Smut & Scones

I was having a brainstorming session with myself yesterday, trying to stop and take a deep breath and refocus on what my goals are for like, my life -- my side business, my writing, etc. Sort of without intending to, I created something that I think is going to really solve a lot of the problems I've been having with feeling guilty about how I manage my time every day, and doing/not doing what I "should" be doing at any given point during my evenings, mornings, and weekends. I get so few pockets of free time during the day, around my kids, home, and family, and my day job, my side biz, and my writing plans. Almost always, when I sit down to start working on one thing, I can concentrate because I'm still thinking about all the other things I should or could be doing instead -- I need to work on this outline, but I also have dishes and laundry that I probably ought to get started on, etc. I was trying to single out the times of day that I could, in theory, carve ou...

Oh my god, okay, I'm supposed to be going to bed right now but I just have to write a quickie post. I've been really getting into cozy mysteries lately, sort of by accident, in the sense that I guess I'd always loved a good mystery but I didn't really realize how much I loved this particular genre until I got on a Murder She Wrote binge and now I'm reading all kinds of Agatha Christie and other cozy mysteries. Which is, of course, giving me all kinds of ideas for writing one of my own. A genre that is so wildly outside of what I have ever written before that I feel like I just might have to try it. I've got a solid set-up in mind for a series, and I've managed to find a way to fit in my other loves as well -- history and sauciness. But I must say, I'm having a hard time finding other contemporary cozies that I like, and right off the bat I can pin point why -- too much exposition from the first paragraph. It seems to be a formulaic part of this g...