Summer came and is quickly sliding into fall and I am struggling to feel as if I had a summer. While I enjoyed every minute of the last three months, I am having trouble digesting that they have come and gone.
June I was preparing for my trip to Iceland and ventured forth the end of the month. Up to my trip, I also jet-boated up the Snake River for research. Then July and August I pinged all around the eastern side of the state judging at county fairs, culminating with judging at the State Fair.
This past weekend finished out my summer, I was set up at the Sumpter, Oregon Flea Market for three days selling my books alongside another author from the area. With this weekend over, summer is finished as well as my running around. For a while. ;)
Now I need to sit down and get the book written that was supposed to be ready to go to my editor by now. Funny how having fun always seems to mess up my writing schedule.
The worst part about having played so much this summer, I'm having a hard time getting my mind wrapped back into the act of writing. I've fleshed out the book I need to write. Made my suspect chart and drawn up info about the characters. I even have all the maps I need. But I keep finding other things to distract me.
The first book of the Gabriel Hawke series is being narrated and I stop to listen to the chapters as they are finished.
I just published the third book in the Silver Dollar Saloon Series. Freedom. It is available in ebook and soon print.
Freedom longs to be out of the Silver Dollar Saloon, with a family of her own. When a white man promises marriage and children, she takes the biggest risk of her life, and follows him to the wilds of Montana Territory. Where he shows his true nature.
Water Runs Fast, a Crow off the reservation, comes upon a white man whipping a brown-skinned woman. After stabbing the white man and riding off with the woman, he realizes she is the woman from his visions. The one who pledged to help him and his people survive in the white man’s world.
On the run from the tragedy, the two grow close. Together, they begin a life as husband and wife. But will they have their chance at a life together, or will they hang for murder?
Universal link: https://books2read.com/u/mlawnB
And for one more week, you can get the first book in the Silver Dollar Saloon series, Savannah, for $0.99.
He outran the law and became preacher.
Escaping a past full of deceit and larceny, Savannah Gentry goes in search of her only kin, a half-brother she discovered after her father’s death. She hopes Shady Gulch in the Dakota Territory can give her a future. However, she stumbles into the arms of Reverend Larkin Webster, finds herself working in the Silver Dollar Saloon, and soon fears she’s gone from the frying pan into the fire.
After dodging death and incarceration, the Topeka Kid decides to turn his life around and takes on a new identity. Reverend Larkin Webster. It works, until he finds a temptation he can’t resist and steals the heart of Savannah Gentry. When her past collides with his, he wonders if this theft could end up with him losing everything… including his life. https://www.books2read.com/u/b5MkNp
While all of this is going on, I'm also in the critiquing stages of the 13th book in the Shandra Higheagle Series, Toxic Trigger-point.
I guess it's no wonder I'm having trouble clearing my head and pushing forward on the work in progress, Chattering Blue Jay.
Off to send Hawke chasing a convicted killer through the Hells Canyon of the Snake River. I hope I don't fall off a cliff!
Paty Jager is an award-winning author of 40
novels, 8 novellas, and numerous anthologies of murder mystery and western
romance. All her work has Western or Native American elements in them along
with hints of humor and engaging characters. Paty and her husband raise alfalfa hay in rural eastern
Oregon. Riding horses and battling rattlesnakes, she not only writes the
western lifestyle, she lives it.
9 comments:
Paty, smiled while reading your entire post. Seems to me you've been doing a lot of what constitutes writing - living life, having adventures, doing research and, in your case, along the way editing, publishing, marketing/selling books. And I may have missed a couple of things. I do know that all those things I listed are not putting words on the page, but they are, as you well know, critically important to being able to do so. Congratulations on a fun and productive summer.
Enjoy the new book, Paty! I'm curious about your suspect chart--how do you plan out your mysteries?
Judith, Thanks! Yes, most of what I did had to do with my writing, but it doesn't feel like it until I sit down and put the words on the pages or a book on a vendor's virtual shelf. I'm so glad things are slowing down and I did manage to get the next book started and am excited to sit down and write, hopefully with few interruptions.
Lynn, I have a chart with 5 columns the top of each column reads: Victim, suspects, Motive, Death, Red Herrings.
So the victim column I put the victim's name, what he does, a little backstory. Suspects, I come up with names of the people who could have a reason to want the victim dead. Motive is why they want him dead. Death is how he/she is killed. Red herrings are the things the sleuths discover about each one that makes them/the reader think it could be that person.
Does that explain it good enough? This is what I use instead of an outline or synopsis. And usually, even though I pick one person to be the murderer, there are times my mind puts in clues and it ends up being someone else. I love it when that happens because it surprises me as well as the reader.
It's true, I feel fall in the air. and even though our temps are still in the high 80's some leaves have started to change. You are and always have been one busy lady Paty!!! I'm off to download the first in the Silver Dollar series.
You are as always on the go, Paty! Judith pretty well sums it up in her comment. I realized reading this post that have so many books of yours to catch up on!
Happy Writing!
Summer has indeed whizzed by. For us here on the south coast of Nova Scotia, we didn't get summer until well into June so we feel doubly cheated. (This was the coldest, wettest late spring/early summer on record. Not normal.) Now the sun is setting before 8:00, the evenings require a sweater to out of doors, and the angle of the sun has shifted - autumn is coming!
I also had difficulty concentrating on the writing for the last few months - so many outdoor projects, social events, visitors, and the desire to play while the sun shone. An author I follow on Twitter said she takes the summers off from writing because she knows it would be an exercise in frustration to try to be productive with everything else going on. I may adopt that mindset.
Now I'm off to download Savannah, the perfect book for my visit to my mum's summer house.
Diana, Thank you! I hope you enjoy Savannah.
Sarah, Freedom was book number 40 for me. I milestone I can't believe I hit.
Luanna, We had a long wet spring as well and never really hit the high temps we normally do in the summer in SE Oregon. It has been wonderful to be able to open the windows at night and cool the house down so it is comfortable during the days. Usually we have a week or two where even the nights don't cool down much. I hope you enjoy Savannah!
I am the opposite of all of you. I love the fall. Cooler mornings and evenings are fine with me. Summer I am very productive with writing, only because heat and humidity are enemies of my body, so rather than journey out into hot, hot weather like Maine never used to have, I stayed in and wrote / edited, etc. I do miss the flowers at this time of year. It was so hot, many of mine didn't last as long as usual in the garden. Congrats on all you accomplished this summer, despite getting pulled in many directions.
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