Sometimes Life Happens, and You’ve Got to Roll With It.

This month has been a busy month for me. I have been editing my novel that I want to have published by mid-September this year. I review every edit that my editor sends me. I divided my book into four parts and send a quarter at a time. I try to do a self-edit before I send each quarter of the book. I’m surprised by the errors she found, even after I’ve just reviewed it with Grammarly. This week I sent the third quarter to her and await her response.

There are a lot of moving parts when self-publishing a novel. I self-published my first non-fiction book on Amazon a year and a half ago. While I know a lot of those parts, I still need my coach, Meg Stewart, to put them together and get them ready by September. I have been taking pictures of Crescent Beach, which is fortunately close to my place, and want to use one of them for the book cover. This novel is a soft-boiled mystery with a senior protagonist.

Of course, I still have a life to live outside my writing world. For one thing, I am trying to do some gardening. I am, at best, a reluctant gardener. I’m trying to grow a few veggies this year. So far, I have eaten the lettuce and beet roots. I hope to have lots of zucchini later this summer.

There is drama in my garden. We have rabbits (oh God, they’re cute) that are breeding like, well, rabbits. Everybody is complaining about them eating the plants. I came up with a solution a few years ago. I don’t want to hurt the rabbits, but they have to go. Since I know these rabbits are not Italian nor Vietnamese, I put Sriracha sauce on those first tender sprouts as they shoot up. I knew this wouldn’t really hurt the rabbits, but they wouldn’t be back for more. I’ve told this to numerous gardeners who live in my complex, but since I’m not known for gardening, they don’t listen; they laugh. The rabbits, however, know to avoid my garden now and head off to another garden. Sometimes it’s worth stopping and paying attention to other things to get your motivation back.

It also helps to have a sense of humour. See the picture below from my friend’s garden. This bunny knows an accommodating gardener when she sees one. She might as well relax and sit down while eating.