What's Your Secret for Surviving January?

What's Your Happy Pill for January?

January's a beast, isn't it? It's cold, it's grey, everyone's sick, and it's filled with unpleasant chores like reforming your holiday eating habits and doing taxes. Also, you've probably noticed that the Internet is not always a fun place to be these days, yet that's where we tend to hang out when it's miserable outside.

It's almost impossible to get any kind of creative work done under those conditions. Where's the energy, the spirit, the humor, the spark? I have trouble finding it--don't you?

So. I just joined a gym, like you do in January, and Zumba has become my happy pill. There's nothing like leaving cold, rainy, grey Portland behind for an hour and cutting loose to some sunny salsa and merengue. I look like an idiot doing it, but that's the beauty of Zumba: no one's looking at you. They're all watching the instructor and trying to keep up.

And when I can't make it to the gym, I search around for a silly dance video that will lift me out of the winter gloom. Lately I've discovered old Soul Train episodes online. Dance along to one of these, and I guarantee your day will be a little lighter and brighter! You might even rekindle that spark of creativity that fizzled out when the pipes froze.

What's Your Happy Pill for January? Tell Me and Win Some Stuff!

Let me know how you get through a gloomy winter, and I'll choose a winner and send you a box of books and swag. Extra points for sharing that goofy thing you can only do when no one's watching. Go here to enter by January 27.  I'll share a few of my favorite answers next month.

Happy 141th Birthday to Constance Kopp

Guess who turns 141 today? Oh wait, I just told you. It's Constance Kopp's birthday today, although you'd never find that out by asking her: all three Kopp sisters lied about their ages, repeatedly, for reasons I've never fully understood. Over the years I've combed through Census records, birth certificates, wills, deeds, and other documents that require a person to list their age or date of birth. In every case, at least one of them decided to make herself younger--sometimes by a year or two, and sometimes by as much as a decade.

I just wrote a scene for the next installment of the Kopp Sisters' adventures that takes place on Constance's 40th birthday. To mark the occasion, I've been listening to the top 40 song chart from 1917 (which makes me wish they'd hurry up and invent jazz), and reading Mr. Britling Sees It Through by H. G. Wells, a novel about England during the war that was the bestselling book of 1917. It's not what you'd call a page-turner by today's standards, but apparently it gripped the nation during the war.

PSSST....$2.99 ebooks make great gifts!

Right now, Girl Waits With Gun is only $2.99 everywhere ebooks are sold. Did you know you can give an ebook as a gift? It's true! All you need is the recipient's email address. Depending on where you buy your ebooks, the recipient might have the option of selecting a different book, which is handy if you're not sure whether the person has read the book already.

So grab this one while you have the chance, or give one to a friend! Available at Amazon, Kobo, iTunes, Google, and B&N.

 

What Are You Reading?

I picked up Larry McMurtry's The Last Kind Words Saloon at Powell's this weekend and absolutely loved it. It's a short, weird, funny novel, told almost entirely in dialogue, about his favorite Old West characters: Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, Bill Cody, and Nellie Courtright, a figure I'm going to have to investigate further. To my surprise, the critics didn't think much of this book. I guess there's no accounting for taste. Join me on Facebook , Litsy, or Goodreads and tell me what you're into these days!