CREATIVE FIRE
- Maggie Shayne
- Jul 27
- 3 min read
The muse has grabbed me by the heart, and won’t let go. I’m writing like crazy, even through all the insanity going on around me.
The insanity being the dog. Roxanne, our ten-year-old English Mastiff. She had emergency eye surgery due to a growing ulcer that made her blind. She’s two weeks out from that, and finally more like herself, only the blind version. She’s getting around better, and maybe starting to be able to see a little bit. The vets at Cornell hope she’ll get back a little vision, and I feel like that’s starting to happen. And we can dispense with the cone of shame this weekend. She’s feeling better and better too, we can tell in her behavior.
For the first two weeks it was a nightmare. She wouldn’t be still, and wanted to crash through the house knocking things over like a blind bull in a china shop. Eventually her meds would force her to sleep, but each time she woke, it was the same routine.
That part seems to have passed. She only gets that way now for one hour before Lance is due home, and it lasts until he gets here.
She’s slightly attached to him.
But I think we’re through the worst of it. She has several follow-up appointments, but we’ve reached the point in her recovery where Lance can work, and I can work, and she’s back in a familiar routine.
I think losing her sight so suddenly threw her all askew, and then wearing the cone, which means every smell and sound comes from the same direction, has to be equally disorienting. She was positively demented for a while, as the anesthesia worked out of her system.
But she is, happily, her old self again. Bossy, demanding, smelly, insecure, Roxy. The prognosis for regaining some of her eyesight in the coming weeks is good.
BOOK NEWS
There’ll be a lot more book news on the 1st of August. Here’s what’s coming then, and then what’s happening right now.
August 1st: I’ll share the exclusive link to pre-order SIGNED, PERSONALIZED copies of ARSENIC AND OLD LADIES in paperback or hardcover editions. Signed books make excellent holiday gifts for booklovers! Especially hardbacks.
August 1st: I’ll release the first excerpt from ARSENIC AND OLD LADIES for you to read. I’ll then release successive scenes as we speed toward release day seven weeks later.
Right Now: Pre-order for the eBook is live at Amazon.
Right Now: Pre-order for the hardcover and paperback, unsigned, is live at multiple retailers. Link in the next line.
Right Now: The Books-2-Read link is live, with all the available retailer links. This is NOT the link for autographed copies. I’ll send you that on August 1st, just a week and a day from now.
Right Now: The book trailer video is running in two versions, one short, one longer, on YouTube and my website.
Short version 32 seconds
Long version 1 minute, 10 seconds
CURRENTLY WRITING
Arsenic and Old Ladies II.
It’s burning through me as powerfully as the first book did, which is a good thing, because it’s releasing in time for Christmas. But in some ways this is not so great, because it’s torture to tear myself away from it to do other work, like blogs and newsletters and housekeeping. Honestly it’s that kind of book. I am possessed.
DADDY ON DUTY: Wakeland Warriors, Book 2.
Houston, we have a title!
This is the second of three books in the trilogy within the McIntyre Men series; the tales of the Wakelands of Big Falls, Oklahoma. The first book was Baby By Christmas by my daughter Jessica Benson and me. I’m finishing a draft of book 2, part first draft, part second, this weekend. Then back to Jess for another draft, then back to me, maybe. We’ll see. It will for sure be done this summer. No release date yet. We’ll get cover art going on this one soon!
So that’s what I’ve been working on this week. That and being a 24/7 seeing-eye-person to a 200-lb dog with a mind of her own. It’s been real.
See you next week when all the fun begins, along with the countdown to ARSENIC AND OLD LADIES.
Enjoy!
Comments