Sunday Smatterings
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Happy chilly (for most of you) Super Bowl Sunday! Are you watching the game today? Who are you rooting for? I have no real pigskin in the game (ha!) as neither of the teams are on my must win list, so I’ll probably just wait to see who turns my crank and root for them. I like underdogs.
I do love the ads, though.
It’s a working weekend for me. I’m pushing hard to meet my draft deadline of Valentine’s for the new book. If you’re on Instagram or the Facebook page, you can see my progress in Stories. What is Stories, you ask? When you see a circle around my face on the page or in my profile, that means there is an update, but it only stays in existence for 24 hours.
I resisted Stories for a while, but my Buddhist nature has taken over, and I now enjoy the impermanence of a social update that disappears.
I have two trips this month, and of course, fifty thousand other things going on, so it’s imperative that I focus and really knock out the words. It’s coming. I’m entering the last stretch, so there’s hope across the land.
My days are pretty structured, following this new chronograph schedule. I am feeling much more alert, getting much more done, and feel like the balance is returning to my life. I’ll do a write up on this once I’ve been at it for another few weeks, as I’m still struggling with getting up out of the bed as soon as my eyes open. But I’m getting there. I’ve at least started eating breakfast (I almost always fast until noon) and while that is giving me more energy, I’ve had to bump up my workouts to compensate for extra caloric intake. Push and pull. Push and pull.
With deadline brevity in mind, let’s jump right in and take a look at the latest links…
Here's what happened on the Internets this week:
I had so much fun talking cowboys, Wyoming, and the transformative powers of literary crime fiction with Craig Johnson in Population 19 for A WORD ON WORDS. A lovely man and a lovely interview.
BookClubbish is giving away 5 one-of-a-kind copies of TEAR ME APART! Surprise! This project is near and dear to my heart. I annotated the novel with all kinds of fun facts and story inspiration. You can’t get this edition anywhere else! The giveaway ends tonight.
Here's What Being An Audiobook Producer Is Really Like, From Someone Who Has It As Her Job. I am so happy audiobooks are making such a huge dent in our industry. Here’s a lot of fun info on why and how!
How To Walk 100,000 Steps In One Day. This challenge is fascinating. Incredible. I always congratulate myself on my 10k days - 100k seems outrageously hard. As always, the training is the key. And the corgi. (Just read it…)"
Founder of Dead Poets Society is published, posthumously. This is flat-out beautiful. What wonderful children!
Five Hidden Cognitive Biases That Keep Us From Our Best Creative Work. Well worth a read – especially for breaking the sunk cost bias... (If you’re not familiar with sunk costs, that’s a phenomenon in which you don’t want to abandon a project that’s not working because of the time you’ve put into it. Like walking away from a book that isn’t working etc. Very hard to do.)
The Difference Between Introverts, Empaths, and Highly Sensitive People. A great explanation…I have friends in all these “categories” and inhabit one myself. Guess which one…
Several fabulous books are coming to bookshelves everywhere this Tuesday, February 5. I can’t recommend them enough. THE STRANGER INSIDE by Laura Benedict, I WAS ANASTASIA by Ariel Lawhon, PARADOX by my co-author Catherine Coulter, and DIGITAL MINIMALISM by Cal Newport. I know what I’m doing this week.
What I’m Reading:
AN ANONYMOUS GIRL by Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen
I’m sure you’ve seen this book all over the place (This cover is for the ARC… yes, I got it early. Yay me!) It’s very fun for me to see all these incredible women authors writing such intense, evocative suspense.
I was up too late this week finishing this one.
This is a solid entry in the domestic suspense genre. Excellent structure, excellent use of the second person POV, which is a very difficult thing to do well. And the ending will have you talking!
That’s it for now. Treat yourself with a new book by my BFFs Laura and Ariel, donate a coat or a pair of gloves and a hat to a shelter, let me know which Super Bowl commercial was your favorite, and I’ll see you next Sunday.
peace and hugs,
J.T.
