Monday Check In

Last week...

Writing Related:  I received the feedback on Garrett's book from my beta readers and editor. The good thing is they all like the story and characters. The bad thing is that every single one of them feels there's not enough romance. Considering this is a romance novel, that's a big problem. My editor in particular mentioned that the book seems to be missing the emotional connection between the main male and main female characters. I've tried not panic though I might not have been successful. I'm taking this week to go through all of the comments I received from my beta readers and all the comments and questions and suggestions from my editor. I'm hoping by reviewing all of that, I'll see a way to fix or add the missing emotional component. I really, really do not want to scrap this draft and start all over from the beginning.

Motivational Quote:  "The truth is that nothing is impossible. So, you must dream, you have to believe in yourself." ~ Halima Aden (Somali and American model)

What I'm Reading:  I'm currently reading Grim Tidings by B.K. Borison. I should finish it this evening. This is the 2nd book in her Ghosted series. I didn't read the first book in the series and am not feeling as though I missed something by not reading it. I think this book could almost be a stand alone novel.

Random Things:  I'm still working on making a decent loaf of sourdough bread. My first loaf came out okay. It didn't have that distinctive sourdough tang though. My second attempt was a complete disaster. I used a different recipe that was very labor intensive - it was a 3 day process starting with mixing the dough on the first day all the way through to baking it on the third day. The dough felt tough with all the constant handling of it (folding it once an hour for six hours on the second day alone) by the time I did the last shaping and put it on the pan to bake. It didn't really brown and the exterior crust was hard to cut through. You literally almost had to saw through it with the bread knife. But the interior was surprisingly soft and it wasn't dense at all. I'll be making my third attempt later this week. And I will be using yet another different recipe. Fingers crossed the third time will be the charm and this loaf will come out perfect.

Random Photo:

 A few of the chocolate brownie muffins I made to cheer myself up after my sourdough baking disaster. The recipe for the chocolate brownie muffins makes 12 muffins so I split them up into containers of four and froze them because they taste so good - really just like a brownie except in muffin form - that I'd probably eat the majority of them since as most of you know, homemade brownies are my weakness.