Saturday, March 22, 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. Occasionally, I will also publish some of my shorter fiction in this newsletter to read for free.

Daily Diary, Day 1662:

I did get in my two walks yesterday, plus 10 minutes on the recumbent bike, and I am pleased that my heart rate didn’t zoom up quite so high when I pedaled quickly, so getting some stamina. I will stick at this low level of difficulty for at least another week, before seeing if I can crank it up one notch. Its another lovely sunny day, but I won’t try to walk until before lunch because I just finished over an hour cleaning the upstairs.

I am listening to one of the Kate Shugak Alaska mysteries by Dana Stabenow. It is the 12^th in the series, I recently listened to the 11^th and enjoyed it so much I decided to get this one with one of my free credits on Libro.fm. Stabnow was one of those favorite authors whose books I bought in hardback every year when a new one came out, but then gave away when I started reading on Kindle, so I am sure I’d already read it. But, so long ago I don’ remember the plot. Listening to audiobooks certainly motivates me to clean because it is only during cleaning and making my daily salad that I usually listen to fiction for pleasure. Walking is for podcasts and sometimes music.

I have a zoom meeting in a few minutes, then a little work, then my walk, and the morning will be done. Nothing but plotting on for the afternoon (and second walk), so I really might be close to having figured out all the plot twists. I spent much of yesterday figuring out what days the scenes would fall on, since the story is set in the week between St. Patrick’s Day and Easter, I wanted to be able to reference this accurately (smile.)

Here is another sign of spring, in full bloom.

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