Life

Merry Christmas!

/ Life, Writing
Our gas-log fireplace with a fire burning for the first time. A tile hearth and the very edge of our lit Christmas tree.
Our fireplace works! Who knew?

Merry Christmas and happy holidays! This year has been a little rough (massive understatement), but I hope you are enjoying some peace and happiness as the year draws to a close.

This is the first year we’re not visiting our family for the holidays, and I think it would be a lot rougher if I hadn’t been on deadline this month. But I’ve worked for 25+ days straight, so time sort of lost all meaning.

BUT…

THE BOOK IS DONE!!!! 🎉🎉🎉

Well, the rough draft is done, as of about 8:30 last night. It still needs some pretty serious edits, but at least I made it to the end. Everything else can be fixed, so huge weight lifted. If you’ve been around for a while, then you know that writing this year has been super difficult for me. At the beginning of December, I wasn’t sure I would hit my early January deadline because I needed to write so much.

But I did it!

I wrote nearly 44k words this month. For comparison, in November, when I was also super worried about the deadline, I wrote 12k. (You can see why I was worried.)

I’m chalking it up as a Christmas miracle.

We don’t have any big plans today, since it’s just Mr. M and me, but we bought some nice steaks for dinner, and now that the book is done, I’m going to enjoy a day off. Edits can wait until tomorrow.

I hope you and yours have a good day, and if you’re not seeing family this year to keep others safe, know that your kindness and generosity is appreciated. 💕

Happy holidays, and I wish you all the best in 2021!

Ted Lasso

/ Life, Watching

It’s been quite a while since I’ve binged a new show in just a few days, but this weekend I devoured the entire season of Ted Lasso. It’s ten episodes, each about 30 minutes, and Mr. M and I watched them all between Friday and Sunday.

Jason Sudeikis as Ted Lasso on AppleTV+

Ted Lasso, the title character, is an American football coach who is hired to coach a Premier League football club in England—despite having no experience coaching soccer.

You don’t need to know anything about either soccer or football to enjoy the show, as the sports part is far more minimal than you’d expect for a show about a sports coach. At its heart, it’s a show about people, relationships, friendship, and respect.

The writing is superb, and the acting does it justice. The show is at turns hilarious and heartbreaking, but gently heartbreaking, if that’s a thing. Overall, it’s low angst but full of emotion. Ted is both relentlessly optimistic and genuinely kind, in a way that’s neither naive nor fake. It’s a soothing balm on the dumpster fire of 2020.

The only bad part is that it’s only available on AppleTV+, and I know no one needs another streaming service. Apple offers a seven day free trial, so you could easily watch the whole show during the trial. And if you’ve already used your trial, a month is only $5, and really, the amount of optimism and comfort packed into this show is worth $5 (in my opinion, obviously).

Want to check it out? Here’s the trailer:

I’m so excited that it’s already been renewed for a second season. ☺️

Being Creative in 2020

/ Life, Writing

Some people thrive on adversity. I am not one of them. If a time machine dropped me in some other time and place, I would immediately meet an unfortunate end, and probably in the stupidest possible way. Oh, you mean I wasn’t supposed to pet that saber-tooth cat? But it was so fluffy!

So while Taylor Swift is busy dropping a new album that she wrote and recorded while stuck at home, I am… not. I write slowly in the best of times and 2020 definitely doesn’t qualify.

In the entire month of May, I wrote the same number of words (in total!) that I can write in one really good day.

Yeah…

So if you’re struggling to create this year, know that you’re not alone. Don’t listen to the people (hi, mom!) who tell you that you should be super productive because you’re stuck at home and can’t go anywhere. Mental health is important for creativity, and stress and anxiety aren’t great for mental health—and there’s plenty of stress and anxiety this year.

The myth of the tortured, starving artist, is just that—a myth. Sure, some people probably thrive on chaos, because nothing is ever one-size-fits-all, but I am not one of them. I have two deadlines upcoming, and I’m behind on both. Usually, this would fill me with panic, but this year the best I can summon is a detached sort of dread. I’m all panicked out.

But I continue to trudge onward because that’s all I can do. New Shiny is over 30k, and TQT just crossed 30k, too. I was trying to get TQT done by the end of the month, but that’s just not going to happen unless some sort of miracle occurs.

But, lest you think it’s all doom and gloom around here, I sent the first six chapters of New Shiny off to Mr M and my bff, and they both loved it, so that’s nice. They are biased, naturally, but at least it’s not completely terrible. :)

Now back to the writing cave, Batman. Be kind to each other, wear a mask, and hang in there!

P.S. If you’re in the US, don’t forget to register to vote! And if it’s a been a while, check your registration to ensure you haven’t been dropped from the voter rolls. Even if it hasn’t, it’s a good idea to check. November isn’t that far away and many states have registration deadlines that are quickly approaching.

Birthday Week

/ Life

My birthday is this week, so I’m celebrating with my annual Birthday Week™. It mainly involves me singing “It’s my birthday!” to myself at random times throughout the week.

Rona kind of put a damper on any kind of celebration, but my bff came over and brought Italian cream cake and wine for a patio chat, so it wasn’t all bad.

This is my last year in my thirties. Honestly, I thought I’d feel more grown up by now, but I don’t. I certainly have my shit together more than I did when I was a baby fresh out of college, but I don’t feel older.

At least I don’t until I hurt myself by sleeping wrong. Then I feel about 110.

The last few years have been especially fabulous. I have five books out, three of them with a big publisher. And I completed my first trilogy! My author copies for CR came in, and the books are so pretty together. 😍

I also have a new trilogy under contract, which is another dream come true. Maybe I can make this writing thing work for me, which is very much not guaranteed, even with a publisher. But I can keep writing because all of you lovely people read my books, so thank you! You made the last year of my thirties a memorable one. 💕

And if you want to give yourself a present for my birthday, I suggest taking some time to read! If you need something new, check out my books and my recommendations for books I loved. Happy reading!

Baking Mishaps

/ Life

Like seemingly half of Twitter, I’ve taken up bread baking during the apocalypse—sourdough, to be specific, because I couldn’t find yeast for the longest time. I started off making the America’s Test Kitchen no-knead sourdough, but I never turned out a great loaf. It always tasted delicious, but it was shaped more like a hockey puck than a nice round loaf.

America’s Test Kitchen is usually bulletproof for me, so I don’t know what was going on with that recipe, but judging by the comments section, I wasn’t alone.

After tweaking the recipe several times and continuing to fail, I moved on to King Arthur’s no-knead sourdough.

Why no-knead? Because I’m lazy. I’ve watched a small mountain of sourdough YouTube videos now, and I didn’t want to invest quite that much time, effort, or equipment. The more hands-off, the better. And the KA recipe delivers on all fronts: the hands-on part doesn’t take too much effort and you don’t need a special proofing basket.

And behold, my first loaf with the new recipe: it’s tall, round, and beautiful.

A golden-brown, nicely rounded boule of sourdough in an enameled cast iron dutch oven.

It’s also 100% stuck to the bottom of the pan. Welded, one might say. Fused, perhaps. The crust and pan have atomically bonded into a new entity never before seen. 😂😭😭

I got it out, but only at great sacrifice. You can’t see it here, because I’ve cleverly hidden the bottom, but zero bottom crust remains on the loaf. But, other than that teeny tiny (terrible) mishap, isn’t it lovely?

The loaf out of the pan on a wire cooling rack, where you can hardly tell the bottom crust is missing.

I’m going to try the recipe again, only this time I’m going to use parchment paper to (hopefully) prevent the stickage. I should’ve used oil this time (instead of the flour I tried), but I didn’t want to have to scrub the residue off the pan.

That plan did not work out like I thought it was going to. 😂

Have you started baking this month? If so, how’s it going? Have you had any mishaps?