Wednesday, January 15, 2025

New diagnosis! And tentative title!

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 1596:

Another sunny, slightly breezy day yesterday, and it looks like we might have more of the same today. While still Red Flag warnings to the east of here and up in LA, so far hasn’t materialized or caused new major fire outbreaks. We had a few minor brush fires nearby-by here yesterday, but easily contained, but everyone will rest easier when we have a break from the Santa Anas, and even better if it finally rains. But it know it will be a very long time before people in LA directly and indirectly affected by the fires will feel normal again.

I actually did some cleaning yesterday…the dog hair on the couch cover and the floor got to me. But did it in little chunks. I didn’t take any advil yesterday, and woke up to pretty much every spot aching a bit. But after I took some advil, every spot of pain calmed down considerably. This fit with what my primary care doctor said this morning (I had a 7:30 AM appointment!!!). Her diagnosis was probably not an infection (since 10 days on antibiotic should have resolved swelling), but simple bursitis. For that, the treatment is to continue icing, do full dose of advil daily, and get a compression sleeve, and of course…time. I am certainly hoping being off the anti-biotic will calm down the tendonitis and permit me to start walking again!

I have done yoga today, will do very minor cleaning, but mostly what I will do is continue to flesh out the characters for the novel I am working on, which I have now decided to tentatively entitle, Etched in Blood.

This title reflects the fact that this novel is going to explore women who made their living as artists in this period, and one of the ways they did so was to use the skills of engraving and etching to create prints and illustrations for newspapers, magazines, handbills, posters, etc. I had already created a minor character that fits that description, Nellie Granger, in Deadly Proof, a female illustrator who later in showed up in Lethal Remedies. She was modeled on several real women who owned design and engraving shops in San Francisco during this period. So now what I am doing is expanding on that character, her family, friends, and the co-owner of the shop she owns.

Such fun!

In lieu of photos from walks, I decided to give you some more photos of the humming bird wind chime one of my grandsons gave me. Here are the birds glinting in the sun and at night when the solar batteries run small LED’s in each bird, which randomly change colors.

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