The Author’s Way

Some authors have cleaning services, or fastidious spouses, or, like my friend, author Alanna Lucas, they’re driven to vacuum to help unsnarl a plot problem.

Me, not so much. I generally have a good collection of dust bunnies lurking in corners, although mine are usually a wispy combination of canine and feline hair.

Fortunately, my husband is not obsessive/compulsive about cleaning, though he does rather like the kind of service he gets at hotels.

He also likes regular meals.

But, did I mention, the man is a saint? It’s not often our dining table looks like this one. If you make a surprise visit to my house, you might find a stack of books and mail, along with the day’s Wall Street Journal, and one, or even two laptops going. He’s okay with pushing everything to one end of the table so we can have a delicious meal.

Meals, meals, meals

A man’s got to eat.

Often we do quick meals like pizza and a salad. And a nice glass of wine–got to have the wine!

Often he reminds me that he’s had more professional cooking training than I have. I don’t mention that I have more experience in the kitchen, I just say go for it!

After Meals…

And then comes the cleanup. Isn’t this a great picture? These are the children of a young widow working in the defense industry, and the year was 1943. It’s easy to guess how the mom was widowed, and so touching to see these kids hard at work helping her out. Yes, this was one of those wartime propaganda pictures, but so very, very effective.

My kids are grown, but the one who still lives with us does (mostly) all of his own meals and clean up. For our meal washing up, my husband and I do about a 50/50 split. But he’s not a stickler on that task either, thank goodness!

But (there’s always a but, right?)

That’s not really me in the picture, but I am often glued to my iPhone. Or my computer. Or my tablet. My husband says I’m just like the college kids he sees when he’s doing business at USC or UCLA, and he doesn’t mean it as a compliment.

I’ve explained to him about authors and social media. I’ve had him sit in on webinars about the business of bringing a book out. And royalty statements–the right ones can help a good deal!

I’ve also put down my phone to do some binge-watching of shows stacked up in our DVR. That’s not a tough compromise for a storyteller, is it?!

This post is part of a blog hop, so hop along with my fellow MFRW authors and see how their families cope!

All images: courtesy of Wikimedia; last image from Jeremy Keith via Flickr and Wikimedia