What a Writer Does When She’s Not Writing

Yesterday, I finished the final edit of Grave Heritage and sent it to my publisher. Funny thing, toward the last of the book, when Darcy and Flora are running from a killer and a flooded creek is between them and safety, I forgot that I was supposed to be checking for typos. Realizing I was caught up in the moment, I began to read more carefully. Anyway, this fourth Darcy and Flora cozy mystery is completed, and just about ready for its grand debut on Monday. On my publisher’s website, Grave Heritage has now moved up to first place in the queue of books waiting to step out of its nice, safe publishing cocoon and into the reality of a mighty competitive world.

Only four more days to pre-order! If you’d like a chance to win a free, autographed copy, pre-order from Pen-L.com. If you’d rather pre-order a Kindle version, Amazon has that. And, a great big “Thank you” to those who have pre-ordered.

After all that drama with Darcy and Flora and the crazed killer who is bound and determined to add them to his list of  victims, I had to have a Coke and relax. Painting is great for relaxing. Wanting to try my hand at painting a gourd, I found the varnished gourd Jane gave me last year and this is the result. You can’t really see them, but I bored holes in the gourd and put twinkle lights inside. Kind of pretty. Prettier, actually, than this picture shows.

For just plain fun, there’s the Cozy Critters today. This is a group of some of the wittiest, most talented, and encouraging women I’ve ever met. Each time they troop into my house, I feel blessed. They will have pointers for the second book in the Ned McNeil series, By the Fright of the Silvery Moon ,and I’ll be inspired to keep writing. Maybe hanging out with an inspirational critique group is the most important thing a writer can do, when she’s not writing.