Burn Pile List #3... Emotional Hoovering

Tool #3 to add to my collection of crap not useful to a writer is the curse of unintentional emotional hoovering.

No, don’t toss your Dyson out into the yard just yet.

And, please, don’t picture me with an actual vacuum cleaner attached to my head.

This emotional hoovering, like most things I talk about, is only a metaphor/allusion/a-pretend-to-understand-my-madness bit… Yes, another one of those. So sorry.

Please, let me explain before you storm toward the exits.

When big “breaking news” occurs, I have a tendency to suck up every single emotion every single person in the horrible event is feeling.

Just call me the Suckerfish of Empathy. And yes It’s as ugly as it sounds.

Even worse for my selfish little existence, however, is the way in which my hoovering of grief, fear, panic and helplessness drains the life right out of my writing (i.e. it’s hard to concentrate on fictional melodrama when real life sh*t is going on right in front of you.)

For instance, yesterday, it took nearly seven hours of on again, off again work to get 200 words written on the Six Brothers project. That’s just crap, ok?

So, to the Burn Pile List all unintentional emotional hoovering goes.

May it burn bright.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Post Note: Yesterday I learned that my 17^th novel Quiver will be released on Thursday, January 15! A bit of good news on an otherwise bleak day.

The Promise & the Blanket Apology

Balloons are allowed.

I’ve got some great news to share this morning.

I was notified yesterday that my 16^th novel, Pound, will be released on Friday, August 22!

*spins dog around and peppers her top knot with kisses*

Admittedly, I doubt this news will garner a similar reaction from you good folk, but I do hope it will be noted and shared appropriately (for example: flyers on car windows, notes on bathroom walls and anonymous robo-calls to everyone on your street are all acceptable, but I’d shy away from tagging city buses).

However, no worries should be had over this blog suddenly becoming just a promotional platform for Pound.

Nope.

I’m restraining my eagerness for grabbing writing immortality, letting all the literary glories (said with a straight face, darn it) of Book Two of “The Lion and the Steed” Series to stand for itself.

Starting tomorrow, a single quote from Pound will appear at the top of this daily blog. Other than that I will leave all salesmanship to the professionals.

However, my obsessive, often humorous, often pitiful worry about the success of said-novel will remain fair game. This is after all, a full disclosure blog on my writing process. And for me, that writing process includes a whole lot of Frank (my specter of imminent failure) and other unnamed but equally frightening self-doubts.

So, please view today’s post as both a promise and a blanket apology for the rapidly approaching madness.

Have a great Tuesday, my friends... and don’t forget to spell my name right on those yard signs.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe

Writhing in the Sun Garden

Salvia, Gaura, and Agastache.

“Strangely unbalanced without the touch, Brevyn grabbed the doctor’s hand and placed it flat against his heart. Only then did he open his eyes.

There was a knot, a wretched tangle, of something unspeakable in his throat that Brevyn desperately wanted to cough out. It was stuck, though, wedged firmly between “I can’t” and “I can.”” (Writhe, page 155)

A good Saturday morning to you all!

I must confess that it is somewhat weird finally having a release date for my 15^th novel (this Tuesday, May 27, by the way *grins*).

For so long I’ve been bellyaching about it sitting in limbo somewhere out there in publishing-house-land that promoting a book I wrote so many months ago is a little strange. It’s like raving about the Thanksgiving Dinner you fixed in November while sitting amongst the daisies in June. It’s a bit freaky and I feel like everybody is thinking me rather odd.

Oh, well. I’ve been thought of far worse.

Sprinkled in and about today’s writing will be a spot or two of gardening.

A few days ago I bought three new beauties to put in my freshly established sun garden. From left to right in the picture above, the lovelies are… Salvia, Gaura and Agastache. I hope to get these settled in their new home today.

Everyone, please have a spectacular Saturday!

Until tonight…

Chloe

BREAKING NEWS... from, well, me

I know you're chilling this weekend but...

Creeping in a little late this Friday evening but I come carrying big news.

I, Chloe Stowe, mad authoress extraordinaire, received word from Ravenous Romance this afternoon that my 15^th novel Writhe will be released this Tuesday, May 27!!!!

Let’s all take a moment to enjoy each and every one of the above exclamation points. They have been a very long time in coming.

Tomorrow, I will rev back up the promotional motors on Writhe and tease a little excerpt from the last six chapters each day.

*the world cheers*… at least in my enthusiastic imagination it does.

Expect a cover release this weekend as well. (Now, if I was a pessimistic soul whose glass was eternally half empty, I’d point out that this being Memorial Day Weekend there will not be a soul reading any of my blogs. But since I am a glass half full gal I’m not going to think that way. Nope. Glass half full, baby. *forces a grin*)

So if you could spare a moment between your barbecues, car races, and summer lovin’ to tell family and friends “Chloe Stowe’s Writhe is coming Tuesday!!” I’d appreciate it very, very much. (Imagine the looks you’ll get as you’re passing the potato salad to Great Grandma Edna.)

So, with big news unloaded at your feet I will leave you all to your Friday nights.

Until tomorrow…

Chloe