Just Jot It in January!

I've been pretty sick for the last seven days, enough so that my writing has completely stalled. Yesterday was the first day I sat down at my computer to begin to catch up with reading and posting . . . perhaps on my blogs.

Several of my online writing friends mentioned playing around with Just Jot It January, an idea created by Linda G. Hill that encourages us to jot those ideas down, even a sentence! That sounded pretty perfect to me, since I haven't been writing at all. For the first time, as I sat quietly in the library, staring out the window at a winter scene, thinking about writing, Inspired also by Rui Chan's haiku, I used the NOTEPAD feature on my I-phone to jot down this:

Like crocus pushing their way up

through the cold earth, 

I begin healing,

winter into spring, 

once again.

Linda's website offers daily prompts and guidelines, and so I shall persevere as I dive back into my own writing with #JustJoJan. Why not join in?

IWSG: 2019 begins

I'd like to share that 2018 ended beautifully. It sort of did, if you set aside the residue and hard work involved in moving from one apartment to another, and nearly two months of very bad colds. Thank goodness for Sudafed!

My BookBub promotion paid for itself and ACX kicked in an unexpected sales boom, but marketing overall has slowed nearly to a stop as I work on a new genre -- romantic suspense set in Edinburgh and Paris.

In The Seventh Tapestry, American archivist and investigator Sandra Robertson comes to Edinburgh to track down a pattern of missing artifacts at the Museum of Medieval Art. Along the way, she finds a historic and undiscovered 15th Century tapestry and is drawn to Neil McDonnell from Edinburgh's Art Crimes Unit. I'm about 40K into the story. Just this month, I decided to switch from third person to first person, mostly because I feel closer to my main character and the details of the story flow more easily (Yes, I have my storyboard up and mapped out) -- even including the seasons.

Winter in Edinburgh (Source: edinburgh.org)

Least favorite question: When will this story be done? Published and ready to read? I say 'least favorite' because I'm more of an intuitive writer and do lots of research. I'm never quite sure when my story is finished!

Most favorite question: I love X character because . . .  Why did character X do this? Will another book follow these characters? How did you find the research that supports this story?

Happy New Year. May 2019 be filled with good reading, lots of writing, good health, and a few adventures to keep things interesting!

With special thanks to Alex Cavanaugh and this month's hosts: Co-Hosts: Patricia Lynne, Lisa Buie-Collard, Kim Lajevardi, and Fundy Blue! Why not visit the Insecure Writer's Study Group and see what other IWSG writers are up to?