As she spent the weekend recovering from the side effects of throwing 40-pound bags of manure around her garden, she got out the big jumper cables. She read the books on writing that she knows amp her up to the point of it resembling shock treatments.

Today,  she ate her oatmeal and hightailed it to her writing spot, determined to get back on track. She’s had her Pomodoro timer going: 25 minutes writing, 5-minute break (to make a coffee), repeat four times to get a half-hour break. So, there will be words today, and way too much coffee.

We are shutting up and crossing our fingers. And shit, the timer is about to go off!

Brrrzzzzap

This is far worse that we thought. The chick cannot write, and public accountability has turned into public humiliation. I will shut my mouth and hope that once her blessed garden is in and she runs out of chores she will apply butt to futon and fingers to keyboard.

She wrote some yesterday. Today, already, it’s rather certain that she has no brain for it. The sun is shining, and there are storms on the way. She’s heading to her garden to bust butt getting it ready for Wednesday’s big planting day. We know better than to come between her and her heirloom tomatoes. It’s good for her soul, and that, in turn, is good for us because that soul is essential to our existence. And that, in turn, is good for anyone out there waiting for the next LAC installment (a Ginny and Kris weekend, by the way—God help us).

So, today, she gets a reprieve.

Well, she wrote 40x what she wrote the day before, and when stated that way, it’s really hard to find fault. But, this really isn’t about fault, anyway. It’s about someone who’s miserable when words seem just outside her grasp. She checks her word count in her writing program, and it glaringly reminds her that she set LAC 21’s due date as January 1, 2015. She refuses to change the deadline, and that makes her unable to see that progress is progress. Or, acknowledge that she worked on a different project and managed a shitload of words there. Yes, it came to a screeching halt. She was going cheetah and now can’t tolerate baby ant steps.

I think she would be the first to admit that writers can be a pain in the ass. But, what would we do without them? For you, the readers, that’s probably a bad enough answer. For us, well… Let’s just not go there.

Forward, writer! Word by precious word.

Okay, since we’re trying to be positive here, it would be rude of me to point out that the author netted only ten frickin’ words today. Yes, ten. Better than zero. But, seriously, ten?

I don’t think she understands that I narrate the LAC books. She doesn’t have to write. She simply has to take dictation.

I’ll have, um… Laura! Yes, I’ll have Laura check her ears in the morning.

The Baby Steps progress meter has moved! She wrote more yesterday than she has in weeks. Keep going, Roz!

And…

I noticed something rather disheartening about these newly redecorated digs of ours. Everything is supposed to be mobile-friendly nowadays, meaning it’s supposed to look great on a desktop monitor and when it’s viewed on a phone’s screen. The graphics must scrunch down to pull that off. Kinda cool in theory, but our fine silhouettes up there get scrunched to where you cannot even see the green-eyed beauty! You end up seeing only the hands of blackhead in her duck pose or whatever the hell she’s doing. How fair is that? New visitors will think this blog is about Dykes Who Dare Do Yoga. Jesus, that would change things, huh?

We’ve got our digs redecorated. The author got a new bookstore, and we, consequently, got evicted from our own bookstore. LAC books got a price drop because the author wants you to be able to read the entire series without having to take out a loan. Oh, yes, and spring has sprung—in the author’s speck of the world anyway.

New stuff, lots of new stuff, and yet…

The sequel to Squatter is still on the back burner. LAC 21 gets a few words added every once in a while, but it is by no means progressing. LAC 21.5 is still ‘almost done.’ Methinks she kiddiths not this time when she says she has writer’s block. She’s gone seven months without releasing anything new. We know that because it is her mantra as she bashes her head into her whiteboard. Trust me: It is not pretty, and since we basically live in her head, it frickin’ hurts. What to do? What to do?

Whip-cracking generally works, but her self-flagellation would probably make it ineffectual. Guilt? Nah, that trusty reservoir is already overflowing. Sweet-talking? Holly tried that already, and if Holly couldn’t get it to work, it ain’t gonna work. What to do? What to do? Um…

How about some public accountability in the form of a challenge? NaNoWriMo always seems to work, but we sure as hell can’t wait until November. Okay, how about one of those progress meters we had on here to get her to a million words in our series? That worked, but baby steps would probably be better right now. Let’s just prod her to 10,000, and maybe that will be enough for her to recharge her writer mojo or whatever the hell it is that keeps her going. (Jesus, is her muse on strike? I hadn’t thought of that.)

Okay. Plan? Yep.

Keep an eye on the meter in the sidebar. It had better move from that measly 965 she’s committed to the manuscript. In the meantime, I’ll see if Laura can put out an APB on that missing muse. Maybe Holly can whip up a sketch of her and put it on coffee cups, not milk cartons.

All right, everybody cross their fingers…

Was there some symbolism we missed in the author’s naming of our last book, Living Dead(heads), and then leaving us to languish? If there was, it went over my frickin’ deadhead; yet, here we are.

She went from having too many projects in the works to getting totally fixated on one. The Squatter sequel has 78,000 words. Now, she’s stuck on the ending so she’s looking for diversions she can justify. Oh gee, the Lesbian Adventure Club crew! How you chicks doin’? Okay, she doesn’t exactly speak to us like that, but the message is the same.

So, what do we do? Continue to be deadheads? Become highly uncooperative? Make her pay for her utter neglect? Or, quietly and gently slip an arm around her and bring her back into our world where we can totally take advantage of her need to do anything but look at that other manuscript?

Let me ponder that.

Our author, however, likes to think she is. She is working on numerous books all at the same time. A little here, a little means she’s writing, but not one of them nears book-length.

Let’s see… She has started LAC 21. She’s been working on an LAC backstory, which I’d rather she not, that would be LAC 21.5. She’s making decent headway on a sequel to Squatter. Then, there’s Laura’s fifth mystery, which has remained a mystery to her for well over a year. And, we mustn’t forget the in-the-works short story collection entitled Upend. She’s been completely baffled by its final short story that refuses to end properly. Upend could easily be her Undoing.

Let’s see… That’s 1 … 2 … 3 … 4 … 5 works-in-progress, which, I guess, renders my post’s title incorrect. It should be “Authors Are Not Pentapuses,” but that sounds like a vulgar term or maybe a Bond movie played only in little booths in the back of Peter’s Palace. Okay, how about “Quintpuses?”

Maybe, for the moment, I should just leave the writing (and the poor English language) to her. Why, she’ll have pentabooks done in pentayears! No high-penta for that one.

Jesus, shut up, Kate.

Okay. Okay.

Remember that book the author started writing when she was supposed to be writing Living Dead(heads)? Well, she finished it—the first draft anyway. It’s entitled Squatter, and it’s a paranormal mystery. Nope, no Laura. Instead, she’s got a whole new cast of characters. I will let you know when/if it’s ready for reader consumption. While it’s not in our series, I’ll see if I can swipe a chapter or two, just ’cause I can.

In the meantime, she editing it and jotting down ours ideas for LAC 21. It’s a Ginny and Kris weekend. Theirs always make me nervous.

Oh, and she says she won’t be doing NaNoWriMo is November, that there’s no need for any whip-cracking. We are pleased, to say the least. She turns way cranky. Rest assured, though, that we will crack our own whips if she starts slacking off.