Romantic suspense author Min Edwards writes The Stone
Bay series, The High Tide Suspense series, and the upcoming Wolf Moon series.
She writes from the office of her 190-year-old farmhouse on the far reaches of
the upper Maine coast. And yes, it is very beautiful in all seasons. Learn more
about Min and her books at her website.
The Winter Blues?
How
has winter been treating you this year? Good, bad, same as always?
Lois
asked me to write about something in my life/personality that was a bad/good
thing. Or something in one of my characters that could be looked on as a
negative or positive trait.
Well,
winter is my nemesis actually. When I lived in central Texas, it wasn’t such a
problem… emotionally or physically. I could go outside and take a walk in the
sun. I could drive to fabulous restaurants in Austin. I could help keep the
city weird. (That’s Austin’s credo… Keep Austin Weird.)
However,
since I moved to Maine several years ago, winter is like one big black cloud. Oh
yes, it’s beautiful, all those snow-dusted trees, the gorgeous sparkling ocean,
the herd of wild turkeys which often visits my yard. But physically my body
goes into hibernation mode. It tries to shut down on me unless I’m very
diligent. I miss the turkeys and the
ocean. The need for sleep is not in itself a bad thing, what with the world so
chaotic and technology on the brink of “what-in-the-world-were-you-thinking?”
But
I’m a writer.
Yes,
shutting down for 4-6 months for me is not an option. I need to keep my
creative juices flowing, but it seems that this year I’ve added a new, unwanted
cog to the writing machine/flow… I can’t see!
Yup.
Almost blind. My magnifying glass and my 3.5x reading glasses have become my
constant companions. My car is sitting in a snowdrift because I can’t see to
drive. I’m going to have to set my beloved Kindle aside and open up my Amazon
Audible account again… and I hate to listen to books. I love words appearing
before me, letting my own voices in my head tell me stories. I don’t want a sinister
voice leaking from a speaker. It creeps me out.
And
by the end of the month I’m going to have to visit the Dictate app on Word 10.
Something else to learn… and it’s winter… my body (and that includes my mind)
has shut down. So I’m in a funk.
But
it’s a funk I can recover from come April… with just a little effort. I’ve done
this for the past several years. The terrible cold of winter will flee, the
snow and ice will melt. I can walk my poor old dog down our beach road (it will
be muddy but I have waterproof shoes). And by this spring I’ll be getting ‘big
girl’ treatments for my eyes (in the winter even when I could see, I refused to drive 100 miles to see my ophthalmologist).
So
I’m optimistic. I try to endow my heroines with this trait as well. After all,
winter can’t go on forever… although last year I opened my backdoor to be
greeted by a white birthday… in late April! But that won’t happen this year…
probably… and I’ll spend all summer and fall writing like a mad woman because
by December winter will come again… and I’ll sleep, perchance to dream, and
hopefully remember enough of those dreams to use that pesky Dictate app, if I
must, to get some winter writing done.
Precious Stone
A High Tide Suspense, Book 4
Russian
men come calling early one morning, and baker Collee McCullough hasn’t a clue
what they want. The search for the answer takes her from Stone Bay, Maine to
southern France and finally to Scotland—to an estate she had no idea she owned
and to an objet d’art beyond
imagining.
2 comments:
Thanks for having me on today, Anastasia. Even though this guest blog feels a little SAD, Seasonal Affective Disorder, today I'm energized and clear-minded. The sky is blue, the temperature is easing up to 32 degrees, and I'm going to take my dog for a walk this afternoon! Yay me!!!
Just keep telling yourself spring is around the corner, Min.
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