“I need to be distracted,” I told Glynn. The Runaway Mail-Order Bride is racing toward publication (eight days from now!) and I wanted to think about anything except the publication date. Better writers than me would redouble their promotional efforts right about now but I’m not one of those authors. I wanted to do something fun.

“I know what we can do,” Glynn said, trying to sound all Barry White but coming across more like Barry Williams.

“I just made the bed,” I told him. I wasn’t about to unmake it with someone who couldn’t manage a better sex growl than Greg from the Brady Bunch.

So Glynn went to Redbox and checked out I, Frankenstein, a 2013 floperoo that was rated 4% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes. He did this on purpose. Ben Sachs from the Chicago Reader didn’t hate the movie and that was recommendation enough for my guy. Ninety minutes later, I scratched Ben off of our Christmas card list, and then I looked for something else to do.

“Let’s take a walk,” Glynn said.

“Why?”

“We’ll work on the next novel.”

We already have the title of our next effort and a vague outline of how things will go but this idea fell squarely into the “NOT a distraction” category. I told him absolutely not. Then he looked all Barry Williams-sad and I agreed to take a stroll downtown as long as we didn’t discuss anything that had to do with writing. Or I, Frankenstein.

So we were walking and talking about nothing in particular until I noticed that a local art gallery was open. I pulled Glynn inside. Unfamous artists (“unfamous” is, too, a word; I am among the unfamous) fascinate me. Their work can be terrible, it can be wonderful, and it’s usually somewhere in-between. Kind of like most books I’ve read. When the gallery door settled shut, I was distracted, at last.  

Inside, I was drawn to a mixed media piece called The Magpie Lives in My Heart. Glynn liked it too, so we brought it home. The real thing is so much more striking than the picture, I have no camera skills, so you’ll have to trust me. When I contacted the artist, Brenda Diller, asking if I could post the image on my website, she was gracious. She also wrote, I hope you enjoy the Magpie. I do need to tell you that the beads and sundry tend to fall out of the nest but then, they do in real life, too. I just pick them up and drop them back in and hope you do the same. Also, feel free to add your own baubles since I’m sure the Magpie would be adding also.

This relaxed and generous approach to her work reminded me of how Glynn and I plot stories.  I’m anxious when a new story comes out but not while we’re writing it. Some ideas go in, some ideas fall out, we often toss in unexpected bits that shouldn’t fit but sometimes do. Even when we do a tight chapter-by-chapter plot, we never know quite how a novel will turn out.  That’s part of the fun. That’s part of the joy.

Sunday evening, we did a real walk-and-talk, working on the first chapter of our next story. On the day that Runaway releases, we'll have the first draft of Chapter One in place.
 
Thanks, Brenda.

There was this one time, Glynn came home and he was all excited about some new super diet that could clean your arteries. All its proponents had to do was abandon every aspect of food that anyone ever enjoyed -- flavor and spices and joy -- and there was a (very slim) possibility that they might live longer. So I pretended that this sounded intriguing, and we ate like this for three terrible, terrible months, and then one day we went mad and added salt to one of our meals and never, ever tried the super diet again.
 
Glynn apologized later, saying he kind of suspected I didn't want to try the diet plan. I'm not very good at faking enthusiasm. Which brings up...I need to start promoting our new novel. It comes out soon.
 
Yay!
 
You know who I admire? H.M. Ward. Not just because she’s a fiercely independent, self-published author who sells a trillion of her stories each year. Not just because her website address is SexyAwesomeBooks.com, either. (Isn’t that a terrific and fun name? When I first discovered it, I went to Glynn and told him we should change our www. to SexyAwesomeAnneGlynn.com but he wouldn’t stop laughing so another of my brilliant ideas went nowhere.) No, I admire H.M. Ward because, not only does she write popular books that sell by the buckets, she also knows how to market them.

She happily shares how she does it, too. If you go here, you can see for yourself.

If you’re like me, the first thing you’ll notice is that H.M. is a very organized person. Then you’ll notice she does everything to publicize her books that you’d want a traditional publisher to do if they were sharing the word about their newest author’s masterpiece… and you’ll notice that traditional publishers don’t actually tend to do all the things she does. If I was a best-selling writer with oodles of cash, I’d want her to run my publicity campaign. She’s that good.

Me, I’m not that organized or hard-working or…um, good. When it comes to promoting my work, I feel exhausted just looking at H.M.’s to-do list. She does the whole Facebook, Goodreads, Pininterest, Twitter, thing and that’s just the tip of fan-based iceberg. If she came by the house, I’d say, “Good on you, Aitch” – because that’s how we’d roll, getting on a first-name basis within minutes – and then I’d say, “No, I’m sure lots of women have first names that sound like some kind of rash,” because I’m reassuring like that, and then we’d start talking about the t.v. show, Sleepy Hollow, because who ever thought Ichabod Crane could be sexy?  I’d want to get her talking about anything except selling books. Why? The same reason I’m not swapping tennis tips with Serena Williams.

So what am I doing to promote our new novel, The Runaway Mail-Order Bride? Well, when it comes out on June 5th, I’ll share it here, ‘cause you’re my peeps. Circle the date. I’m also doing a cover reveal tour on 06/05, because friend Sue said reveal tours were easy and one worked well for her a couple of years ago. We must have had a little miscommunication somewhere along the line because Sue recently pointed out that most people don’t do their cover reveals on the same day as their book release. It’s just not done.

The Good Witch says this means I’m a rebel and a trendsetter, which is a much nicer way of looking at things than thinking I’ve screwed up. I doubt that Aitch would agree but, being as close to her as I am, I know she’d be too polite to say so.

With the new novel about to come out, there's a thousand things to be done -- or, more realistically, sixteen things to be done, but it feels like a thousand things -- however, I let the last seven days slip away without doing any of my word-chores. That's because Glynn had a birthday last week.
 
It wasn't just any old birthday, it was a Big One. You know, one of those birthdays that end in a zero and cause friends and family to act as if that particular day is significantly different than the one that just passed but ended in a nine. Now, when I have a birthday, I want the world to know. I welcome banners and balloons and people jumping up and down in excitement. If it isn't too much of a bother, I'd really appreciate a parade in my honor. While I've had several balloons and the occasional banner, I've never seen a parade that's all about me but I'd enjoy one. I absolutely would.
 
Glynn would hate it. He doesn't like to celebrate his birthdays. He would prefer to quietly eat his cake (he still wants cake) and open his presents (he gets pout-y if he doesn't get presents) while pretending he really hasn't turned a year older. As if, somehow, gifts and a heavily-frosted pastry have just arrived at the house for no particular reason.
 
Since this was a Big One, he asked if we could skip town and be far away from the ringing phone and visiting relatives. So we headed south, where (1) I promised not to work on any of the things we simply must get done before the novel comes out and (2) I agreed to go horseback riding. The last time I rode a horse, I was seven and I climbed bareback on a horse that had never been ridden before...and wasn't that a surprise for both me and the horse? But Glynn was pretty clear about his birthday wishes and who doesn't want to give their sweetie their birthday wish?
 
So, I ignored my email, I turned off my cell phone, and I didn't do my writing chores. And I discovered something: horseback riding is much, MUCH more fun when the day doesn't suddenly turn blisteringly hot and the poor horse just doesn't much want to move. ("Oh, no, no," the horse wrangler lied, "all horses love the heat", which would have seemed somehow more convincing if the rest of the herd wasn't standing in the shadows, clearly relieved not to be out on the trail.) By the time we got back to the stables, Glynn and I just wanted to escape to our air-conditioned hotel.
 
While he enjoyed his slice of cake, I soaked my sore and tired tush in the tub -- another tip here, bring pillows if you haven't been on a horse in a few decades -- and, later, we snuggled together on a king-sized bed and watched a pay-per-view horror movie together. "It was the perfect birthday," he told me later.
 
Which is what I'll remind him, a few months from now when my birthday celebration rolls around. It's probably best if he programs 1-800-PARADES into his cell phone now, it'll save so much time later....

The Good Witch and I were out, either discussing important social issues or the madness that was The Real Housewives of Atlanta Reunion Specials, when we decided to stop by the Tuesday Morning store. I was looking for a deal on a Monster High doll (don’t get me started on Monster High dolls), while G.W. was just looking. Then she found it:

“What in the name of all that is holy is that?” she asked. I said, “Lord Doghead”, and the name stuck. I quickly pulled out my cell phone and snapped a shot, just so that I could share the image with those in my life who were, unfortunately, too far away to personally experience this wonder.

If you’d care to argue that there are weirder things in the world, I’d agree. After all, we live in a society where there is even a website called Weird Things. However, I still believe if you’re only casually sight-shopping through a consumer-oriented chain store, it’s hard to find many products odder than a giant, heavy, mass-produced Beagle head with a small clock in its upper body.

G.W. and I started to laugh because someone, somewhere, thought it was a good idea to invest their money in this item. The manufacturers assumed there would be a demand for Lord Doghead at the retail price of (per the tag) $179.99. They made more than one of them. And they were probably surprised to see their regal gewgaw end up at Tuesday Morning and discounted to only $79.99. 

I loved Lord Doghead. When I came across an artist friend of mine, I pulled him into the store, insisting he view the glory of my find. “What in God’s name is that?” he asked and I said, “Lord Doghead”, and we both laughed. I went to Tuesday Morning three times over the next two weeks, not caring if I found a steal on a doll or not, because I knew I’d have my plaster Beagle to brighten the day –

…and then it was gone. Someone had bought Lord Doghead. For a few frightening seconds, I was worried that Glynn had purchased it but a quick text revealed our home was still statue-free.  I was both relieved…and sad. G.W. was sad when I told her, too. (Glynn wasn’t sad, he just wondered why I thought he might have carried it to the cash register. “Because you do that kind of thing,” I said.)

After that, our local Tuesday Morning store wasn’t the same for me. Oh, I’d stroll through the place from time to time but it just didn’t have the same kick. Until last Saturday, when I heard G.W. exclaim, “What in the name of all that is holy is that?” – and I was able to say,

“Monkey butler!”