My hectic household

Today was a relatively quiet day at my house. Of course, there were workmen coming and going. I’ve gotten used to them—they are really polite, nice guys—but others tell me how stressful it is to have them in the house. I’m not sure I’m feeling the stress. I know I’m grateful to Lewis Bundock because right now it’s hard for me to carry a plate of lunch while using a cane. He serves me lunch daily (after I fix it) which I think is pretty cool—and really above and beyond for a contractor.

Today, it looks to me like the tile work is almost finished, and they will be ready to grout, so there was much discussion tonight about grout colors. Everyone had a different opinion, and frankly I don’t trust my own judgment. As Christian said, “If you ask twenty people, you get twenty opinions.”

Jordan invited friends for happy hour, and I had a small drink with them and then went to dinner with Betty. We went down the street to Sera, split the cheese board and each had a beet salad—she says next time she’ll ask if the beets are cooked, but I liked it.

When I left, happy hour was still going on; when I came home, happy hour was still going on. In fact, Jordan and Christian just left at 9:15. He stuck his head in my office and said, “It’s always so hectic at your house.” I agreed but said, “It’s nice. I kind of like it.” What’s really nice about it is that I can join in the fun or I can retreat to my office, which I did about an hour ago.

Big new problem: the tetherball Jordan insisted I should order. Once I saw it, I didn’t want it in the small backyard. There’s not enough room, there are wires overhead, bushes for the ball to get caught in, and the plants that Greg has nurtured in the back which would surely get trampled. I didn’t realize you fill the base with water to stabilize it, and then it’s too heavy for anyone to move. The boys played in the driveway tonight, with one standing on the base to stabilize it. One of the moms was good about fixing where the ball was attached and kept coming loose. But I can see a serious discussion ahead about the future of that behemoth.

Happy in my hectic household, which is now calm and peaceful.

Retreat Time

Thanks for having me back, Judy!

Despite being a full-time fiction writer, it’s often hard to be super productive while sitting in my office at home. During one stretch when I really needed to pound some word count, I found a Quaker retreat house in West Falmouth, which is on the near edge of Cape Cod, on Buzzard's Bay, a couple of hour’s drive from my home. The house is just across a Friends graveyard from the West Falmouth Friends Meetinghouse that was built in 1842. I reserved a room for $25 per night, but no one else was going to be there, so that was the price of the entire house.

I drove down  on a Friday with a bad cold and stocked a few simple provisions. I set up my netbook, made some tea, and set to writing. My only distractions were my own: going for a walk, reading, thinking. The house did NOT come equipped with internet. This turned out to be a huge blessing. I crossed the street to the library once a day to check for any messages that needed acting on and otherwise left cyberspace alone.

I wrote and wrote and wrote. I took care of my cold and kept writing. I gazed out the back window at the remnants of the Meeting garden, moseyed out to pluck some bits of parsley for my soup, and kept

writing. I went for a walk down to the bay and sat and listened to the calm winter lapping of the bay, then went back and kept writing

I had recently re-read Rachel Aaron's post on how she writes 10,000 words a day (and thanks to Ramona DeFelice Long for reminding me of that post last week). One of her secrets is to leave home for few hours. Check, in spades. Another is to only write the interesting scenes (and really, if you aren't compelled to write it, readers probably won't be compelled to read it, either).  I had plotted a few scenes ahead. So I jumped to the really interesting one and wrote that. Then I went back and wrote the scenes leading up to that one, making them more interesting, too. Check.

I took meal breaks at the kitchen counter and read a mystery, but I only let myself read as long as I was eating. Then, guess what, I kept writing.

I walked through the graveyard to sit in worship with Friends on Sunday morning, then got to know a few of them, talking casually about why I was there and what I was working on. Then I went back to write.

My cold was still pretty bad late Sunday night (despite adding a bit of brandy to my tea with honey and lemon) and my cough wasn't fit for human company. I canceled my plan to drive home on Monday morning and stayed at my writing station until midday on Monday. Final tally for just under 3 full days of retreat? 15,071 words. Wow!

Quaker House, I will return to thee.

Readers, what's your favorite retreat center? Where are you most productive in creative endeavors when you can grab a stretch of time, whether it's three hours or three days?

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Amazon best-selling author Edith Maxwell writes the Lauren Rousseau mysteries under the pseudonym Tace Baker, in which Quaker linguistics professor Lauren Rousseau solves small-town murders (Barking Rain Press). The second book in the series, Bluffing is Murder, released in November 2014. Edith holds a doctorate in linguistics and is a long-time member of Amesbury Friends Meeting.

‘Til Dirt Do Us Part is the latest in Maxwell's Local Foods Mysteries series (Kensington Publishing, 2014). Her Country Store Mysteries, written as Maddie Day (also from Kensington), will debut with Flipped for Murder in November 2015.

Maxwell’s Carriagetown Mysteries series features Quaker midwife Rose Carroll solving mysteries in 1888 with John Greenleaf Whittier’s help. Maxwell also writes award-winning short stories.

A fourth-generation Californian and former tech writer, Maxwell lives in an antique house north of Boston with her beau and three cats. She blogs every weekday with the other Wicked Cozy Authors (wickedcozyauthors.com), and you can find her at www.edithmaxwell.com, @edithmaxwell, on Pinterest, and at www.facebook.com/EdithMaxwellAuthor.