As I mentioned in a FB post yesterday, four weeks from yesterday is Christmas. I suppose I need to speed up preparations, huh? I’ll get right on that. Actually, as most of you are reading this first thing, I’m at Walmart for grociers but also scouting for stocking stuffers and possible gifts–or I would if people had…you know…given me their wish lists.

So, last week. It went by fast. I made some serious progress on CROSSFIRE. Until Friday. On Friday, my inner nitpicker started pounding on the door. And shouting. *sigh* See, I’m basically anal-retentive when it comes to factuality (is that even a word?) in my writing. I research. A lot. If I don’t know about a subject. Why? Because there are always readers out there who do know that subject. If they’re like me, a writer getting the facts wrong is as irritating as a sweetgum ball stuck in your fuzzy houseshoes. And yes, I’ve dinged writers and stopped reading them because they got things so blatantly wrong. Yeah, yeah. Again, y’all are asking yourselves “why?” Well, this story is going a certain way. And I started it without doing my research. Who knew Ukraine was basically flat? The fact they grow so much grain should have been my first clue. D’uh. 🤦🏼‍♀️ But I have mountains in the book. And hills. Oh, there are mountains, the Carpathians. These are famously spooky mountaints. But they are on the far opposite corner of were the actual battles are taking place. Because there are encounters with enemy soldiers. And then I picked a neighboring country to lend aid to the team that isn’t actually part of an alliance that would help them with logistics. That’s when Miz Nitpicky broke my brain on Friday.

Skip to now. I spent the weekend researching–and apologizing in the author notes to be included in the back matter of the book when it publishes. I’ve switched the aiding country–at least in my head an dnotes but now I have to go back and fix all the instances in the books. I’ve added a bit of transportation instead of the team walking so far. And they can still end up in the Carpathians but because the Ukrainian armed forces held and beat back the Russions, that’s the part I’m having to apologive for because I let the Russians incursion get farther in-country. Literary license. Sorry. Anyway, I’m backtracking a bit this week, cleaning things up and then moving forward full spead ahead because Miz Nitpicker will be locked in the cellar where I can’t hear her.

In other news, I finished listening to a couple of books and started on my relisten of Darynda Jones’s Sunshine Vicram series. Book 3 releases tomorrow so I am indulging my craving for Darynda’s brand of zany characters and suspense. A BAD DAY FOR SUNSHINE makes me smile a lot, occasionally laugh, and generally just enjoy the heck out of the story, writing, and writer’s voice. 

Saturday was First Saturday which means siren test and lunch at our fave Mexican restaurant with the family. This fall it included soccer, which occasionally precluded siren test because…watching Stormy play is more important. He’s started winter in-door soccer now. It happens on the weekends at night. The facility is awesome but with the plexiglass walls around the fields, it’s a little hard to see what happens at the far end of the field from where you might be sitting, plus the kids are playing on a bigger field. They were pooped by the time the games was over. Part of the team had also done a 1-mile “Jungle Bell” fun run on Saturday morning. I don’t know about Stormy, but I’m pretty sure his mom (who also did the mile) slept hard Saturday night. 

I don’t have much else to report. This week is more writing, figuring out Christmas stuff. Oh! I did switch the Thangsgiving door wreath out for the Christmas wreath. I’ll put out the porch lights at some point when it warms up a little. And that’s it for me. Anything new or interesting in your life?