I’ve posted occasionally about my insomnia. General pattern is three hours sleep. Then I move to the front room on the very comfy love seat with my very comfy throw and tune the TV low. If I’m not back to sleep in fifteen minutes, it isn’t going to happen. Then it’s brew a mug of chamomile tea and come up to the computer. A couple of games of solitaire and I switch over to Twitter/X. The process takes about an hour and then usually I can get back to sleep for another three hours. I rarely get more than six.

The “bad mornings” are when it can take up to two hours to get back to sleep and this seems to be one of them. Not sure why; nothing unusual going on. Perhaps it’s the coming holidays of juggling commitments, kids visit, etc.,. Have multiple tasks to take care of in prep although everything is on track. My to-do list is lengthy as always and a mix of fun items and somewhat bothersome tasks. Again, nothing unusual about that. More likely it’s the annoyance that I don’t have the release date yet for my book and I had truly wanted it out by mid-November. The new publisher I’m trying has been pretty good to work with and if their alleged marketing package is good, that will make up for the annoyance. On the other hand, since I haven’t dealt with them before, this is very much a wait-and-see situation.

Ah well, I’ve almost finished the tea and will head back downstairs to see what happens.

Okay, as I mentioned in other posts, I am using a new publisher for Shades of Remorse. I had hoped to have it out next week and that will not happen. Possibly mid-Dec, but could be as late as right before Christmas. That and one other thing with them has been disappointing although the individuals I’ve dealt with have been pleasant. The primary reason I went with them is because of a marketing package that if done as they say is better than what I’ve had with previous publishers. We’ll see how it actually plays out.

A bit more about “Remorse” first. The regular recurring characters are part of the story and one I keep in a minor role has popped up again. I introduce two new characters who could become recurring, and of course created a number of characters specific to the book. This will be Bev Henderson’s first cold case when a forty-year old skeleton is pulled from the water. There is essentially no forensics evidence and more than one suspect once the victim is identified. The wife, who explained she thought he had simply deserted her, is logically a suspect and she is part of the subplot as well. The theme of “remorse” is played out in various ways as the wife lives in a small complex with three other older women, all of whom have events in their lives they regret. Added to the mix is the niece of the woman who owns the complex. She has come from New Orleans, fleeing a dangerous situation.

Regular crime doesn’t slow down and ironically, connections to the dead man emerge in those cases providing thin threads to follow. As I also mentioned, this book has taken me longer to shape and write because I use three Points of View instead of my usual two. Making the story flow properly was a challenge and I did slightly modify the ending from my original plan. I will keep you posted as we get closer to publication.

As happens in these situations, I had hoped to have a firm release date for Shades of Remorse by now. The cover is not in a format I can show yet and yes, when you see it late and say, “My, that’s kind of creepy!”, I agree. I think I mentioned this is a previous post. Anyway, when I received the interior proof from the publisher, I realized they had converted all the text into regular text instead of leaving certain passages in italics. I use those to designate different things. I thought it was odd to have happened and turns out, there was a glitch in their software and now I have to wait for the next version to come in. I did go ahead and correct the 44 errors I made. While that may seem like a lot, there are 264 pages. Most were small as usual – such as a “him” instead of a “his”. In one case, however, I did inadvertently change someone’s name partway through a chapter which accounted for 8 of the errors.

Okay, procedure-wise, after I receive the new proof, I turn it and then generally, it will be two weeks after when the book is released. In the meantime, I will share with you, my followers, the news that the book has been highlighted in USA Today as, “Mystery Author and Military Pioneer Charlie Hudson’s Journey to Storytelling and Uplifting Women”. Needless to say, I was surprised. When I was approached at trying to make this happen, I was highly doubtful. Here’s the link: https://bit.ly/3NRDwzs

The reason I told the firm to go ahead with publishing this before the book is released is to perhaps get people interested in checking out the earlier books in the series. As a reader, if I am interested in a book and realize it is later in a series, I try to go back to the first one and certainly at least the second.

We don’t decorate  much for Halloween usually, but this year has been basically nothing. Things have been incredibly jammed with extra tasks and I haven’t even stopped to get bags of candy. I was going to yesterday, but I’d already spent more time out than intended with managing another previously unplanned errand. Now, in all fairness, had I gone directly to this one place between my errand and a luncheon, I might have had the required time. Anyway, Hubby is supposed to do grocery shopping today and although he doesn’t usually buy the Halloween candy, he might this time. For the past two years we haven’t had as many trick-or-treaters come by, but of course I figure if we cut back, this will be the year they resume. It is one of those conundrums. The standing joke about leftover Halloween candy is all fine and good, except everyone tends to have it and so if you do manage to eat it over the weeks after, there is often little time before you are now into the holidays and as soon as you get through that, it’s Girl Scout cookie time again. We do have all these odd little situations that crop up, don’t we? That is the collective we because I know we are not the only ones.

Moving on to other things – this weekend, once again, we have a lengthy commitment Saturday evening night and so naturally, Saturday afternoon is when I am now going to have to be at the museum due to another unexpected change. I keep thinking I will get a little bit of a break and perhaps it will happen. Actually, I think we are not going anywhere for Thanksgiving and while that doesn’t mean we won’t be hosting something, it does mean we won’t be traveling.

Okay, the gap since last posting is because I have been crashing on the first-ever fundraiser event we put on for the Homestead Town Hall Museum. I’m sure I posted previously that this event was supposed to have been prior to our Viking cruise and the major HCA event of Art and Artisan show was also supposed to have been before the cruise. My intent was to have these two things which take a huge effort would be done so I wouldn’t have them facing me upon return. Due to other factors, each had to be re-scheduled. That resulted in us getting back with only 11 days before the HCA event and the museum event following 19 days after that. Then of course, there were all the usual things to take care of. In other words, even for me, the convergence of tasks has been pretty close to exhausting. On the other hand, there were people helping and that did make a big difference. The “downside” was neither event was as successful as we had expected. Lots of work for a minimal return. As usual in these situations, there is no clear-cut was to determine to “why”, which of course gives way to speculation. Those “what-if’s” and “maybe we should haves” are tricky. Anyway, there is one more set of tasks I must deal with over the next week and then perhaps I’ll be on the usual busy, yet manageable scale.

On the family side, kids are booked with flights for the post-Christmas trip and for the next few years, their schedule allows us to fly them home Jan 2d instead of the 1st. That makes life simpler and we can enjoy a leisure day of recovery for New Year’s Day. Mother Nature wasn’t very kind last year with unseasonably cold weather for the first part of their stay. Hopefully, we’ll be normal this time.

I have mentioned the two major events I am responsible for were both supposed to be held and over with before we went on our September trip. Both had to be delayed for various reasons and while a great deal was done for the Sept 28th one, by some people while I was gone, that can’t be said for the October one. However, I hadn’t really expected that to happen; it just would have been nice. Anyway, last Saturday’s event is over and was it was disappointing in one way, but it was okay and I certainly appreciated what everyone did. I immediately had to go full throttle this week in handling multiple things for the upcoming Oct 17th event and while next week might be a little better, it will still be busy.

In the midst of this, I expect to receive the interior proof for Shades of Remorse next week. That is the last major step prior to publication. It is the page set-up and when I make any final corrections. I was careful with my final edit so there shouldn’t be many mistakes. This is a new publisher though and I don’t know how proficient they are. They did do a nice job on the cover. I thought it was too creepy, but Hubby liked it so I let it go ahead. Interestingly, I originally hadn’t planned as many deaths in this one, and as happens, there were changes in order to make the plot work logically. On the other hand, only one was a good guy and two were not completely bad guys. The rest were definitely dangerous and bad. If the schedule works out, the book will be available the end of the month or early next month.