I’m writing a story now to wrap up the Mischief in Mayfair series (look for a new title on the Coming Soon page in a few weeks), and that turns my thoughts to What’s Next? More happily ever afters, of course! But readers like series, and I like series, and so that brings me to…. Mayfair Blossoms.

I’m pondering a group of tales built around Regency women with super powers (and flower names–Ivy, Rose, Iris, and so forth). One might have a photographic memory, another might have a highly sensitive nose, another might have a gift for encryption puzzles… Not supernatural powers, but powers some humans do have to an unusual degree–in a society that wants women to just be pretty and meek and have babies.

The ladies will also have super-fears or flaws too of course. A fear of heights, dogs, public speaking, and so forth. Though let it be said, I plot and my characters laugh. The gents will have their own issues.

I got to thinking about my dad’s super power, which was, in his words, “Asking elegant questions.” By this he did not mean, “Does my wife need a break from the kitchen such that I should take all nine of us out to dinner?” He instead excelled at experimental design, such that if you wanted to look for or rule out a causal link between, say, the flavor compounds in milk, exposure to light, and a certain off flavor in the milk, he could get that tested forty ways to Sunday and have fun doing it.

Mom had a lot of super powers–the ability to make any space tidy and comfy, and the ability to see the best in my dad, just to name a couple. I have some superpowers too, as it happens. I am gifted with a contrarian gene, such that I can play devil’s advocate or yeah-but almost any eternal verity. This is useful for plotting books, as in, “A gentleman never argues with a lady… except for when…” or, “It’s good to be the duke, except for when…”

This business of superpowers pops up frequently in books (St. Just and his horses, Valentine at the keyboard, Guinevere keeping secrets, Maggie being self-sufficient), but I believe it turns up in real life too. My sister Maire almost always defaults to compassion. If you don’t think that’s a superpower, wait until some fine day when you are expecting (and deserve) a lecture or snark, and instead you get understanding. Wow.

My sister Gail, who is also extraordinarily kind, has a talent for seeing fundamental truths. She gets a serious expression, focuses on the middle distance, does a couple deep breaths, and boom–the gravamen of the puzzle is succinctly and accurately summed up.

But if nobody ever names and affirms our superpowers, it’s hard to know they are super. It’s hard to know they are even unique strengths, or defaults that are so powerful, you might need to rein them in from time to time (like my yeah-but gift). So what’s your superpower?

Lord Julian’s first mystery, A Gentleman Fallen on Hard Times, is already available in print, and the e-ARCs are going out this week. If you want an e-ARC and don’t have one by the end of the week, please email me at [email protected], and let me know what kind of device you read on.

Yesterday, it was my happy privilege to assist at the therapeutic riding facility when some younger clients came in for a group lesson. The morning was hot, busy, and a little on the hectic side. These were not seasoned riders, and keeping everybody safe and happy–horses, volunteers, and riders–took some serious coordination and good will.

And a lot of reminders to hydrate, hydrate, hydrate.

I used to spend much of my day around little people, and court days in particular were hectic, with this case being heard while that one was in recess, then the recessed case being re-called, until the judge declared a comfort break or some child had a meltdown right there in the courtroom…

I had about a 30-minute commute at the end of a court day, which helped me change gears, so what happened in court didn’t haunt me all through the night (though some of those cases still haunt me). I also made it a point to get out of my courtroom attire as soon as I walked in the door at home. No putting the kettle on, starting dinner, no nothing, until I’d donned my comfy clothes. In winter, building a fire in the wood stove helped–a simple, comforting, little chore that made the house cozy and got the potpourri steaming.

At the therapeutic riding barn, I’m not an old hand, but I’m not a complete beginner either. I’m a little of both, so the time spent there doesn’t qualify as relaxing (yet). I experience both confidence and anxiety in any given five minutes. Every little thing I do wrong-ish bothers me A LOT, and just being around new people is also an effort (though they seem to be wonderful people).

So it occurred to me that I need to reinstate, or maybe reinvent, those changing-gears rituals. To put in place some punctuation marks that end the barn sessions, and launch the “you’re home now” business. I need some little symbols on the page of my day that signal a scene change.

Yesterday, I did shuck out of my riding clothes, I checked the mail, I walked around the property collecting my flopped over gladiolus for a bouquet, I played Wordle (held out as long as I could), I did a couple jig saw puzzles. I’m not sure that’s the right combination of re-orienting activities, because too much of that list is what I do at the end of a writing session. The barn time is a different sort of challenge.

But it’s early days. Maybe stopping for a cold root beer slushie will make the list, or maybe I’ll stumble onto something else that works even better (hard to imagine). How do you shift gears, or put a challenge away until the next time it comes around on the schedule?

PS Lord Julian’s first three books finally got their covers, and I love them!

Last week’s comments, about how many of us are worried, anxious, and fretful, started me thinking about my mom. She used to say that she got stupid when she was anxious. She was right on the science, apparently (though she was never stupid). When we use up a lot of our mental bandwidth fretting–about money, about health, about housing, about headlines we can’t control–we lose cognitive ability to the tune of as much as 13 IQ points. We don’t problem solve as well when we’re worried. We become more impulsive, and we make more errors.

Which results in… more anxiety.

And this in turn led to me to recall a class I took about twenty-five years ago, “Sustaining the Peacemaker.” I was in a conflict studies master’s program, and my classmates were from South Africa, the Middle East, the Balkans, the Baltimore slums, and so forth. They were coming from and preparing to return to areas gripped by deadly strife.

The idea was to give some thought then–in the midst of the academic oasis–to how to get the trauma, worry, exhaustion, and despair deflector shields up and how to keep them up so the peacemaker’s well being didn’t become yet another casualty of the conflict. We also looked at, “When do you know you’re beginning to stumble?” I learned some strategies for managing worry that I still use today.

I garden with my bare hands, because playing in the dirt makes me happy (I’ve got science on my side). Yard flowers make me really happy (and there’s science behind that too). I live where I can hear the birdies singing (more science). I walk for the recommended thirty minutes a day, usually more. I read good fiction.  I spend time at the horse barn, I consort with cats, I practice mindfulness when the worry gets really bad.

I avoid news and social media until after I’ve written the day’s scenes, and I never EVER let that baloney near me at the beginning or end of the day. Not. Ever. A quick skim in the middle of the day (unless I need to do a PR post at higher traffic hours), and then I bounce off to do jig saw puzzles, get after the weeding, or tend to my “one thing a day for the house.” I regard those activities as clearing the social media/news trash from my emotional buffers. I will be darned if I will let the bottomless greed of the Zuck’s of the world steal my fire.

This is only a partial list of my coping strategies, but I find the very act of looking over all the actions I can take to keep myself safe and sane–from simple stuff, like a gratitude journal or jasmine-scented candle, to not so simple stuff like professional body work–is empowering in itself. A worried author is not at her best, just as a worried, parent, spouse, teacher, neighbor, and so forth is not at her best. For myself, and for my readers, I want to be at my best.

I challenge you each to give some thought to the list of strategies and skills you have for keeping the Undertoads from stealing your fire. My guess is, the lists are long, creative, and powerful.

I am embarking on a new adventure. Might be a new phase of life, might be a blip on the screen. I did the volunteer training for a therapeutic riding program about thirty minutes from my house. I’ve known of this outfit for years–they are coming up on their five decade anniversary–and they are much closer to me than the barn where I was riding.

On of the concepts shared at the training was HALT. The instructor asked us to run through the acronym mentally when we paused waiting for the driveway gate to swing open. “Ask yourself,” she said, “am I Hungry, Angry, Late or Tired–HALT? If so, just be aware of it, and try to let that go before you walk into the barn and bring that energy into the horses’ space.”

Her assumption is that horses have great emotional radar (I concur), but we humans… we might be very aware of everybody else in the room, but we forget to take time to check in with ourselves.

Erm… Yes, well. My own acronym might be HAWT. I am seldom Late, but I am often Worried. Somebody else might prefer HATS–because Sadness dogs them more than a lack of punctuality.

I recall the exercise of “Stop and do a little emotional inventory,” from way, way back when I was regularly picking up my daughter from daycare. I’d turn off the car in daycare Mom’s driveway and think, “Be done with the office. Forget the meeting where you got talked over again and again. Set aside the deadline you missed. Detach from the frustrations of sitting in traffic. Stop revising the introduction to your presentation. You are a mom now, and delighted to see your child.”

I think many of us mentally suit up before we walk into the office, or use our commutes for a subconscious change in gears. I’m reminded of Sue’s comment last week, about taking a moment just to center before switching into work mode…

I wonder how much more peaceful and focused I’d be if I used the HALT exercise every time I prepare to make an entrance–walking back into my house after a day out and about, tackling the grocery store, venturing into the horse barn, showing up for a body work session, preparing to present a writing webinar.

HALT, HAWT, HATS… I will devote some thought to what my short list of baggage emotions would be, because the notion of regularly inventorying and emptying my saddle bags strikes me as a good habit to get into.

What dead weight chronically fills your emotional saddlebags and where in your day could you take a moment to set those burdens aside?

PS Lord Julian’s third mystery, A Gentleman in Challenging Circumstances, is now up for pre-order. Web store release will be Oct. 24, while the retail outlets will turn him loose Dec. 5.

From two different newsletters this week (one of them James Clear’s), I came across a version of this question: What is the single habit you’ve adopted–good or bad–that has had the biggest impact on your life? For one lady, it was checking her bank balance before leaving the house every morning. For another, it was doom-scrolling social media last thing before bed. One habit helped establish order in a chaotic financial situation, the other…

My “biggest impact” habit would be sitting down at the computer to write new pages immediately after tending to pets in the morning. No social media, no email, no jig saw puzzles, just fire up the computer, open up the work in progress, and go. Once I’ve written a scene or two, then I can let the world intrude, but new pages come first.

Neurology supports making creative work a first-thing-in-the-day priority. For about 90 minutes after rising, our brains are still trailing alpha waves, and we’re switching easily between task-oriented thinking and random mental motion. Associations between distant ideas are more likely in that state, and for many writers, this how we find plot twists, great dialogue, and other fun material.

Psychology supports tending to the creative work first, because the day will intrude–is snorting and pawing right outside the mental door the instant we rise–and if as a writer I yield to lower priorities (the day job, house work, exercise, all of which try to feel urgent all the time), then at days’ end, what mattered to me most–new pages–didn’t happen. If I planned some writing time, but let life (or solitaire) lead me astray, I end my day on a downer.

So my decision, years ago, to put new pages first thing in the day–even if it was a go-to-court day, even if the house was a mess, even if I hadn’t slept all that well–turned out to be a smart move. I am not hopelessly rigid about it. A migraine, a series of sleepless nights, company, and so forth can perturb my schedule, but I still try to get in at least five writing mornings a week.

If I tend to that, the housework, socializing, errands, grocery runs, and so forth don’t feel as if they are robbing time from the activity that makes my lovely little life possible.

And as for bad habits… I bought a scale. Let’s leave it at that.

Do a few critical habits help anchor your day? Are there some honored in the breech? Some aspirational habits? Time to start building the ARC list for Lord Julian’s debut mystery, A Gentleman Fallen on Hard Times!

One of my favorite lunch spots is a little cafe across the Potomac River in a nearby West Virginia college town. The fare is reliably good and the outdoor patio is shaded and lovely. Think blooming flowers, a stream running through a stone-lined channel, and hand-hewn stone walkways and steps. (And a nice dessert menu is always a plus.)

I met an old friend there for a meal earlier this week, and not two minutes after she’d sat down, our waiter, a serious, substantial, bearded young fellow, spilled a glass of water all over the table. Fortunately, the table was one of those iron mesh, heavy items of furniture that will do structural damage if it’s ever hurled from a trebuchet. We got past that, and the fellow came back around to take our orders.

He didn’t immediately grasp what “half-sweet iced tea,” was. He forgot to offer straws. He wrote out on his little pad–word for word–each item we ordered. This guy was determined to bring to the job every iota of focus and dedication he possessed.

I found him delightful. He was trying so hard, and getting the challenges of a demanding and largely thankless job mostly right. (And yes, I tipped accordingly.)

My friend and I enjoyed our meal, solved the problems of the universe, splurged on ice cream for dessert, and generally had a good chin wag. Our waiter stood patiently by the table waiting to settle up, immediately after passing us the check. Right by the table, eyes front, as if he expected to be called upon to recite Browning’s Incident of the French Camp from memory.

Not long before we left, a couple of our waiter’s friends took a table a few yards across the patio from us. How did we divine that these were his friends? Because when he beheld the occupants of that table, he leaped–went spontaneously airborne–from the top of a flight of stone steps to land flat-footed next to their table. A round of manly-man greetings ensued, as well as some obligatory bro-bro about beer, food, and the upcoming weekend.

That leap was gorgeous, not in a balletic sense (rather the opposite), but for the joie de vivre, spontaneity, and sheer glee it conveyed. I wanted to clap, I wanted to tell him to do it again, I wanted to… well, I’m blogging about it, because that one act of unselfconscious saltation was so wonderful to behold. A small thing, maybe, but for that otherwise serious young man to be so exuberantly glad to see his friends and to show it was enormously human.

Have you encountered spontaneous expressions of joy in your travels? Have you ever felt the inclination to express any? I’ll add three commenters to my Lady Violet Pays a Call ARC list (even though the title is already on sale in the web store).

I did not get much done this week.  Hats off to anybody who did.

I rode my horse a couple times (slowly). I finished a draft of a Christmas novella, and I impressed my cats with my profound (and imaginary) wisdom as a constitutional scholar, and with my facility for fricative foul language (and alliteration).

Other than that… low rpms. And I realize that part of what took so much wind from my sails is that I have not bounced back from the pandemic, still, yet, some more. Skills I took for granted a few years ago faded during The Big Stay Home. One of those skills is ignoring the news, and just getting on with the next task. Oh, well.

I also once upon a time excelled at road-tripping. I’ve probably crossed the USA twenty times, and driven all the major east-west routes. Now, I’m out of the habit of driving long distances. To compound my new-found timidity, my previous road trips were mostly made in a nice, big (gas guzzling) Tundra pickup.

I loved my Tundra. I felt SAFE in my Tundra, and I had great visibility in my Tundra. Who needs sat-nav when you have a Tundra? Nah me!

Road-tripping in my twelve-year old Prius is admittedly a different experience than it was in the dear old (now morally untenable) Tundra. But more than that, I’m simply out of practice dealing with four-lane traffic, high speed merges, and unfamiliar terrain. My road warrior skills, which were formidable, have atrophied.

I want those skills back. I derived too much benefit from cross-country romps to allow that activity to slip from my list of recreations. I learned history, I developed story ideas, I enjoyed the scenery. I got a real break from the routine without getting into an airplane.

So this week, I took a little step toward rebuilding my long haul skills. I drove over to suburban Philly to see some family visiting in that area. I did this drive in baby steps. By that I mean, I stuck to scenic byways, better known as paved farm lanes. I did a carefully constructed (using paper maps, thank you very much) lily-pad route, county by county, that avoided I-95, and I drove only in daylight.

I made three wrong turns, but recovering from wrong turns is one of the skills a road warrior must have, especially if she thinks sat-nav is for sissies (or people who can stand that thing yammering at them while they are trying to drive).

And from this baby step, I take consolation. If I can manage to putter for hours along a cow path and only make a few wrong turns, then some fine day I might once again go barreling across Western Kansas with the Duke of My Next Story riding beside me. That is a cheering thought.

Have you ever had to reclaim a lapsed skill? How did you go about it? Are there any you’d like to brush up now?

I have spent the past week at the Romance Writers of America annual conference, which is like no other gathering I’ve experienced. Complete strangers hug me, and for the most part–at RWA–I’m OK with that. What follows the hug is usually something along the lines of, “I love your books, especially the one about the guy with the dogs, and the Shakespeare lady, and there was a nervous pug…”

Will’s True Wish, The Soldier, Darius… my books have made friends for me, and thus those hugs are not really from strangers.

In the past few years at RWA, the concept of imposter syndrome has popped up in many discussions, and even on the programming. What is it? What to do about it? Is it a uniquely female affliction and if so, why? To quote the Harvard Business Review: “Imposter syndrome can be defined as a collection of feelings of inadequacy that persist despite evident success. ‘Imposters‘ suffer from chronic self-doubt and a sense of intellectual fraudulence that override any feelings of success or external proof of their competence.”

Oddly enough, I have been reading lately about expertise. What is it? Who has it? What does it take to become an expert? Malcolm Gladwell and others have popularized the notion that expertise is not a function of innate talent. Experts are made not born, and generally, they are made by enormous amounts of practice, with 10,000 hours being the figure most often cited.

But I can sit in a practice room and saw away on my violin for 10,000 hours, and still not become very accomplished. To develop expert status, I need two other resources. In addition to assiduous practice, I need knowledgeable, devoted teachers. I can make progress by self-teaching, but those experienced instructors will propel me toward true expertise. The final leg of an expert’s stool is… emotional support.

To achieve the status of master, along the way, we need not only teachers guiding our hard work, but the support of those who have faith in us and our ability. We need a cheering section, or we’re likely to give up, doubt, backslide, and drift away. RWA is one place where authors who mostly toil at their craft in solitude can find both competent instruction and enthusiastic support. Of the two, the enthusiastic support is the more precious.

I suspect that is part of the origin of imposter syndrome: Somebody has worked very hard, for a very long time, while receiving good instruction. They lacked support, however, and thus when success arrives, nobody is saying, “I knew you could do it! I’m so proud of you! The great day has finally come and your hard work is getting the appreciation it deserves!”

So maybe it’s not imposter syndrome at all. Maybe it’s “If I wasn’t worth supporting along the way, maybe I don’t deserve success now” syndrome. Perhaps we should call it sabotage syndrome: When somebody working very hard toward a goal must do so without needed support from friends, community, and loved ones, and the success achieved is emotionally sabotaged by those who withheld needed emotional support. Just a theory.

Is there an expert-in-progress you’ve supported? Did you get the support you deserved as you struggled to develop competence? To one commenter, I’ll send a signed ARC of My Own and Only Duke. (And no, Quinn Wentworth does not suffer from imposter syndrome.)

Or happy whatever-holiday-you’re-inclined-to-celebrate this time of year.

We’ll soon see a lot of posts and memes about New Year’s Resolutions, but I tend not to get too focused on those. If a goal is worth setting and pursuing, it’s worth setting and pursuing on March 7, June 23, or October 6, not only January 1.

I do though, tend to get organized in December for the coming year. What do I want to write, when is it reasonable to plan on publishing it? What’s going on with my big, busy website, and is it meeting the needs of the people who visit it? How am I doing for munny and where does that leave long term plans (like that MFA in Scotland)? The money part never quite seems to behave, and life goes on anyway. 

I’m excited about next year, which is a good feeling. In 2015, I spent less time in the courtroom, a direction I want to build on. Twenty-two years of child welfare is a LOT of not-always-happily ever afters. I also collaborated with some authors this past year whose work I really enjoy, and next year I’ll do more of that too (waves to Susanna Ives, Emily Greenwood, and Mary Balogh).

I published two trilogies in 2015–the Sweetest Kisses and the Jaded Gentlemen–and the True Gentlemen will wrap up in February with Will’s True Wish. Time for another Regency series, methinks! The Windham cousins are obliging, but I’m not even done with the first manuscript yet, so don’t look for that series to start until late spring or summer. (And yes, Westhaven, St. Just and Valentine are sticking their oars in, just like they always accuse You Know Who of doing.) 

I’m also very excited about the Scotland With Grace trip coming up in September. I love Scotland, and I delight in connections with my readers and writin’ buddies. To be able to bring those joys together has me counting the days (251). If you’re interesting in joining the group (we’ll be fewer than twenty people, total) please drop me a line and I’ll send you specifics.

So I’m leaving 2015 behind with a lot of satisfaction in jobs happily done, and a lot of hope for a peaceful, busy, gratifying 2016 that mixes both new adventures and familiar joys. I like that!    

What about you? What sort of marks do you give your 2015, and what’s on the calendar for next year–or what would you like to put on the schedule for 2016? 

To one commenter, I’ll send a $100 Amex gift card. Wish I could send one to all of my blogging buddies, but most of you will have to make do with my thanks for your continued interest in these maunderings, and for your many thoughtful comments through the year. 

Hear ye! I’m happy to report that production has started on audio versions of my Windham novellas, beginning with The Courtship, A Duke and His Duchess, and Morgan and Archer. I’m planning on having the audio download files for sale on this site starting Valentine’s Day 2014.

If there’s another title you’d dearly like to hear on audio (I’m leaning toward Darius), please let me know (besides the Scottish Victorians, which Tantor is doing a terrific job with).

Christmas Thoughts: If there’s a romance reader on your list this year, and you’d like to put a signed Grace Burrowes novel under their tree, email me. I’m happy to send out signed bookplates and bookmarks, and I have LOTS, so don’t be shy!