Working Wednesday, January 4, 2023

~ Jenny

It feels weird typing 2023. Which is what I say about the new date every year in January, so ignore that. Bob and I are still bashing away at Rocky Start.

And he’s threatening me with zombies again. So how is your work going in 2023?

Just to be clear, there is no possibility of zombie pirates on an iceberg.

77 thoughts on “Working Wednesday, January 4, 2023”

  1. Dear Jenny, I too am a retired academic and I love your books so much that I have read each of them several times: the dialogue in each is fresh and witty, much like that in old screwball comedies (or in the recent Julia Roberts/George Clooney movie). I miss your writing, including mild political remarks (as in the Temptation books and Trust Me on This) and all the funny Ohio references, and wonder if you would consider doing follow ups to the existing books if you don’t want to start from scratch to reinvent the wheel? For example, I always wonder what happened to the third girlfriend and to the nephew (both in Bet Me) and to Chickie Crawford and did Linc make full professor/dept head and Daisy become a famous painter (all in The Cinderella Deal) and did they have a child (lots of fodder for humor). What about the older woman/younger man lasting in Anyone But You? There’s lots more to do with the large peculiar families and even some of the friends in Fast Women and What the Lady Wants. And whatever happened with Tess and Nick’s lives in Strange Bedpersons (similar dynamic to Daisy and Linc, much like the similar dynamic between Getting Rid of Bradley and Tell Me Lies or the reverse dynamic of uptight female and laid back male in Manhunting and Charlie All Night). Anyway, your characters and wit are so compelling, I hope you will consider extending their stories (I especially love the dancer Gina in Strange Bedpersons and would to know the rest of her story!).
    Very best wishes filled with admiration for your witty stories!

    1. Welcome to Argh, Penelope!

      I generally don’t do sequels because I have a very short attention span, and when a book is done in my head, that world is done. I have been playing around with books about Nadine and Alice, but they’re still at the playing around stage. However, Bob Mayer and I just finished a new three book series, and as soon as we know what’s happening with that, there’ll be a book and two sequels for you. Thank you for the compliments!

      1. Oh, please do keep playing around with Alice and Nadine! I love the beginnings you’ve posted! And a book with garroting in the beginning chapters sounds like catnip for Bob!

  2. You and Bob starting 2023 on a high note with pirate zombies. On a flaming iceberg. I am here for it all.

    1. There will be NO zombies.

      He does want a Viking funeral with flaming arrows, and I think he’s serious about that.

  3. I’m all for the pirate zombies on the flaming iceberg!

    I’ve been working on lots of little things and have only completed putting away the Christmas decor. But that is done and my house looks much less cluttered. Since I’m back at the office for work, it is nice to come home to a less cluttered abode. I really do need to do something about the rest of the clutter – but that infringes into my creative time (like it did this week). Choices – we all have to make them for better or worse.

    Anyway, this week I thought I would do three quilting projects and power through a quick crochet thing in the down time between Christmas and New Years (while still working four days). Silly me – always with much bigger plans than can be accomplished. I did do some quilting work, so I’m getting closer to something that is completed. The other two projects didn’t get much except the fleeting thought that they are still possible. And my quick crochet thing (a project I purchased to make for a couple of little girls who are rapidly aging out of it) is moving along. It shouldn’t take much longer to finish it off. Perhaps I’ll have a photo to share next week.

  4. I totally agree with Jenny. No zombie pirates, with or without iceberg flambé. No sense inviting a lawsuit from the House of Mouse.

    Pirates of the Caribbean is a Disney media franchise encompassing numerous theme park rides, a series of films, and spin-off novels, as well as a number of related video games and other media publications. – Wikipedia

    They own the zombie pirate franchise. They own many, many litigious lawyers. Enough said.

    I Googled “hausted.” It appears to be a line of medical furniture, from wheelchairs to articulated stretchers and beds. I was curious as to why ex-hausted meant occupying one of those items, because that describes me so well. Not only am I not done unpacking, but I’m also not even done unpacking my car, and I am pooped.

    On the plus side, I’ve lost about four pounds this week. I’m sure I can find them with very little effort. They’re probably in the trunk of my car.

    1. But no one owns flaming icebergs! I want flaming icebergs. Preferably floating down the Ohio.

  5. I think I’m close to finishing this novel I’ve been working on since July. I’ve got the big strokes figured out, now it’s all about the connective tissue. I’d hoped to get it done in 2022, but other things are getting in the way. (like music — my keyboard and guitar chops have gone to the netherworld in a napkin, and I’m going to need them, so practice is looming again)

    There’s also another issue of Magnets and Ladders coming up — the submission period is open, and I’ve got an essay ready to go, but I like submitting three things to them at a time, and I’m not sure what else I’ve got waiting to send them. (2500 words or less, fiction, and I’m not ashamed of the story)

    I’ve also been on a cleaning streak. I want the house to flat surfaces without clutter on them. I’ve got about four big trashbags of old clothes heading to a thrift store. So a lot of clearing out and finishing things this week.

  6. I’ve been starting to brainstorm my seed order – i.e., my gardening plans for this year – but mostly editing my 67,000-word Gardening Info file. I’m about two-thirds of the way through, busy reorganizing all the info as helpfully as I can. Once it’s done and on my iPad as a pdf, I’ll have years of research at my fingertips again (it’s been a few years since I last updated it). Then I can really get on with my planning.

    1. I need to brainstorm my plant order. After a year of thinking about it I may have found a place to put blackberries, just not as many as I wanted. My original plan had them against the back fence, but the cows would eat them there. When I bought this house there had been nothing but hay across the back fence for a long time. It’s good that I procrastinated. I’ve picked a place for a strawberry bed, but I have yet to decide on where to put asparagus, after three years of thinking about it. If I’d made up my mind sooner I could actually be eating some this year!

        2. More than you would think? Two of my aunts have lived next to cows for their adult lives. Also, if you ever go to Lancaster, they have all these strip malls bordered by cornfields. It’s the weirdest thing.

          1. When I was a kid the police chief lived down the street on his dairy farm. (This was a college town, but the state U had started out as the state agricultural school so maybe it’s not as unlikely as it sounds.) the result was that the kids would go down to see the cows. When my little brother disappeared (maybe 3 or 4?) and my mom started calling neighbors to find him the police chiefs wife called her husband and cops showed up at our door to investigate this missing child report. Fortunately he had turned up by then…

  7. ‘Only half the cast dies?’ – LOL

    My Wednesday is off to a great start. Last night I submitted my new short story / novelette and this morning had the reply everybody wants: ‘Great! Does a March release work for you?’

    Otherwise in Work, my Day Job Wednesday is likely to be fairly mellow as half the world is still doing holidays, another 25% is doing winter, and the remainder has a cold / the flu / Covid. If in fact the inbox remains as tame as it has been for the past two weeks, I’ll be writing another chapter of the novella-in-progress, which is going very well.

    Speaking of disease, though, I’m giving myself a test on my lunch break because I don’t feel 100% and with two parties scheduled this weekend I can’t assume it’s just an accumulated reaction to running the damn heaters continuously. Argh.

  8. I finished piecing the first of the two purple lap/baby quilts. https://www.instagram.com/p/Cm4j5QOv9UU/ (Lighting is terrible, so it looks blue, but it’s really purple.)

    And after a week-plus off from fiction writing, yesterday I settled back to work on a new cozy mystery series proposal that’s going to a develoopmental editor next week to see if she can spot any potential rejection-causing issues before I submit to acquisition editors.

  9. Today is my birthday, so I am enjoying contacts from my family in Arizona and here. We will go out to dinner tonight. I will take a walk this afternoon. There is a lot of clearing out, including holiday decor, to do. I am grateful for good health, family, and many years of life.

    1. Happy birthday, Jan!! Have fun ❤️
      Today’s my birthday, too. Gteat to have a “twin” among the arghers 😀

  10. I am the only one in the office this week, which is restful. And since I have to do quarterly payroll tax forms, year end payroll tax forms, W2s, 1099s etc, it is REALLY good to be by myself.

    I also ate chocolates someone gave me, which were terrible. Why did I eat more than one of them? Well, they were there, but really, not a good enough reason. Adding a resolution to only eat things that are worth eating in 2023!

  11. I’m on holiday until Sunday and srarted the day with a lovely very late birthday brunch (crepes and cake made by dd, a lot of fruit, and non-alc prosecco) and a ds who’s recovering well from a beating by young thugs on Monday. Not a good start into 2023!

        1. Only child here. It was my son and his pal who wanted to play football (soccer). The four youngsters (the police knew them well already) wanted to pick a fight. Ds and his mate were conveniently present.
          Both ended in hospital, the mate with a brokrn nose, my son with a concussion and bruises. The police got the thugs before ds was completely checked through medically. Ghastly experience….

      1. Thanks, Gary!
        That the police got them that fast makes me hope that they’ve collected enough wrong doings to have the karma/justice get back to them.

  12. I couldn’t respond to the Happiness is a Fresh Slate post because I have no idea what 2023 will bring.

    Fortunately, my 2023 started brilliantly: my friend, my husband, and I drove down to the Morgan Library in NYC to see an exhibition on Enheduanna the first known writer — Yep! An Akkadian-Sumerian woman wrote poems and notes some hundreds of years before the Epic of Gilgamesh was composed (we don’t know the author of Gilgamesh).

    Enheduanna was a priestess whose father was King Sauron, the Sumerian ruler who conquered the Akkadians. He made her the top priestess. Her political purpose was to combine the most powerful Akkadian goddess into the most powerful Sumerian goddess.

    The exhibition consists of stone seals and cuneiform books, along with some outstanding jewelry and sculpture. Incredible.

    Bodes well for the new year.

  13. That is just fascinating! Wonderful, too, that a woman was remembered, in those times.

  14. I went to Target January 2nd for a wreath box. I figured it was a long shot, but I needed one. Would I see exercise equipment or organization supplies or perhaps a kind of world market area? (I know Target).

    It was gardening supplies. With a whole shelf of Round Up. So not just seed starting but yard care. In Minnesota. In January. We have had 10 inches of snow in the last 24 hours.

    Target is based in Minnesota. WTH?

    I wonder what the Buffalo Target had in the seasonal space?

      3. It is horrible, and kills pollinators. We are still selling it here, which really stinks.

  15. Went out and about today getting as many errands done as possible. Post office, library, bank, a holiday return and a stop at T-Mobile. Only to come back home to find out Congress is going to a fifth, that’s five times, votes for Speaker. There’s something wrong here.

    1. It was six times, last I heard. The GOP is reaping what it has sowed and has allowed to prosper.

  16. I got confused and was thinking Wednesday was happiness day so not prepared to post a work comment.
    My happiness comment was about new words (for me).
    Kerning which means something about the format of letters and spaces on the printed page.
    And my favorite word
    Defenestration. It means the action of throwing people out of windows. Not sure what it says about me that I laugh every time I think about that as a word.

    1. I remember the Defenestration of Prague from history at school. Can’t remember more than the name now.

      Kerning comes into my proof-reading: sometimes letters look unevenly spaced because the kerning’s off. Usually when a heading’s set in a large size; but can be in running text. Professional fonts should have kerning pairs for certain combinations of letters.

    2. There’s a “demonstration forest” near me and every time I drive by it, it becomes the defenestration forest. Every time.

    3. I have to add a word. Wikipedia says:
      Tsundoku refers to the phenomenon of acquiring reading materials but letting them pile up in one’s home without reading them. It is also used to refer to books ready for reading later when they are on a bookshelf. The term originated in the Meiji era as Japanese slang. It combines elements of tsunde-oku and dokusho.

  17. Still on vacation. Almost done the annual Lord of the Rings Extended Versions marathon with husband and stepdaughter. Still a joy.

  18. The day job continues to be a trial for me. Usually it settles down after the holidays some. Hasn’t happened yet. We are making a lot for mistakes, running short handed, tired and stressed. Hopefully it passes soon.

    I did however find a dragon puppet/toy at the thrift store. The magnet harness to hold it to my shoulder is missing, but it’s pretty great.

    https://www.instagram.com/reel/CnArSXShlnL/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

    2. Oh man, that dragon is SO GREAT! You have a good eye and your thrift obviously has great potential for finds.

      1. Thanks! It’s very hot or miss, which is how they get you… You just have to keep looking.

  19. Checking in on the House votes for Speaker every now and then. After Nancy Pelosi the incompetence is mind numbing.

    Haven’t started anything new yet. One more ‘project’ to do to wrap up everything I’ve been putting off.

  21. I’ve been engaging in my traditional January clear-out. Last week it was the kitchen and this week it has been the garage. I managed to re-home Some no-longer-needed furniture and dropped off three bags of stuff at the local Goodwill store.

    In other news, we have been getting all of the rain here in California that we missed in the previous drought years. I should have asked Santa for an ark instead of all those books.

  22. Grim is fine as long as no animal is hurt. I can’t take any animal abuse even fictional. Faking It had the best opening scene.

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