At least when I visited The International Wolf Center, Axel was showing all the signs of being in charge. He’s two years old here last year and Aidan, who had been the alpha, was eight, and ready to give up the position.
Okay, my granddaughter’s on the way and I’m trying to finish up the last 22 pages of the book. I need to dedicate all three of them to different readers. I’ll do that when I’m done proofing. And I have another promo project my publisher sent me, so I need to get that done this weekend. Plus the two bears!
I’ve always loved westerns, ghost stories, and time travel so in A Ghost of a Chance at Love I was able to combine three things I love with a romance and the town of Salado, Texas that I used to visit with my mother when she was still alive.
Whenever we visited, it made me think of what it would be like to live back then when the town was just begun. Imagine the buildings that are old now, were new back then. The stagecoach that just takes sightseers up and down the main street would travel 5 hours all the way to Waco, Texas, the city that was a town near where I was living. The Stagecoach Inn was now The Shady Villa Inn during the 1800s. You wake up in the inn to find the name has changed, everyone is dressed for pioneer days or some such thing, the road is no longer paved but dirt, and cattle are run through the main street during cattle drives.
So that is the story I’m now proofing. The Accidental Highlander is done and hopefully this weekend I’ll have all three books ready to republish.
I know I’ll have more books coming in for edits, so I want to get this done in the meantime.
I think this will be my last physical therapy day. It’s already cost me $925, insurance won’t cover a dime, and my shoulder is getting better. If I keep working on the exercises at home like I have been, I should be well on the way to recovery.
No, this isn’t the story of Little Red Riding Hood. She’s a wolf too. I took the picture of the wolf at the International Wolf Center, Ely, Minnesota.
I’m off to proof The Accidental Highland Hero, adding dedications to that and the other Highland story that I didn’t have a chance to when they were first published.
I want to finish proofing this book, while I want to write another Highland story since they’re fresh on my mind, but I was thinking about the cougar Halloween story again…sigh. When I don’t have a deadline book to write, my mind goes in a million different directions! The fae are calling, another full length novel for cougars, the white bear series, and you wouldn’t believe all the covers I’ve purchased for books that I haven’t written yet.
So of course what happens? I’ll be writing stories for new books I don’t have covers for. *sigh* It’s not my fault. I love getting covers that are premade because I know what I’m getting. My problem is that no one makes cougar premades.
Okay, I’m off to proof before my day becomes my granddaughter’s day! Have a super, lovely day.
Red Wolf Christmas is done and turned in and that’s magic! I also had to do a promo blog, and it’s done. So the rest of the evening I worked on a book I got the rights back to and just proofing it before I publish it. Hopefully, I’ll finish proofing it today. That’s for Winning the Highlander’s Heart.
I was also playing around with a story idea for Halloween, a cougar novel.
For now? I have to feed my furry piranhas and then I’m back to the Highlander. I’m making some progress on my shoulder at therapy and at home. Yay! And that’s magic too!
Okay, I’m off to keep on proofing Red Wolf Christmas. While I waited on the edits, I was editing and reformatting Winning the Highlander’s Heart and working on edits to Falling for the Cougar.
The Game of Thrones concert was awesome last night! But instead of hearing the music from that as I went to sleep at midnight, Baby Shark kept playing in my head. lol
Everyone cheered as much for the villains being terminated as they did for the kissing scenes. Love is in the air.
Heat is in the air here. 90’s still, totally ready for it to cool down in another two weeks!
My next 4 days are filled with edits! Which is just where I wanted to be.
Fork massage. Yep! A doctor in Scotland used a butter knife, but my physical therapist only had a fork. It worked!!! Oh, sure, you can buy the really expensive stuff for the office, but why? When you can just use a fork? Or a butter knife?
Sometimes the simpler things in life are worth the world.
How did it help? I was able to move my hand up behind my back a whole hand width. That’s real progress for me. That’s after one 5-minute massage. A patient of my physical therapist asked him if he could massage her achilles tendon that had torn, healed, and scarred and he said he didn’t have the expensive equipment for that. She then explained her doctor in Scotland used a butter knife. He didn’t have the butter knife, but upon exploration found a fork. And it worked! I LOVE new technology. Don’t you?
Warning: I am not a doctor and you should see a doctor if you feel you’ve torn tendons to see what the next course of action is. My doctor said I just had arthritis and wouldn’t ask for an MRI. She just had it x-rayed. This is the SAME as I had when I had the partial rotator cuff tear. And that doctor, different city, had an MRI done. I might have some arthritis in there from the original tear, but I did NOT have ANY pain until I lifted all those 40 pound sacks of mulch over 3 days. And then began to get the frozen shoulder like I had before.
Okay, I finished the marketing materials for the new book so I need to reread them and send them off. I’m going with the kids, minus the baby who is getting a real babysitter, to go see the Game of Thrones tonight, sooooo excited!!!
And I’m really thrilled to get this book finished. Whoops, granddaughter’s here and got distracted.
While I was in physical therapy, the therapist said they’re always learning new things and so instead of just working my left shoulder, which is the injured shoulder, I used both for some of the exercises. It’s like retraining my left arm as my right arm encouraged it, and that helped me to see where I should be with my left shoulder and clued me in that if my right shoulder can do it, so can my left.
He also said that in the case of no pain, no gain, that it is true for physical therapy–I find some stretches are WAY too painful to do. Forget 10 pain. Let’s reach for the sky. He was trying to press a certain way and nooooooo. The same thing with reaching behind my back. I can’t do it. (Sound negative? Let me reword. I can do it, as I keep working at it. I WILL get there.) I’ve been working on it though, trying to get my hand farther up my back. I can do it once and then I’m in agony for several seconds. I can’t hold it, but I’m getting a little higher than I was earlier. So I do that two or three times a day. And I am making progress. But slowly. And that’s okay, because I’m moving forward. I’m determined to do this.
When I was on one machine I’ve used twice now, the last time when I got to about 3 mins of the exercise, the periodic shooting pain stopped instead of continuing for the 10 minutes. It’s not mind over matter to think the pain isn’t there, but to keep working through it until the pain subsides. Who would ever have thought? I think this is working.
Yet, I know from running in the military that I would be able to max the PT test run of two miles, only by using mind over matter. I was never a runner. Yet I could do it. I felt like I was dying when I started out and then I was enjoying it nearer the end. Feeling a runner’s high. Really. Amazingly. It goes to prove that I can really do it if I tell myself that I can and I will. Just keep going. Also, I had to go at my own pace. I was always with a group of men and they took off at a sprint like they were on a race. I’m shorter, I have my own rhythm, I had to do it at my own pace. Once I realized that I couldn’t keep up with the pack, I had no problem with making it.
With my shoulder, I’m even finding I’m able to fall asleep for some hours, when before the pain in my shoulder kept me awake nearly all night long. I still have trouble falling asleep for some time and waking in the middle of the morning and not being able to get back to sleep. But just having some sleep and knowing it’s getting better is helping.
It’s like with anything, really. You can do it.
Instead of you might not be able to.
Fourteen years ago when I went in for laser surgery after tearing my rotator cuff, I remember a man sitting in the waiting area telling me that his doctors told him that after he’d injured his shoulder, he would never have full mobility, but he wasn’t buying it. He KNEW he could get the full use of his arm back because:
Plan: He devised his own physical therapy equipment to work on his shoulder until he’d strengthened the muscles.
Goals: He set small, achievable goals for himself.
Determination: He didn’t listen to the doctors, but mind over matter, he was determined to prove them wrong.
Stick-With-It-Ness: He kept at it until he had the full use of his arm back.
Think: I can. I will. It might take time, but I will overcome. I did too, fourteen years ago.
Just like with deadlines, trying to finish a book, trying to do anything. The pressure is there–I chop it down into small tasks/goals. When I do the easy stuff, I have small successes, and I can tell myself (see the brain working?) that I’m further along. I might not be where I need to be (like right now I’m trying to do the marketing materials for Red Wolf Christmas, the book is done!!–but I was so tired last night, that I didn’t get very far on it. BUT–I did finish 2 of the 4 parts I had to write up. And half of the 3rd part. Granted, the last two are the longest and hardest, BUT I’m getting closer to having it done) –and it will be done.
I was watching kids’ rhymes with my granddaughter yesterday and one of them was about the Itsy Bitsy Spider and it’s a tale of trying to accomplish something, climbing up the waterspout, being washed out by the rain, the sun comes out, the spider is on his journey back up the waterspout again. For the first time ever, I realized what it was trying to teach kids. (Hey, if it took me that long, maybe it’s not working on the kids either). Anyway, it’s all about perseverance. It’s a challenge to succeed.
So when I’m at therapy today, I’ll remind myself of that while I’m working through the torture. And this too shall pass. As long as I use a healthy dose of mind over matter.
I’m determined to get the marketing materials done today and turned in! That’s my last deadline book, I’ll have many more edits, but I have a ton of projects I want to get to before I’m writing a new contract of deadline books. Another cougar novel, a Halloween cougar novella, re-reading 3 books that I got the rights back to, reformat them and get them ready to re-publish. Can I do it all by the end of the year? Time is running out. And I want to write another fae story, another white bear story, another Highland historical romance! I need more time in the day, more days in month…
Michelle Scaff’s Photo–Nothing better than being in the company of two of my favorite, big-time authors!Photo by Lola Faber
There’s nothing more fun for me than seeing photos that fans have taken of my books that they are eager to read.
I finished Red Wolf Christmas this morning!!!!!!!!! I need to write the marketing materials up to send in, and my granddaughter is here. So I’m off to play.
“The best of holiday romances…a howling good time.”—Long and Short Reviews for A Silver Wolf Christmas
Silver Town is howling with Christmas cheer
Gray wolves Meghan MacTire and Sheriff Peter Jorgenson plan to spend the rest of their lives together, and what better time to start forever than Christmas? But they are both harboring dark secrets that are about to surface and threaten their future together. With holiday magic in the air and all Silver Town ready to celebrate, Meghan and Peter have to conquer the past if they’re to have any hope of celebrating this Christmas together.
Silver Town Wolf series: Destiny of the Wolf (Book 1) Wolf Fever (Book 2) Dreaming of the Wolf (Book 3) Silence of the Wolf (Book 4) A Silver Wolf Christmas (Book 5) Alpha Wolf Need Not Apply (Book 6) Between a Wolf and a Hard Place (Book 7) All’s Fair in Love and Wolf (Book 8) Silver Town Wolf: Home for the Holidays (Book 9)
Praise for Terry Spear’s holiday romances: “A holiday treat—romance that sizzles and entertains.”—Fresh Fiction for A Highland Wolf Christmas “Delectable…a ‘Recommended Read’ for Christmas and all year long!”—Romance Junkies for A SEAL Wolf Christmas “Sensuous, heartwarming romance, enhanced by an adorable wolf pup and wintertime fun.”—Library Journal for A Very Jaguar Christmas “An enchanting tale of kismet—werewolf style!”—Fresh Fiction for Dreaming of a White Wolf Christmas
The culmination of all the writing and editing and editing and editing and proofing is a published book a year later. So happy birthday Silver Town! You have a new release! It’s time to celebrate!
But AFTER I finish proofing Red Wolf Christmas. I had my whole day planned out. Proofing this morning. I’m up to Ch 12, have 30 chapters. Then Physical Therapy for my shoulder which is killing me. And then back home to lunch and more proofing. Then I remember OMG, it’s Tuesday. Release Day! What? I don’t have my website updated? *sigh* So I’m trying to get some of this done. I just can’t seem to get my head above water on all this. I need to do my newsletter, we still don’t have our author copies, argh, and I need to make a video trailer. I need to make a lot of video trailers. MAYBE after I get this book done. And the marketing materials are due also.
October 29th is To Tempt the Wolf’s 10th Anniversary Release also. Holy Moly!
Okay, I’m off to get busy! Some Walmarts and Targets also have he book, or you can order it from there.
Hope you have a super wonderful day! Mine is packed full!
