Monday January 27, 2025

Rainbow!

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. Occasionally, I will also publish some of my shorter fiction in this newsletter to read for free.

Daily Diary, Day 1608:

I had the usual busy morning yesterday, taking care of business. Did my more extensive weekend cleaning—but in several chunks—and ordered and then later put away groceries away (lots of standing). Also did a 15-minute walk in between rain showers. Yes, it rained yesterday morning, again briefly before bed, then sometime during the night. Altogether a whole .25 inches (pitiful amount but welcome.)

During the afternoon, I had a very good session going through the newspapers, which prompted some ideas about a secondary plot. I hope I have enough material gathered at this point to start to lay out the plot this week.

This morning I did yoga, cleaning (including the bathrooms) so already been on my feet for 45 minutes, so probably will only do one walk again because both feet are hurting.

Rio the border collie then came, and Leeza was beside herself with excitement (because she gets treats from Rio’s owner) and Rio was equally excited because Jim plays throw the rubber bone for her to catch mid-air for an hour. They used to actually play with each other but evidently at their advanced age of around 6 years they feel they are too mature for that.

Meanwhile, the rest of the day I should be able to get back to work on book.

This morning in posts I read, I found these two quotes that really resonated with me.

The first reminds me to be patient.

If there is one thing I intend to remember this year, which I largely failed to last year, it is this: things take as long as they take, for better or worse. The best thing I can do toward getting anything at all meaningful accomplished is taking more time than I think is necessary to just sit and do what looks like nothing. An Irritable Métis Chris La Tray

This following one is a good reminder of why I write stories that I intend to be generally entertaining and hopeful, despite all that is going on in the world that distresses me.

Our job, as writers, is to give the people responding to a crisis—any crisis—that escape which will give them the right kind of rest. It might enable them to get an extra hour of sleep at night. It might help them relax just enough to calm down and then move forward.
What we do is extremely valuable.
We should not dismiss it as “bread and circuses,” something to be avoided in a crisis.
We should embrace it as the necessity that it is.
That’ll enable us to continue to write and it’ll allow us to make time for our own rest through whatever crises we experience in our lives.
Storytellers are essential.
So tell your stories, no matter what is going on in the world.
And read the kinds of stories you love, without guilt or judgement.
It’s a great way to take care of yourself and the world around you. Because we all need that little moment of rest. —“How Entertainment Fits Into Our Lives ,” copyright © 2025 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch.

Finally, leaving you with a photo of a rainbow that appeared this morning, followed by what the sky looked like only about 30 minutes later.

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