It’s early on a Tuesday morning. Do you know where your writer is?
This morning, I’m walking on my treadmill, getting three miles in before a shower. In the middle, I stop to make sure my kids catch their respective school buses, then I hop back on. My treadmill has a standing desk so I can work while I walk. Though I have a window, I keep the blinds shut because it’s too much effort to open them. Besides, it’s still dark out. I don’t need my neighbors watching me walk in place.
Once, I kept a series of potted plants on my desk. Each promised easy care and nice flowers, and each promptly died. I have a fair amount of luck in the garden, but not so much with pots. The last one ended with an overwatering incident in which I managed to destroy about $100 worth of my own books. Plants are no longer welcome in my office.
Next to the treadmill, I have a coffee table which I use as a desk. You see, I write in a beanbag chair. It’s a nice beanbag, with a removable cloth shell and replaceable beads, and it cost about the same as a cheap couch. I’ve had it for six years. Lately, I’ve had some neck strain issues, so I’m considering replacing the beads.
As much of my work as possible happens on a laptop. Some of my occasional programs (like Orcs Must Die, for example) don’t run well on it, though, so I have a somewhat older laptop with a busted screen on the floor behind the beanbag, with an external monitor and keyboard resting on my coffee table desk whenever I need it. This sounds extravagant, but if I could afford to replace it with a nicer one, I would. The screen broke when I accidentally dropped my wooden window blinds on the poor thing about two years ago. The battery is going funny too, so I try not to use it unless I need to. Sometimes, those orcs really must die.
The light above my desk flickers from time to time, and I’m too lazy to get a ladder upstairs and rearranged furniture to change the bulb. There are two other lights, and they both work fine. I can live with the flickering because I work mostly during the day.
I am not a night owl. I do not stay up into the wee hours. My household is awake and noisy starting at 6am, and it goes to bed at 9pm. Every day. On Sundays, I might get to sleep in until 7 if nothing exciting happens. Which is why on Saturday nights, I sometimes stay up until *gasp* 10pm. Once, I was so rebellious and watched a movie until 11pm. And then promptly paid for it the next day at 6am when disaster struck in the form of cat puke.
The cat doesn’t find me an acceptable lap, so she rarely interrupts my work. We have cushions she prefers over any portion of my person. I am a food dispenser, and she has no other use for me. Sometimes, I wonder if my kids share this sentiment. They’re teenagers, after all.
Today, my project of choice is War of the Rose Covens, a title which I have not previously divulged to anyone outside my writing group. It’s a Spirit Knights world book written from Sophie’s POV, and it takes place after the series. The biggest challenge is keeping Claire and Justin out of it because either of them would sweep in and take over. They’re take-charge people and Sophie’s biggest problem is that she’s not. If she’s going to overcome her issues, she needs to face them herself. With friends is fine, but she has to become the leader. Claire wouldn’t sit in the background and let her struggle like that.
My next project, the thing I’ll work on for NaNoWriMo this year, will be something new. Clearly, I don’t have enough subgenres yet, so I’m diving into another one with co-author Jeffrey Cook. The outline is on my hard drive for a lesbian space opera with dragons, pirates, and ninjas. (Yes, you read that correctly.) November 1, I dive into that whether Sophie is done or not. Sophie can wait. She’s not due for release until next April. The space opera will release next July, for Gencon.
I have other projects in various stages of completion, including Darkside Seattle: Hacker, a kickass anthology, Harper Revolution #2, and a Spirit Knights novella with Detective Avery. The rest have no deadlines yet, so they don’t count. November’s short story is done and waiting to provide a pick-me-up one week after Election Day.
As usual, this month’s story, Listen to the Fire, is no longer available for free. You can find it for 99 cents on Amazon and Kobo, and I appreciate your support.