I tried to write the other day and other funny stuff by Lynn Chandler Willis

 I have a book due to my editor next week. I haven’t left my zip code in two years and now I have two trips planned within a matter of days. I’m leaving Thursday for Malice Domestic and then next Thursday to New York City for the Edgar Awards. I’m not complaining. I’m just wondering how everything seems to happen at the same time. Boggles my mind. 

Speaking of my mind, or specifically the way it works, hold onto your seat. You’re in for a wild ride.

7:00 AM: Ahhh…that first sip of coffee. So far so good. Sit at the kitchen table and open laptop. Open up my Scrivener file and…ask Finn (my dog, roommate, furbaby, boss) why she’s whining. She doesn’t answer. Back to my file and my WIP that’s due next week.

7:03 AM: Finn’s still whining. I remind her she hasn’t eaten her breakfast yet. It’s still in her bowl. Get up and go to the cabinet where the dog treats are kept. Grab one. Sit back down. Give Finn the treat. Back to the WIP. 

7:05 AM: Certainly she hasn’t already eaten that treat? Take a sip of coffee and ignore the whining. Back to my file. Research the Norwegian word for “mother.” Back to my file. Oops. I’ve already forgotten how to spell it. Back to Google. 

7:10 AM: Have stare down with Finn. Give in and give her another treat. Back to my file. Dang it. Coffee’s cold. I warm up the coffee and take a moment to enjoy the view out my kitchen window. Except my view includes my adult daughter (who lives with her hubs and 5 kids in the big house beside my little cottage) in her back yard waving her arms and kinda gyrating in this spastic manner. I’m concerned there might be something seriously wrong so rush outside and discover 3 of the chickens have flown the coop and she’s trying to herd them back into the fenced yard. The rooster is throwing one more hissy fit because three of his girls are free and sticking their tongues out at him. Do chickens have tongues? 

8:00 AM: Back inside, reheat the coffee, again. The laptop’s powered off so I wake it up to continue my WIP. Finn whines again. I ignore her. 

8:20: Whoa! Look at that! Finished that chapter. BAM! Moving right along…until the other set of grandkids who are vacationing at Universal in Florida FaceTime me. They’re having the time of their lives and I can’t stop smiling while they’re telling me in great detail about their trip so far.  

8:45 AM: Still FaceTiming. Grandkids ask me how the book is coming along. They ask me all about my upcoming trips and what I’m going to wear (two are teenage girls so they’re very concerned about stuff like that) and then I panic for a split second wondering if anyone still wears pantyhose. Do they? Do I add that to my shopping list for Malice and the Edgars? Suntan or nude? 

9:00 AM: The grandkids are off to Harry Potter World and I wake up the laptop again. Add my chapter heading. Yeah! Got that first paragraph down. Daughter comes over and says one of the baby turkeys is gone. I help her search the property for the missing baby turkey.  

10:00 AM: We didn’t find the baby turkey. We feared the worst. My laptop has gone back to sleep. I let it sleep and log in to the day/night job. I may have cried. 

10:10 AM: One of the customer service reps transfers an escalated call to me since I’m a Senior Customer Service rep and get the really irate customers. The customer wants to know why she can’t exchange a shirt she purchased last June for a newer color. I explain our 30 day return policy and invite her to place a new order for the new color, and hey, I’ll even override shipping cost for you! She then asks if I’ll price match what she paid back in June. Which, by all calculations, was discounted by 70%. SEVENTY. PERCENT. I politely tell her no, we can’t do that again and it goes downhill from there. She wants my employee number. My manager’s name. My blood type…

10:15 AM: Blood type…what if a killer picked his victims according to their blood type? But how would he know? Oh! He has access to medical records…

10:25 AM: Hang up with irate customer after being cussed out because I stood my ground and not only refused to give her another 70% discount, I took back my offer of free shipping. 

10:30 AM: I take my 15 minute break. I wake up the laptop and craft a new villain.   

PS…the baby turkey was found safe 😊

A former Shamus Award finalist and winner of the PWA Best First Private Eye Novel, Lynn Chandler Willis is the award-winning and best-selling author of Wink of an Eye, the three-book Ava Logan Mystery series, and the true crime book, Unholy Covenant. She has two new series debuting in fall 2022.

The Devil To Pay, book one in the Raynor Beck, PI series is scheduled to release in October, 2022 and What the Monkey Saw, book one in the Emily Gale, F.B.I. series follows in November.

She is the current president of the Southeast Chapter of the Mystery Writers of America. She was born and raised and still lives in the heart of North Carolina. When she’s not hanging out on the farm, she can be found at the southern Outer Banks where the Raynor Beck series is set or headed in the opposite direction to the Appalachian Mountains where F.B.I. Agent Emily Gale battles tradition, culture, and bureaucracy.