My Weather Happy Place

It's a delightfully dreary Monday morning, and I'm looking forward to a good day of writing, if that antihistamine ever wears off. It seems to get worse the longer I take it, so now I have to take it right after dinner if I want to wake up at a reasonable hour and not feel groggy for several more hours after I wake up.

I had a delightful rainy Sunday afternoon yesterday. It's been ages since I had a day like that. It was perfect for spending the day reading and drinking tea. Yeah, it was somewhat work-related reading, but it was enjoyable work-related reading, so it didn't really count as work.

I also got in a little outdoors time this weekend, with a short walk in the woods by the lake. The last time I went to that park, the lake was way lower than it was supposed to be, so it was like a cliff overlooking the lake. Then the lake was flooded, so that whole area was under water for a long time. You could see on the trees where the water line was, and a lot of the trees died. Now the part that was like a cliff is pretty much just the shore. It's thrown off my whole orientation of where things are supposed to be, since I'm used to the lake being much farther away. We're getting to the time of year when it's really nice to be out and about outside. I just need to get through this week first, since I'm supposed to be singing that solo Sunday. I'll be a little less worried about protecting my voice after that, and I'll be seeing the doctor again the following Tuesday, so I'll know more about what's actually going on with me. Then maybe I can play outside some more.

I feel better in general because the weather has switched to cool and damp, which is my happy place.

Meanwhile, I need to get back to full work mode. I've been writing but haven't really been carrying out all my marketing plans. One thing my agent and I agreed I need to focus on is visibility as a fantasy author. I really don't seem to exist there other than with individuals I've met at conventions. In general fantasy groups, when people are looking for recommendations or talking about books, my name never seems to come up. I'm all but invisible in the fantasy world, as I discovered when attending the Nebulas. My readership seems to mostly come around the fringes of that, from paranormal romance, paranormal cozy mystery, paranormal chick lit, etc. That's a huge opportunity for me, a bunch of new readers who might like me who haven't bought my books yet. The trick is finding a way to get more visibility there. I already go to conventions. The Enchanted, Inc. books were well-reviewed in Locus and even got a nice feature in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. I just need to figure out what more I can do to hit that target audience.