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Staycation ... Vacation ... How Two Authors Manage to Procrastinate the Same Way But Differently

If I leave the house more than once during the week to do something other than check the mail, it’s a big week. I'm not a shut in or disabled. I’m just lazy. Or more accurately, I’m a homebody. Offered a vacation or a staycation and I will choose my own home eighty percent of the time. Part of that is my anxiety - traveling is stressful. Mostly, it’s my control-freak nature. I like things my way and at home, my home, they are my way.

Alexia, on the other hand, is a traveler. She travels for work, she travels as a writer, she travels for fun. I mean, I’m assuming she’s a traveler by nature. She’s got a pretty impressive resume so if she didn’t like traveling for her job, she’d probably get a new one.

I have dogs and Alexia has a cat too. That probably says something else about our personalities but I imagine having a cat makes travel less fraught since they’re so independent. My dogs could be called many things but independent isn’t one of them. In one hour, I probably let them in and out five times.

You’d think I get a LOT of writing done. I do not. The aforementioned dog activity is one culprit but I’m also a procrastinator. And home offers many diversions since there’s always something that can be cleaned or tidied or laundry to be done or muddy floors to wipe up. Alexia has time to kill while waiting for flights and, to be fair, I’m sure she’s much less easily distracted than I am. She’s very good at grown-uping.

 

Aimee doesn’t know this, but I’m a procrastinator, too. I’ve turned procrastination into an art. Pick the thing I’m supposed to do and I’ll find 400 other things to do instead. Write a chapter? Laundry calls. Edit a paragraph? Toilet needs to be scrubbed. Outline? Think I’ll cook a pot roast. I don’t even like to cook.

She’s right about my love of travel, however. I chose my day job because of the travel involved. I enjoy traveling to mystery conferences as much as the conferences themselves. Texas, Louisiana, Tennessee, California, New Mexico, New York, Alaska, Montana, American Samoa, Guam…wanderlust satisfied. I’m in frequent flyer heaven.

I don’t even mind the inescapable inconveniences and annoyances of travel. (Except the kid kicking my seat all the way from Honolulu to San Francisco. That, I minded.) They make great travel stories. I post a running travelogue on Facebook when I’m on the road and use Instagram as a virtual travel photo album—the 21^st century version of a travel diary. I also get more writing done on the road than I do at home. For one, there’s no laundry basket, nor is there a kitchen. And the airports hire staff to clean the toilets. I experienced an authorial epiphany a few years ago when I discovered airline lounges. Snacks, coffee, desks, and outlets, glorious outlets. There’s just enough background noise to keep me alert and my fellow travelers provide inspiration for characters and dialog. (Be careful what you say around writers.)

Aimee doesn’t know this, either, but I’m also a control freak. That’s why I travel solo. I like things my way and when I travel by myself, I’m not beholden to anyone else’s agenda. Solo, I have enough flexibility to see the humor in the inevitable snafus. If I had a travel companion, I’d feel obligated to accommodate them and snags wouldn’t be so funny.

P.S. I love dogs. But Aimee’s right about travel being easier with a cat.

Final verdict? We both look really good in hats. Which has nothing to do with this blog post but I just remembered it. :)

And then there were two ...

Today is my first post as an “Empty Nester.” I put that in quotes because I still have a husband and three needy dogs to take care of. If my nest were truly empty I’d have to clean a lot less and it would be so much quieter.

Since I’m writing this on Friday, I’m still anticipating the process but I’m sure something will get left behind, something will get broken, and someone will cry when my daughter, my only child, my precious baby girl, moves into her dorm room tomorrow. In fact, the one crying could very well be her boyfriend who will be getting up four hours earlier than normal to drive down with us and he HATES getting up early. He’s, of course, doing it for her because he loves her. He may not be a morning person but he has excellent taste. 😊

To be honest, I’m sitting staring at the blinking cursor, not sure what to write. This is definitely a Write What You Know kind of situation and I don’t really know this experience yet. I can tell you all about the lead up - the excitement and the fear, the planning and the letting go so my daughter can plan. I can also tell you how a lifetime spent pretending to be someone else (nothing so exciting as being in witness protection or a past life on the run just the usual family drama) I’ve done a damn fine job putting on a happy face and feigning more excitement than I’ve really been feeling.

And I am happy. And excited. But the underlying sadness and, yes, grief are there too.

Someone once said that having a child is like having your heart walk around outside your body for the rest of your life. That’s exactly what it feels like too. The vulnerability and rawness that I’ve never gotten used to and now I’m having to let my heart move two and a half hours away. I can’t imagine at this point how I’m going to be feeling driving home tomorrow evening. I could be totally okay (not great) or I could sob (very not great) for the whole trip home. Then comes Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and so on. All here at home while my heart is 161 miles away.

I’ve never been great at the whole Kübler-Ross model. I spend a lot of time in denial and anger. Those are emotions that were “allowed” in my family growing up. Shock? Nope. You always had to be in control. Bargaining? Also, nope. Bargaining meant you knew you weren’t in control. Guilt? Oh, hell, yes! I grew up in a Southern Catholic-Jewish home. I can cozy up and pull guilt over me like a blanket. Depression? Again, that would mean weakness or out of control. Acceptance? Hope? That’s pending.

I’ve always been fairly optimistic for someone who grew up in an unhappy home and suffers from clinical anxiety. But I’ve never had to leave my heart in a strange place and drive away from it. So, I guess I’ll find out.

Wish me luck.

Tern and tern about

by Donna Andrews of the Femmes Fatales.

Several years ago I came up with what I thought was a great idea for book in my Meg Langslow series. Meg’s grandfather, Dr. J. Montgomery Blake, the eminent naturalist and environmentalist, has been recruited to go on a cruise, where he’ll be giving lectures on the flora and fauna. And since I long ago determined that for a Meg book to work, she needs to be surrounded by a critical mass of her eccentric friends and family, one of the perqs of Dr. Blake’s lecture gig will be discounts to friends and family who want to accompany him. 

The murder would take place at sea! So only the passengers and crew would be suspects! A locked room mystery! Or, if you like, a waterlogged modern retelling of Murder on the Orient Express.

And since I like to marinate ideas before writing them, I tucked this one away to ripen, pulling it out occasionally to brainstorm on. Then sometime in 2017, when my editor and I were talking about what Meg would do next, I pulled out the cruise idea. He loved it, and we agreed I would work on it for my summer 2019 book. 

Just one teensy weensy obstacle to be overcome--I’d never actually taken a cruise. I figured I’d have plenty of time to take care of that before I started writing the book. 

But I was on a busy schedule. I had to finish writing Toucan Keep a Secret, and then I had a Christmas book due. I was in the middle of writing Lark! The Herald Angels Sing when it dawned on me--the cruise book was next on my schedule. And I still hadn’t taken that cruise.

I reached out to my friend Dina, since I knew she liked cruises. “Would you like to take a cruise with me?”  She was willing, and asked what kind of cruise I had in mind. I told her something short--because I had no idea whether or not I was prone to seasickness--and preferably something that took off from New York or Baltimore, so no plane flight would be required--I tend to come down with respiratory crud from air travel, and I didn’t think that would add to my enjoyment of the cruise. “Something like this,” I said, sending her a link to what sounded like a perfect cruise for my purposes, a five-day jaunt to Bermuda on a relatively small ship.”

Yes, it would have been perfect--except that it took off the following year, long after the book would have to be written. 

“Let me find something,” she said. So while I doggedly worked on meeting my deadline for Lark!, Dina researched cruises. She found a cruise similar to the one I’d liked--on a slightly larger ship, and taking off from New York rather than Baltimore, but still, almost exactly what I wanted. 

She then proceeded to organize every aspect of our journey. She nagged me to take care of small details--everything from finding my passport to buying the required style of luggage tags. She shared sage advice on what to pack for a cruise. She even managed somehow to wangle a free upgrade from a basic economy cabin on deck one to a much larger cabin on the top or spa deck. 

Dina is now officially my research trip travel agent.

We both agreed that a slightly smaller--okay, a much smaller--ship would have been preferable.  And that we would have preferred the kind of cruise that would offer lectures by Dr. Blake as the main entertainment. But the food was great--so was the company--and I learned enough about cruises that I felt ready to start writing my book.

Terns of Endearment, which came out this month, is the result. 

Here’s the official blurb:

Meg Langslow's grandfather has been booked by a cruise line to give lectures on birds and other environmental topics as part of their ship’s education/entertainment itinerary, and Grandfather has arranged for a passel of family members to join him.

The passengers’ vacation quickly becomes a nightmare when they wake up to find themselves broken down and in need of repairs in the Bermuda Triangle. To keep the stranded passengers calm, Meg’s family and friends band together to keep things organized and provide entertainment. Some even take up the cause of nursing an injured tern back to health.

But things get even worse when a crew member announces to all that a woman has jumped overboard, leaving behind her shoes, shawl, and a note. The note reveals she's the mortal enemy of group of writers who came on board for a retreat, and the group is split on whether suicide is in-character for her. Meanwhile, grandfather’s assistant Trevor seems to have gone missing too!

The captain decides not to investigate, saying he'll notify American authorities when they reach their destination. But Meg's father thinks they should find out whether there was foul play while the prime suspects are all stuck on board. Who wanted the writer dead? Why doesn’t the captain seem concerned? What happened to Trevor? It'll be a race against the clock to solve these mysteries before they make the necessary repairs and return to shore.

Now available from fine booksellers everywhere!

The latest in disposable items

by Kris Neri, with the Femmes Fatals

Joe and I are among the small part of the population who don’t make our coffee with a Keurig or similar device, judging by how much of the grocery store aisles have been given over to the K-cup form of coffee making. Nor do we drink all our coffee in coffee shops. I’m such a coffee fiend, I couldn’t wait as long as it would take to dress and drive to a coffee shop to get my first sip.

Okay, I admit it. I’m Kris, and I’m a coffee-aholic.

Not just any coffee, mind you. We buy good quality French Roast beans and grind them ourselves, and make a whole pot.

The only part of this operation that I don’t like is that our coffee makers never seem to last as long as I think they should. We average about two per year. Our latest Mr. Coffee lasted seven months.

Sure, they’re always have warrantees, usually for a year. But you also usually have to package them up and ship them off somewhere for repair. I’ve checked — Mr. Coffee doesn’t even have a service center anywhere in the state of New Mexico. Nor Arizona. How many states would I have to drive through to avoid shipping something that probably wouldn’t last more than another few months anyway? 

Does it make me lazy because, rather than returning my faulty coffee makers, I just grouse about their poor quality, and then head out to buy a new one? Are coffee makers really meant to be disposable? 

What about larger, more expensive appliances? Once we bought a house with a refrigerator. Actually, we paid a little more to have the fridge included, thinking it would be easier if we didn’t have to buy one immediately after moving.

Bad idea, as it turned out.

Less than a year later, it stopped defrosting the freezer. The repairman who came to check it out said he could repair it for around $350. However, he recommended that we scrap it and buy a new one. I considered that a poor financial choice and wasteful for a appliance meant to last longer than this one had.

Another bad idea. 

After another few months, another component went south. This time we had to replace it, and we were already $350 in the hole.

Do we repair anything anymore? Is everything disposable?

Recently, I learned quite a number of companies are making disposable clothing. Or, as they call them, “washless.” 

Seriously?

I immediately flashed on Jack Reacher, Lee Child’s series character, who throws his clothing away after some wearings and buys new ones. I always thought that trait provided such great character reflection. But now, if everyone tosses things after several wearings, all it makes Jack is a trendsetter. 

Apparently, Wool & Prince kicked this practice off with merino wool button-downs that they said could be worn for 100 days straight. 

Really? Not to be indelicate, but how do they smell? Especially around day 90?

With the notion that humans produce odors in mind, now, dozens of athletic clothing lines, including those from Lululemon and Patagonia, treat their clothing with nano silver particles to fight odor. Other companies treat their products with peppermint oil to keep them smelling fresh. 

In their marketing material, some manufacturers of washless clothing claim you can travel without luggage because it’s so easy to buy washless things and just discard them. Of course, I believe that one of the signs someone might be a terrorist is traveling to far away places without luggage. The time you save in not packing just might be lost in how long you’re held up in customs. 

Another argument by the manufacturers of washless clothing is that they’re better for the environment. Companies making these products claim we’ll save umpteen gallons of water over the lifetimes of these garments, not to mention keeping the chemicals some clothing manufacturers use and bits of microfibers from being sent out in the rinse water.

How much good will thousands and thousands of discarded washers do for the landfill, not to mention piles of discarded clothing? 

Washless clothing aren’t the least bit appealing to me. If I love a garment, I don’t want to throw it away.
Not after four days, or four hundred. I’m also someone who boxes up favorite pieces that I have…shall we say, outgrown. Those garments represent hope to me, the hope that I will once again fit into them. Even
with the high cost of moving, I took much of that hope when I moved to another state, where they now take up hope space in my shed. That’s how much I value keeping them.

But disposable clothing, their manufacturers maintain, are the future. 

And speaking of costs…washless garments aren’t cheap. Pangaia wants $85 for a plain white T-shirt. 

Funny. I’ve seen plain white T-shirts in Walmart for as low as $5. And you can wash them.

So…do you dispose of things, or do you fix them?

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Never Say Die: Kindle edition now on sale for only $.99:

Paperback edition now on sale for only $11.99

Hit by a car and left for dead on a San Diego street, it is only because of her indomitable will that professional triathlete Zoey Morgan is able to fight her way back from death's door. Too bad she left behind in that nether world, not only her memory of the vehicular assault, but the events that led up to it.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KZTS1FM (Kindle)

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0615981836 (Paperback)