Friday, January 3, 2025

Short Stuff!

Welcome, I’m Mary Louisa Locke, the author of the USA Today best-selling Victorian San Francisco Mystery series and the Caelestis Science Fiction series. In this daily newsletter, I reflect on my life as an indie author trying to age gracefully, including my struggles to maintain a balanced life, what I listen to, read, and watch for entertainment, and occasional bits of information I’ve gleaned from doing the research for my novels.

In addition, now and again I will provide some of my fiction to read, for free, on this newsletter. Everything is available to anyone who subscribes, but I am always pleased when someone shows their appreciation for the newsletter by upgrading to paid.

Daily Diary, Day 1584:

Yesterday was beautiful sunny day, got up to 73 degrees, although rapidly lost heat after noon. As expected, I did a noon zoom meeting and an after-meeting phone call. Afterwards, I called about scheduling to have the splint for my right hand redone (it never worked but hard to get appointment during holidays) and I also called about yearly lab tests that need to be scheduled. I iced the elbow several times, and took my 3 walks, which is my plan for today as well.

So far this morning, I have had my yoga class, ordered groceries, did my first walk, finished a zoom call, and now I am waiting for the groceries to be delivered. I will probably have a phone call in the afternoon, but I should be able to make some progress on the book I am reading for research…although lots of skimming. More than I will probably ever want to know about the machines used for various forms of engraving, but every once in awhile a little fact will jump out that I might be able to use.

We have been watching Monk on Netflix, and it is going away in two weeks, so we shifted to season 8-the last season-skipping the last half of season 7 to see if they resolve the mystery of who killed Monk’s wife. We have been very impressed how well the show held up over all the seasons. We are also watching (rewatching) Smiley’s People, after having rewatched Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, both mini-series of the LeCarre books with Alec Guinness. Unfortunately, neither are on any streaming channel in the US, but we enjoy them so much we have them on DVDs. Last night we watched the first episode of what I believe is going to be the last season of Vera. I will definitely be sad to see this series end.

This morning, I actually found one brave rose bud to photograph!

If you enjoy my daily posts and would like to subscribe for free or become a patron (where you will get the pleasure of giving me the resources to spend more time writing and less time marketing) click the little button below. In addition, please do click on the heart so I know you’ve been to visit and/or share with your friends, and I always welcome comments! Thanks!