Murder Ink

 It seems like it was just Christmas and then New Years and here it is the middle of January already.  I was so caught up in my deadlines that I missed the MURDER INK was released on January 1 and that both ON THE HOOK and HOOKS CAN BE DECEIVING are on special at Amazon all month.  The e-book is just $1.99.

I made my second deadline which was to send in the copy edit of ONE FOR THE HOOKS, the next Crochet Mystery by January 13.  I was actually several days early.  

And now I’m taking a few days of not writing while I catch up on everything around here.  I am putting everything together to update my website.  Clear up the area around my computer and attach a better keyboard. The one I’ve been using is a cheap model that doesn’t always work.  The hand me down new one is bigger and probably better designed.  Maybe I’ll type better.  I am not one of those people who has to have everything just so to be able to work which is why I didn’t even think about another keyboard until the hand me down one was offered to me.

My computer desk is from the 80s when I got my very first computer.  It even has a slot for paper for a dot matrix printer.  Remember those?  My chair, well, I always have to stop and think about what chair I’m using because I don’t really pay attention to it.  Then I laugh when I actually look at it.  It is an ancient typing chair that was in an office we had in the 70s.  I think it was already old then.  It’s covered in blue fabric that must be made out of steel because it’s still intact.

I guess I have old stuff on my mind.  I’ve been going through stuff that used to be in the garage before we transformed it into a room.  There was a two drawer chest that I hadn’t looked in since we moved into our current house 30 years ago.  The stuff in the drawers was from the 70s and early 80s.  It felt like a time capsule.  I found 13 cents postage stamps, some blue chip stamps, an address book with phone numbers from before the time you had to dial the area code in your own area code.  There were some old check statements and checks when they used to send you the cancelled ones. Included were checks written for the diaper service I used for my son.  Even then cloth diapers were a thing of the past.  There was also a box of childproofing things for sockets that we never used.  I guess it was okay because he’s 39 and never been electrocuted .

There was a telegram wishing us a happy 7th anniversary, some old valentines and some journals.  It felt strange to read them and step into my mind all those years ago.  I was surprised how legible my handwriting was.

I found an old map of Chicago.  It was interesting to look at it and see that the downtown neighborhood I write about in MURDER INK didn’t exist then.  It was literally just a white space on the map.  The S curve on Lake Shore Drive was still there.  It was called the S curve but it wasn’t a curve.  It was a sharp turn that used to cause traffic to back up and cars to overheat.  

I tossed a lot of the stuff.  I mean who needs erasable typing paper anymore?