the hosts' TBRs to read. It's two points if you read one book, four points for the second, and six points if you read a book from all three of the hosts' TBRs. One of the hosts had a book that my book club planned to read, so one down.

Host two had a couple of nonfiction books in with her fiction choices. I did try one of her fiction reads first, but it was too dark for me, and because it was romantasy, it doesn't wrap up on one book. I skipped ahead, read the last chapter, and was like nope, definitely too dark for me. One of her nonfiction choices was available at my library in audio and it was only about 6 hours long. I did that one.

Host Three killed me. My reading taste doesn't match hers at all. I had no interest in any of the five books she listed. I picked the one I hated least and checked it out of my library. It's long. Like really long. And I want to listen to it in audio, not read it. But since I was already not interested in the book, there was zero chance I was spending $30 for the audiobook and my library only had the eBook.

Basically, you can't make me happy unless I have both the eBook and the audiobook. Apparently, I like choices. Or something.

Reloaded the Kanban Board

Those of you who've been following this blog for a while, know my love for my kanban board. It's how I keep track of things writing related. Some of it is about things like updating a book's back matter, but I do better with that in my planner.

What works really well on my kanban board is a Post-it Note for each chapter I plan to write. I've loaded the board for my next book.

Wicked Temptation

Cal and Io's book. You've met Baggs in the Lost Treasure arc of the Paladin League. Io is the twin sister of the heroine from Wicked Ambition. No preorder up yet. I will share a link with you when it goes up.

Here's what I have right now for the blurb:

He'll risk it all to protect her. She’ll risk everything for love.

Special Forces Sgt. Cal “Baggs” Baggnell has spent years putting duty above desire. But when Iona Desmond’s life is on the line, no mission—not even bringing down arms dealer Jorge Torres—can stop him from keeping her safe. Their breakup doesn’t matter. She’s the one woman he’ll risk everything for.

Iona Desmond isn’t a stranger to danger, but teaming up with Cal, the man who broke her heart, is a whole new level of torment. Working side by side with the man she never stopped loving will test her resolve—and reopen wounds that have barely started to heal. But with ruthless mobsters, rival treasure hunters, and an arms dealer closing in, she’ll have to trust Cal to keep her alive.

Their target: Viktor Petrova, the cunning lieutenant of a powerful Russian mob boss. His obsession with finding the billion-dollar Treasure of Trujillo has made him a deadly threat—not just to Iona and her twin, but to everyone caught in his path.

As Cal and Iona dive deeper into the hunt, they uncover a dangerous clue to the hidden treasure map—a clue that could alter the course of their mission. But Petrova isn’t the only one with lethal ambitions. Betrayals within his own ranks threaten to unravel everything…for everyone.

Amid chaos and danger, Cal and Iona must navigate a world where loyalty is fleeting, motives are murky, and passion might be the only thing they can trust. With their rekindled love as their strongest weapon, they must fight to overcome their past—and the ruthless man determined to destroy their future.