Getting It On

First up, here's the cover for my Nov. release from Loose Id. It's part of a program saluting the military, and I felt honored to be invited to participate in it. Because its just shy of 20,000 words, it's considered a fling. That doesn't bother me except because of the short length, it gets a stock cover instead of what I'd envisioned. My hero is coming back from the dead, and I wanted to highlight the wo-wo factor. Ah well, that's behind me and I'm working on the last book in my current Aphrodisia contract. Because my brain is reaching 'full', I can only hold onto one idea or thought at a time and poor Midnight Soldier has been pushed into a dark corner.
It's a cloudy, cool morning and my poor garden is officially dead Darn that early cold snap! I'm not at all ready to end the pleasure of tomato picking. Yesterday, my husband and I went to a local grower's market an picked up some peaches. I peeled one this morning and what a disappointment. None of that wonderful fresh fruit smell. It was pithy with brusing here, there, and everything. I'm glad I nixed my husband's desire to buy a case.
Maybe its the clouds that have me in a pensive mood, but I rather suspect its more a case of the phone call I had a few minutes ago. Without revealing any details, lets say I have a friend whose life has blown up in his face. Blown up to the point that he's going to trial, we just don't know when. Financially, he and his wife are ruined. Emotionally, they're a collective mess. Because I know first-hand many of the details of this mess and am involved to some extent, he's been calling about once a week. We go over the same territory each time with me mostly listening and asking a few questions because I know he needs a safe way to vent. Whenever we talk, I'm struck by how quickly one's life can be turned on end. It can happen to any of us. It happened to him.
Then, because I have this deadline and a story demanding to be told, I have to place Harry in another dark corner of my mind and pound the keyboard. I've been writing for so long that I can barely remember other ways I earned my keep, but I can't help wondering if it'd be easier if, say, I worked on an assembly line. Emotional matters wouldn't get between me and what my hands need to accomplish. I could continue to produce no matter what was going on inside my head.
However, that's not how I pay my bills. Instead, to do the best I'm capable of by this and other stories, I need to bring my entire brain and heart to the computer. Sometimes that isn't easy.
Enough Vonna! You're warm and dry with breakfast in your belly and you're doing the thing you most love to do in life--well, at least among the top three.
Vonna
www.VonnaHarper.com