Spring-Cleaning…Suz’s style

Posted by Suzanne Ferrell Apr 28 2012, 12:20 am in HUNTED., KIDNAPPED, Srping Cleaning, Suzanne Ferrell books

I have been in a spring cleaning sort of mood lately. Ugh! I know, can you believe it? It started innocently enough. Stacked on my desk and my filing cabinet were all these…books! Now, before you panic and believe I’d throw those out like yesterday’s trash, fear not. I’ve steadily been reading my way through the pile.

Big deal, you say. We’re all readers, aren’t we? We all have these unwieldy stacks of books, that no matter how hard we read, the pile just keeps growing, like the blob, slowly taking over a space, a room or even a house. But I have a plan! Instead of buying more paper books, other than the prerequisite hardback or paperbacks by my autobuy authors, thereby replenishing the huge mess, I have been filling my kindle library! OMG! What an incredibly smart move on my part. Currently I have an entire collection of Monica McCarty’s Highland Guard series in it. (I love this series!) And about 30 others!!

As I read a book from the pile, I place it in this bag in my office. Now the contents of this bag go to one of three places. 1) My daughters often raid the bag for books to read, but we gave them both Kindle Fire’s last year for Christmas, so I see less raiding of my already read stash by them, don’t you? 2) These books may end up is the local library. Nice place to donate gently used books and it so benefits those who cannot afford my book buying addiction!  2) The used bookstore. Do not look aghast at me!! If the book bag is full and a child is looking for gas money or pizza money, they are welcome to cart said books to the bookstore and keep the profits. End result the books LEAVE the house.

Stage 1 of spring-cleaning: reduce and mange the TBR pile. Check!

That brings me to the next part of my plan manage largely accumulated mass of paper in my office.

Now this part of the spring-cleaning process involves repairing the shredder in my office. Very vital piece of the process has been a bit wonky lately. Here’s how this became such a huge effort…sigh:

Hubby brings in the mail. Leaves said mail on dining room table. I sort mail as to three things. Junk for shredding. Important bills for paying. Stuff to look at and consider/keep/file or shred.

This all works smoothly if 1) the shredder is working (by the way do you know how theraputic and satisfying it is to shred paper?) and 2) I don’t work too many nights in a row (I cannot sort mail when completely exhausted!!) If these two things are not harmoniously in sinc, then the pile seems to take on a life of its own, until I must tame it or risk being my own episode of HOARDERS!

Lately, though there has been a problem. See on the shredder there’s this tiny piece of plastic on the bucket that the shredding mechanism must sit on in order for the dang thing to work properly. Well, apparently slamming the lid down hard can break said little piece of plastic will snap it loose. Who knew?!? No problem, except the bottle of superglue…uhm…was glued shut!  That was problem #1

Problem #2. Between my dreaded night job and my writing schedule, not to mention family dinners (at which point the newest pile of mail gets shoved onto the already out of control pile on the chair in my office), and grandbaby watching, I haven’t gotten around to the mess. But now is the time to sort/file/shred. Shredder is fixed and will hopefully last the work it will soon see!

Stage 2 of spring-cleaning: tame the paper pile monster. Check!

That brings us to the final part of the plan. Finishing projects.

As you might know I recently self published one of my GH finalist books KIDNAPPED on Amazon and B&N. What a thrill that has been. The results have been very satisfying and made me want to get the second book ready to go. First, I had a very important project to finish. My second book for Ellora’s Cave, this time in their non-erotica Blush line, Cantrell’s Bride had edits to be done and return to my editor.

This is always a very complicated and fascinating process to me. An 80,000 wd manuscript that I and two critique partners have gone over with fine-tooth combs comes back with 700 minor changes, (typos and comma issues) and comments for making things consistent throughout the book. How could we have missed that? 700? Geesh. But with great determination and single mindedness, (see above section where I ignored the mail for 3 weeks straight), I got it finished and turned back in to my editor—the lovely lady who makes my books better!!

Meanwhile I still have other projects to get off my to-do list. A while back I agreed to judge a contest. This is something I believe all seasoned writers and published authors should do. It’s a giveback kind of thing. Every year I do 3 contests, including either the GH or the RITA’s. So that was read, critiqued, judged and sent back. I’m currently writing on my newest book for EC, an American historical novella about a wounded Civil War vet and the woman who wants to claim back their life efore the war. While I’m working on it, I took the time to format HUNTED, the second GH manuscript. I’ve sent it on to my beta reader to pick out typos, then off to the independent editor to find more typos! The cover is here—-> So, once that’s edited, we’ll publish book #2! I’m hoping by the first of June.

Spring-Cleaning final phase: project completions. Check!

So, that’s my spring cleaning, (hubby gets to do the floors and dust the fans this year!).

So, how about you, got any spring-cleaning to do at your house? Is it the mundane sort of dusting, polishing or is it more creative? Got any projects you’ve been dying to start or finish?

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