Where I've Been -- What I'm Doing Now

Well, it's certainly been a long time since I've been here. A lot has happened. I didn't forget I had this blog, I've just been dealing with a lot of crap.

*My ex fell off my roof in March of 2016 and broke both of his feet. I had to nurse him back to walking. That took six months. Did I mention he slept in my kitchen because he couldn't walk up and down the stairs. That experience was so much fun.

*My mother got into a car accident in July of 2016, which was the impetus for my father finally realizing she might have Alzheimers. We finally got the proper diagnosis in December. Did I mention that even with her father and sister having it, she refused to believe the diagnosis and is still fighting it. I have to drive her now.

*Monster (my daughter) decided that she wanted to play four (count them 4) sports at school last year--volleyball, basketball, softball, track--so I had to play chauffeur. I'm still trying to figure out if the trophy was worth it.

*We got another cat. Monster found an abandoned kitten at school behind the soccer field and begged me to take her home. I have to say, she's a great cat. Crazy, but great. She likes to hang out in my bathroom. Don't know why.

Once June hit and Monster got out of school, I collapsed. Literally. I spent most of the month in my chair in front of the television. I'd been under a lot of stress. I tried to fight it, tried to keep up a normal routine, but that only made things worse. A couple of days I didn't even get out of bed. But now I'm more or less back to normal. At least the laundry is caught up and the house is vacuumed, no dirty dishes in the sink. Housekeeping is the measuring stick of any of my illnesses. So here I am.

Over this past winter, I concentrated on getting my second Regency romance series completed. I wrote and published three books at the beginning of this year, so I haven't been completely slacking. Still, there's 4 books to go to complete the series and I am just so over writing historical fiction. What was I thinking? Obviously, I wasn't.

Over spring break I found a contemporary story idea and slapped a couple of thousand words on it. I managed 35k before I stopped writing. I know how it's supposed to end, it's just a matter of getting it finished. It's kind of sad though and I really don't feel like crying every day as I write.

I'm still plugging along on the murder/mystery/detective series. I'm up to my eyeballs in revisions on books 1, 2, and 3, and working on book 4. I've also decided to write a secondary series of short stories from another characters' POV to go along with the first. Am I nuts? yes. It's all about the marketing for this series. I'm sure you've heard the phrase "writing to market." Well, that's what I'm doing. Which I'm not supposed to do. I'm supposed to write the books I want to read. This, I think, is a little of both. That being said, I don't suppose these books will see the light of day until 2019 if I'm lucky.

I also found several (5) contemporary romance novels I started way back when in one of my old computers. I took a look at them and decided they were worth working on. I'm calling them my backlist. Not wanting to stress myself out again, I picked the easiest one to finish and have been working on that. I'm easing myself into the groove.

I also put my romance novels back on sale. I had taken them off thinking I could publish them under my other pen name Anne Gallagher. Just keep everything together. But for a myriad of reasons I decided against it. Funnily enough, as soon as I put them back on sale, I sold 9 copies of REMEMBERING YOU and five of WOMEN...in one day. So, thanks to all of you who bought it.


So, that's what I've been doing. As I said, I'm working on a new/old story, hoping to publish by the end of the summer. We're not going on vacation again this year. We were supposed to go back to Rhode Island but got screwed out of 3 different houses. When did beach house people turn so rude? I had spoken to 2 women (in May) and thought we had contracts, but they never got back to me, and when they finally did (July 1), they wanted cash. How the hell am I supposed to send cash in the mail? So, we're going to the coast down here. We've never been (it's been a long 10 years) so I booked a hotel for 3 days next week. Hopefully, it won't be too hot, we won't get a hurricane, and it won't rain.

So, that's about all the news I have. I'll try and keep up here. I can't promise, because I hate to break them, but I will try.

Robynne Rand (c) 2017