The peas have gone wild this year. I have to go up on tip toe to get the ones eighteen inches above my head. I’ve been picking them every day, but the little darlings also disguise themselves as leaves so I miss some of the lower ones. By the next day when I find them, I’m shelling the peas instead of stir frying pods.
My life is like that, always a stretch. I had a performance review once in which the board told me I always set my goals so excessively high that I can never reach them. But, they said, I get an enormous amount done as a result. That’s the way I roll, always stretching as far as I can.
That’s true in my writing as well. I decided to begin The Reluctant Wife in India before I realized how little I knew about India or the British East India Company. Piles of research, days of fretting, hard work, and many Aha! moments later I had a book I am proud of. Recent kind words from more than one direction told me I succeeded in producing a good story. It was a stretch, but I’m pleased with it. It is also a good example about why it takes me a year to produce a book. I set my goals too high to churn out three a year. I just can’t do that.
Now I’m trying to figure out what European explorers did and didn’t find, did and didn’t know, did and didn’t loot in Egypt before 1840 so my hero can set his goals high as well. It’s a stretch also, but I’m learning a lot, especially about Nubia.
I need to get back to the Egypt book. At the moment I have three more scenes to write in a novella I’m doing for the Bluestocking Belles next project. We’re going to announce it Swoonworthy Summer Reading, a Facebook event on July 13. Click here if you want to attend. I’m also going to reveal the cover for Christmas Hope, aka Caroline’s WWI novel at that same event. So I have scenes to write, peas to pick, and weeding to do. But first? Coffee.
