On Saturday I finally fixed the weed whacker and got busy on whacking some of the weeds around here. This time the procrastination actually helped a bit, because some irises and other perennials have bloomed as if to say, “I’m not a weed, please don’t whack me.”
I had so much fun getting my hands dirty at last that I posted this picture of the biggest iris and proclaimed, “I may not bring it all the way back this summer, but I’m going to learn how to tend Grandma’s Garden the way Red did. That, and finishing my novels, are my first two big retirement goals.”
By Sunday morning I was wondering if I really meant it.
I mean yes to the garden. Our place was a flowering Eden when Red was in charge, and I would love to restore it to some semblance of splendor, although first I need to learn a little bit more about how it’s done.
But about those novels …? That’s been a constant whine of mine for a very long time.
Still, there are three sort-of- to mostly-finished novels I really would like to finish someday, and if I buckled down I could probably finish them this year. No brag, just fact. It’s just that I have always had a problem with buckling down.
Their working titles:
Jeep Thompson and the Lost Prince of Venus
No Chance to Dream: A Comfort & Joy Mystery
The Girl, The Alien, and Me
I have left a lot of novels unfinished over the years, but these three haunt me from time to time. I love the characters, and I love where they were going when I inexplicably abandoned them.
Last fall I proved that I can indeed finish a novel, and swiftly, when I wrote Dejah & Summer in the Time of Magic in six weeks, give or take.
What is stopping me now, especially since a) I am newly retired and not bound by an agreement to pour my efforts into a day job, and b) I just proclaimed that finishing those novels is one of my first big retirement goals? Oh, and c) I set a silly goal to publish 12 books in 2025, and that could be three of them?
The only thing standing in my way, as far as I can tell, is me.
I wonder if I should get out of my own way and get down to business?
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Meanwhile, here is episode 13 of the “See the World! Podcast,” daily readings from my forthcoming book See the World! It’s scheduled for release June 10 and available for pre-order by clicking the book’s title.
