The Trees Are Full of Ice by Liz Flaherty

I wrote most of this for a blog in January of 2021. There isn't ice in the trees today, although it was zero when I came to the office this morning. There is much about today that is cold. Bittersweet. Even though this blog is a memory, it's a reminder to me of how to go on from here. Wishing you diamond days. - Liz

The trees are full of ice today. The sun shines on them and they are just beautiful. It's as if they're covered with a multitude of diamonds. It's funny that the thing that draws our attention to the beauty is also the thing that destroys it, isn't it? Not funny so much as bittersweet. 

Along with the brilliant trees came an ear worm. "Some days are diamonds," John Denver sang, "some days are stones." Bittersweet again, the thoughts of an artist gone too soon, as well as the song itself. 

We've seen a lot of it in the past year. Lived a lot of it. I don't know about other writers, but it's made it harder to create a story. I'm not using Covid-19 when I write, and I catch myself thinking things like they can't go into a crowded restaurant or there can't be a girlfriends trip or even they wouldn't touch hands that soon. Where's the hand sanitizer and they hardly know each other. 

But there have been some good things, too. Some sweet moments among the bitter. I've been writing in sprints, which had been both successful and fun. I'm writing a new story, with people I'm having fun getting to know, in a subgenre I'm not completely comfortable with.

I'm finding during this up-and-down time that I have new resentments, new things creating changes I'm not sure I want. I read curmudgeonly posts on Facebook that both annoy me and...gulp...I can identify with, and I hear these words from the song: "More and more I can see there's a danger in becoming what I never thought I'd be..."

Oh. Okay. 

Bittersweet is beautiful. My grandmother kept it in a little copper vase that hung on the wall. It's also, according to some reports, toxic. So is giving in to the bitterness that comes visiting every day. But we can learn from it without giving in. We can use it without giving in. The days that seem to be stones from sunup to beyond sundown, what Anne Shirley called "Jonah days," exhaust us. And yet, this is how we do it, isn't it? One day at a time. One foot in front of the other. Without giving in. Watching for diamonds.

Christmas Top Ten by Liz Flaherty

When I have nothing to say--like today--I will post a list...of some kind. Of course, today, I don't have a fresh idea for a list, either. Just give me a minute...be patient...I'll think of something. 

So, some Christmas favorites. And please feel free to join me with most-beloveds of your own. so, here are mine.

1. Song: "Mary, Did You Know?" (That's this year.)

2. Movie: Scrooge, the 1951 version with Alastair Sim. (And a couple dozen others.)

3. Cookie: Cherry Winks, spritz, chocolate-caramel chip, shortbread, iced sugar...oh, sorry, got carried away...

4. Present: A sewing machine. 

5. TV episode: Andy Griffith Show, Season 1, Episode 11. Gunsmoke, "P. S. Murry Christmas." I know, I know...that's two. 

6. Tradition: Air oats, the story my husband told the kids about what grew in the fallow fields that allowed reindeer to fly. 

7. Christmas tree: Any and all. Right now, we have a white tree in the house with blue lights and blue garland and all our treasured ornaments on it and I love it. I also love the little kitchen tree and the one in the office and...

8. Event: Christmas Eve candlelight service. Just something special there. 

9. Wish: Peace on earth, good will toward all. (There are things in life, like this wish and chocolate fudge, that can't be improved on.)

10. Candy: Speaking of fudge...

There's my Top Ten. What are yours? Thanks for sharing, and Merry Christmas to you and yours!

You’re invited behind the scenes of a romance movie set in small, snowy Christmas Town, where you’ll discover eight feel good, sweet romances unfolding among the film’s cast and crew.

"It's like 8 Hallmark movies all in one!" 5 Stars ARC Reviewer

Welcome back to Christmas Town, Maine!

About Quitting and Gifts by Liz Flaherty

I'm not loving the business of writing lately. On more days than I like to think about, I'm not even loving the writing itself. My sales numbers are abysmal, reviews nearly nonexistent, and publishing itself has grown so...weird, hasn't it? 

Author Ilona Fridl posted this on Facebook

last week: "I'm not depressed, but I'm wondering if writing is a waste of time for me. I've got eight books out, and not any of them are selling much. Maybe I don't write what people want to read. Anyway, I was thinking of hanging it up. After over ten years out, I should be doing better than this."

Many of the 40-some responses to her post--mine included--said, in essence, Me, too. Included in those comments was Kathie Giorgio's recommendation that Ilona read her blog that day. Kathie's post has become recommended reading for me. Did it fix what ailed me? No. But it applied needed unguent to the painful places.

I'm not going to hang it up, because I am at the tail end, where I know my writing days are numbered, and I have no intention of giving up any of them until I have to. But I still empathize with Ilona. I still feel the same way, even if I won't give it those same words. 

I hope some of the comments or perhaps Kathie's blog gave Ilona answers she needed to hear. I loved the conversation, that for that day at least, someone's Facebook page was a meeting of friends. That's kind of a gift, isn't it? It's necessary, if we are to survive as writers these days in publishing, that we find, accept, and enjoy those gifts when we get them. 

When I got a massage last week, Jessie, the wonderful therapist who makes me feel 10 years younger every time I see her, mentioned a blog I'd written for Window Over the Sink. It made some waves, got some comments, and created some thought. We talked about it, and when I left that day, she told me to "keep on being badass."

I got more than a massage out of that visit, and when my husband and I went to our favorite coffee house last night, owner Scott Johnson introduced me as a "famous author," told how many books I'd published, and said, "She's a badass."

Being called a badass twice in one week when you're 71 years old and lacking in professional confidence....wow. Those are gifts I'm going to hold close and enjoy. And I'll keep writing until I love it again. I hope you do, too, Ilona.

~*~

Reinventing Riley

He’s afraid a second time at love wouldn’t live up to his first. She’s afraid a second round would be exactly like her first.

Pastor Jake McAlister and businesswoman Riley Winters are in their forties and widowed. Neither is interested in a relationship. They both love Fallen Soldier, the small Pennsylvania town where they met, even though Rye plans to move to Chicago, and Jake sees a change in pastorates not too far down the road. Enjoying a few-weeks friendship is something they both look forward to.

However, there is an indisputable attraction between the green-eyed pastor and the woman with a shining sweep of chestnut hair. Then there’s the Culp, an old downtown building that calls unrelentingly to Rye’s entrepreneurial soul. And when a young man named Griff visits Jake, life changes in the blink of a dark green eye.

https://www.amazon.com/Reinventing-Riley-Second-Chances-Book-ebook/dp/B0B2FT1JLR

 

Sighs and Stepping Stones by Liz Flaherty

I wrote this post for the Romance Gems blog several years back. I hope you don't mind a re-run. 

Sometimes the goofiest things will give you something to start with. My friend Nan Reinhardt and her husband sold the house they lived in for 35 years. The whole process was...interesting. In the same way having a colonoscopy is interesting. So, anyway, we were talking one morning when one more obstacle was out of the path. I said something about "big sigh," as in relief, and she said it was too soon for that. I said--get prepared for something profound here; it doesn't happen to me very often-- "Every stepping stone deserves its own sigh."

When it comes to books, I don't write fast--ever--anymore. Yesterday I had 600words and called it good. A few days back, I think I had 26. Occasionally I'll get five-to-seven pages in a day and just burst with pride in myself. As someone who used to have 50-page weekends when I worked full time at the day job, this slowing down was hard to accept. I have wondered (and whined about) if it's time to put my novelist shingle in mothballs and stick to my beloved column and blogging.

Like all stepping stones, the ones in a writing career are hard and have a lot of distance between them. They have sharp corners, slick spots, and you stand a good chance of tumbling off into the water when you're only halfway across.

So you stick on Band-Aids, you take care on the slick spots, and you climb back out of the water and keep on walking. You're careful on your journey for a while then. You might try writing to market, to trends, to make your lyrics match the tunes of certain publishers. You skip around between sub-genres, although your heart usually leads you back to the one it lays the greatest claim to. You obsess over covers. Over reviews. Over promotion, promotion, promotion.

But then the day comes when you start that wondering-and-whining thing I mentioned up there. You've written 26 words in too many hours and they're not even particularly good ones. If, like me, you're a person who's always been proud of being productive, it's excruciating to realize that sometimes you're just...not.

I still wonder if it's time, but with the wondering comes a realization.

The thought of not writing books anymore makes me unhappy.

So I've given up being careful on the steps, no longer worried about splashes or sharp edges. Someone doesn't like protagonists in their 40s? Too bad for them. I'm not crazy about my cover? It's okay--I'll like the next one. People are tired of small-town stories? I'm not. My writing's too erotic, too sweet, my prose too purple or too terse, my POV stiffly pure or a little sloppy? Get over it and find another author, but thanks for trying one of my books.

Of course, there's a gasper, too, even in the middle of my hear-me-roar treatise on freedom: I don't have a contract right this minute and I'm a mostly-trad author who doesn't care to go mostly-indie. I'm afraid I'll never publish another book. However, if I'm honest about it, it's exactly like when I get to that spot in the middle of a manuscript where I know I'll never be able to finish the book. It happens every time. (Added in 2022: I DO have a contract now, with Magnolia Blossom Publishing, and am happy for it. However, that does nothing to change the fears in this paragraph, so I left it.)

More stones in the path. Occasionally, I think I can see the other side, but I'll never get there. There are a bunch of old sayings about journeys and destinations, but we all know writing is all journey. We know that, while finishing the books and having them published are wonderful things, it's the writing that counts. It's what makes us happy. One stone, one step, one sigh at a time.

***

Life's Too Short for White Walls will be an April 20 release from The Wild Rose Press. No preorder yet, but there are some free copies still available on Booksprout. (Jonesing for reviews--that's what we do!)