what we can do

 wildflowers-- blue flags

Lately my weeks do not have a pattern to them. There are, of course, those things I must plan-- like getting my teeth cleaned. That requires scheduling. Same with doctor appointments, but generally I can pretty much do what I please. That doesn't mean lie around and eat bonbons, but I guess I could if it was what I wanted.

I remember years, when I had very planned weeks with kids in school and work schedules I had to weave my life around. Today I have freedom to make of my day what I choose. I am captain of my fate-- most of the time. 

As a creative person, I love the freedom to let a day take me wherever it will. My one constant is to write regularly-- but about what can vary quite a lot. Having been a stay-at-home mom, I learned long ago to be disciplined in work. There are always the unexpected additions that can turn a week from what I might have expected to something totally different.

A few weeks back on our little ranch, we began photographing bees. There is something wonderful about watching bees go for pollen. While they make our apple trees more prolific, they also are making honey. I shared those photos here (go back a week or so if you didn't see them). Bees are something I'd have once taken for granted but no longer.

Wild bee and butterfly decline

The article is pretty good about describing what is happening and some possible choices we can make-- for instance not removing all the weeds we could nor using insecticides without realizing that they kill more than nuisance insects... and incidentally what did we think the birds were eating if it's not insects?

I've seen farms on my way to town where they are pulling out what used to be hedgerows, brushy zones between their fields where the wild roses and wildflowers put on a show. Wildflowers are regarded as weeds by those who only value dollar signs. I am sure those farmers are good people but have to be thinking-- wow, another acre if we get rid of all of this unprofitable brush. They probably also figure someone else will save ground for the bunnies, birds, lizards, snakes, and insects. It's always someone else who needs to do it, isn't it?

For all our talk about climate change, the risks we face if the oceans rise and become less saline, we are doing a lot of the damage to our immediate environment with our demand for dandelion free yards, with the love of these big landscapes of mowed grass, and spraying detrimental insecticides all around our homes. I recognize some areas need lawns. It's culturally expected. Those people can compensate for the lawns not being particularly helpful to birds and insects by adding those plants that are.

Years ago we went to a seminar in Corvallis where the speaker was talking about Jesus from the perspective of historic or mythic. He spoke one evening about his interest in the environment by ending lawns on his property. It made total sense to me. The next summer, we restored our front yard to natural environment by plowing it up, putting in a natural waterway (helps a lot when we have too much rain coming off the fields), and planting four trees (actually five but a buck broke one off by rubbing his horns on it). 

The past of that yard carries with it many memories. I remember well how for figteen years I mowed it, finding different patterns to make the job more interesting. Today it's a natural looking landscape as if it had always been this way.

Then a few years later I got the idea of fencing in a veggie and flower garden area next to the house and then giving the sheep the rest. That took a lot of work from Farm Boss but eventually we had it as we do today. Fenced personal space and sheep just beyond. I love it, like hearing them so close, but also they do a neat job on making the lawns look mowed. 

 looking toward our home from the gravel road

If we don't let the sheep be anywhere too long, the weeds, the grass, the shrubs, all benefit from their presence. (the bird feeder had to be moved up for reasons obvious in the photo below).

 below the house and above the creek

Managing range land is part of a rancher's job-- and in this case turning our lawns into pasture benefited them and us. We haven't mowed a yard in years which means no fuel used and a natural environment around the home-- mostly free of poisons... (I swear men do like their sprayers).

 large swarm- more photos earlier this week

So after the individual photos of the bees, we then had the joy of seeing a large swarm that landed in our pear tree for a few hours as their scouts went beyond to find a new home. Generally this happens when hives divide. The old queen takes off when the new queen is ready to take over responsibility for the old hive.  Where we live, what they are looking for are hollow trees. 

The first big swarm took off after a few hours in the pear tree. The next day a smaller swarm landed there. We are not sure if the pear tree is big enough for them but we'd be delighted if it was. Evidently when hives divide, it can involve several stages.

 small swarm

We would love it if the smaller swarm can find our pear tree to be a proper home. Either way we hope they find healthy ground on which to live. 

We don't believe in monoculture. We plant many varieties of shrubs and plants to provide feed for the bees and butterflies. It's the least we can do for insects that keep us in food. It's a good thing for us all to remember next time we reach for an insecticide. Sometimes there is nothing we can do. In many situations, there is. 

Will our small changes be enough? Well like so many choices being made in our culture today, it might not; but at least we will know we did what we could for the small things. In nature's big picture, we're not as important as some of us like to think.

bees on the move

These bees are on the move. May 13th we saw a very active swarm had settled into one of our pear trees. We were not sure if this was to be a location or a rest stop. Turned out to be the latter. With late afternoon, they took off.

If you haven't seen honeybees when they swarm heading for a new home, be sure you watch the second video. Stay with it awhile as you see them not just flying but moving the whole congregation to some unknown destination. Farm Boss then got in his car to drive up the hill to see if he could find where they were going. They disappeared into a forest. They are looking for the right site to build a new life. The process of creating a new queen, why the hive settled near us before taking off, their sending off scouts to find a suitable location is in the following link:

why honeybees go for a new hive

We wish them well and hope they find a insecticide free zone. We humans need to be far more aware how often we actually need to use insecticides as they are hurting insects we need if we hope to keep growing food that requires pollinating.
 

honey bee swarm in pear tree

honey bee hive on the move

behind the covers

 Cytisus scoparius, Scotch broom, regarded as a noxious weed by many, quite prolific in my part of Oregon. It has lovely flowers in the spring which cause all kinds of allergy problems for those sensitive to it.

For any of you interested in creating book covers, check out my Rain Trueax blog for today. I have several done by writer, Charlene Raddon who has gotten into the business of creating covers under her pen name Jenetta Dodge. I also show how I put together a background that likely will not be a cover but will end up a trailer for my next Arizona historical (which follows characters in Arizona Sunset and Tucson Moon) aimed to come out in July. 

Rain Trueax-- behind the covers

be careful what you wish for

While I have committed that I won't do politics here (I have the Rants for that), I did say I would do cultural issues and I think we are looking at a very big one right now. It is how government is seen by disparate groups. It is what the answer is to unfairness-- assuming there is an answer. It is what do we do now or is it too late?

Tocqueville-- Piketty debate on economics

Yes, Tocqueville put out his treatise years ago while Piketty just put out a book which is selling gangbusters especially to the liberal world as some would say communism is our only hope. And by communism, I mean the philosophy of dividing up the wealth, not the current rendition which frankly proves that communism doesn't last much longer than capitalism-- neither of which are actually in a pure form.

I have not read Piketty's book but from what I have read about it, he's addressing how we got to where we are which is heading toward an oligarchy. The goal of some is to take us back to feudal times where the wealthy control the world for the good of all *cough cough*. The question has to be asked-- if the truly powerful in terms of money are to be blocked from taking over-- how can it be done?

If you spend much time reading comments on any sort of political or cultural issues of our day,  you learn a lot about how the right and left see the country and its problems. One view that comes out constantly from the right is how the federal government is a corrupt and evil body which is trying or has taken over our world.  Federal government is to them an invading force that must be overcome. I thought of an analogy for how I see it and how differently that is from the right.

The government is us. It is who we elected, who we donated our money to put in office. The government is made up of citizens. True, some are very removed from the reality of real life in the United States, but they are not outsiders. They are us. The mentality that they are someone else is how Terry Nichols and Timothy McVey felt it was the right thing to blow up the federal building in Oklahoma City. What ended up happening with most of the dead being babies in a day care center, I guess that was just collateral damage to that kind of mindset. Where did that destruction profit their cause, which is posse comitatus? The cause didn't go away as we have seen with Cliven Bundy and his vigilante supporters who are eager to shoot those who work for the government. It has gone underground at various time but again pops up in other equally destructive ways-- like refusing to pay grazing fees on leased land.

The analogy that I came up with for how I see government is the disease of cancer. Some see it as an invasion but it's not. It's when the cells in the body go rogue. Cancer is us. It is inside us. We have to treat it that way to get rid of it. 

We can do that to the government if we see it's doing wrong, setting in place laws detrimental to one of the United States' founding principles-- a government for the people, by the people

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...

When you see the government as outside of you. When you have decided voting doesn't work but terrorism does, when you want to throw out your existing form of government by revolution, watch out for what comes next. When you talk about government as being evil, when you support not voting to change things but those who want a more violent answer, well, in the end you get Oklahoma City bombings or others like it which can come from the left as well as the right. Terrorism is based on killing to instill fear and get your way. It's not about logic.

Logic says that we can vote. That if we convince enough people that our way is right, we can bring about a change because this system of government was created with ways to make changes. But it's not what appeals to the emotions and hence you had right wing yahoos claiming that Cliven Bundy was a patriot. You had him saying he didn't recognize there was any federal government and then turning around and riding his horse with a United States flag on a pole streaming behind him. 

Cliven Bundy became one of those caught up in being a celebrity, a folk hero created by the likes of Sean Hannity, to appeal to those who fear that the 'other' is taking what they have. The fact that it's actually him who has been taking what they have, is not something they consider. He is 'them' even though he's not. 

Personally I think this tactic works because so many have given up on logic and are relying purely on emotion. It's how one of those sheriffs, who they would like to have running everything said-- when they come at us shooting, we will put our wives and daughters out front to be killed first and then the nation will see our cause is just. Seriously, it's the gist of what he said. And a certain right wing mentality supported that. After all what are women-- collateral damage if they can win the cause by having them killed or hurt. Who supports that kind of thinking-- those who believe in posse comitatus-- and if you don't know what that is, look it up. Cliven Bundy was about a lot more than land use.

it's the columbine time to shine

The bees and hummingbirds all love the columbine. The columbine season keeps the cats out of their yard for obvious reasons.

privacy concerns

This week I got an interesting email from Samuel Bowling, from Single Hop, asking if I'd take part in Choose Privacy Week (May 1-7). The idea is we need to be part of keeping our lives safe from those who would hack into our passwords or read our words and maybe end up on our doorstep or using our credit cards.

The question was-- what 5 things would you never share online. I probably have a lot more than 5 but easily could come up with those. I wonder if readers here would be willing to contribute their own things they feel are not wise to share or would be even dangerous to put out. Some are probably pretty easy like our passwords, phone numbers, addresses, etc. Well, you'd think that'd be obvious. But what else comes to mind?

7 things I never share on line

1. my grandchildren-- not their photos nor their pictures. I decided years ago that it simply wasn't a good idea with all the perverts out there. But also they have a right to privacy in case someone did come across my blog and recognized them.

2. my kids-- again not their photos, details about their lives or their names. It's for the same reason as above-- their safety and they didn't sign up for this blog. I did. I've put up a few pictures of them as children but lots of luck on figuring out who they are today from that.

3. my home base either here or in Arizona. Besides not using addresses, I have a lot of photos of the ranch here but make sure they are without identifying landmarks. While I do use photos of myself (I did sign up for this), I had experiences years ago with chat rooms to recognize that some people do get obsessive, create imaginary relationships with someone they haven't met but get to thinking they know. It's just safer to keep how to reach me for those I know well enough to trust.

4. personal info about my relationship with my significant other. You will never read about our arguments, our special moments or anything specific about how it is going for us. I know there are journal type blogs. Mine is not one of them. I write about ideas, photographs, my work but never about my personal relationships.

5. and that includes my friends. I might write about doing something with a friend but if I use a photo of the get together, I got permission for using it. I don't write about my friends' problems or their relationships. This isn't so much to protect them but to keep friends. :)

6. my name. My name here (the name I write and do art under) is searchable all over the internet-- lots of luck finding it to use on a Google map. I think it's fine for some to use their legal names but there is a risk attached if you get someone who either is angry at what you said or gets a fixation on you. I decided years ago (again based on early experiences in chat rooms) that some people you do not want to be able to show up at your door.

7. trips. I might tell about a trip after I get back but generally do not get specific on when I left or how long I'll be gone. I don't know that it's ever mattered but better safe than sorry.

So what 5 things (yeah I had more than 5 and have more than 7) would you never share publicly online?

Both photos are fields of Camas, a one-time staple in the diet of Native Americans from this region-- just don't eat the white ones ;) Photos taken by Farm Boss when he was at a business meeting in the foothills of the Cascades.

bees and blueberries

bees and blueberries

It was interesting for me to do a whole series, a week long, of bees and blossoms. It's been beautiful to see them hovering over the apple and blueberry blossoms--  but for awhile we had some concern. At first, we did not see honeybees. They had been seen earlier this spring but then we had a hard freeze rather late. We worried that they had lost their home. Bees out here are mostly wild and live in hollow trees along the creek or in the forest. 

Then I saw a bee in the house trying to get out through the glass. It had flown in the cat door. I thought about swatting it-- then thought better of it. I got a plastic glass with a wide mouth, nailed it over the bee and slid a postcard between it and the glass. The bee was safely inside. I was not stung. A win/win when I released it outside. 

When Farm Boss went out with the camera, he got photos of the honeybees to prove they are here. I don't think in the numbers previously, but they can build their population back up.

Perhaps bumblebees could do the jobs of the honeybee in pollinating our fruit, but it should be of concern for us when something we take for granted is not there. I think we need to, as individuals, seriously think about avoiding insecticides. 

If we let the wasps and yellow jackets hang around, they will eat a lot of the insects we'd rather not be here. There are, of course, places we cannot permit a yellow jacket hive, but we need to be sure that is the case before we poison. If we sicken these insects with our overuse of pesticides and removing their natural habitat, where will that leave us???

If you are one who thinks the smallest things don't matter, I don't envy your life in any arena... And no, I do not believe that God will step in and save those who abused this creation-- believer or not believer. Take care of the small things. You're not as important as you think. 

I used the following quote as one my heroine loved from my second Oregon historical. It pretty much says what I think--  

To see a World in a Grain of Sand

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

and Eternity in an hour."

William Blake

The photos above are of honeybee and bumblebee. Next week-- look for more photos of bees and blossoms :)

bees and blossoms 6

bumblebees, blossoms-- and Beltane

Just have to add a word here with this one. My father was born this day in South Dakota, the year 1910. 

I am bringing out my second paranormal, The Dark of the Moon, part of a trilogy called Diablo Canyon on this date. 

May Day is significant in many pagan traditions-- spring really does end today. Beltane is totally the beginning of summer. Forget what our orderly calendar says, the Celts had it right, and this is the day! We all know it by how the weather is, the flowers. It is the light part of the year and each day is lengthening! Yes, the birds and bees know! If you don't already have a celebration for it, check this out for an idea-- ritual for welcoming summer.

Beltane

bumblebees and blossoms 4

bumblees and blossoms 3

bumblees and blossoms2

bumblebees and blossoms

spring fever

i think i have a classic case of spring fever. mentally, i am in a strange place-- especially for me. nothing is on my mind when I am not actually editing the novella due out May 1st. 

it has been a mild spring-- so lots of afternoons where i can sit outside and just watch what is happening around me which amounts mostly to insects and birds, hearing the sounds of nature-- which include the sound of sheep eating the rose leaves they can reach outside the fence. hummingbirds are very noisy, lots of squabbles over territory, but you probably know that. 

other than that, i am thinking of nothing, nada, nil. my mind is a blank slate or an empty cup ready to be filled-- putting a positive spin on my current state of mind. i admit, that for someone who always thinks, this feels very strange.  

i shall blame it on April-- Pieces of April. (i had to dig deep to even remember it was Three Dog Night. i guess my memory isn't as shot as i might've thought.)

so here i am, enjoying the beauty of this April and just being. i always say i want to do that, but it's rare when i actually do. there has been virtually no wrestling with world problems... or when something comes up, I write about it into 'my political rant' and release it. No wrestling with my own problems-- currently I can't think of any as life is flowing along as smoothly as the creek below our house. 

all my creative activity at the moment is editing. being in edit mode is probably the reason for the non-thinking brain when away from the computer. in edit mode, you aren't trying to come up with something new. it is about what you already created. did you get it down logically? can it be said better? is it consistent? very anal work and word for word reading.

i don't take it away with me when i leave the computer as I do when writing something original where i wrestle with what comes next every minute i am not doing an activity that i actually need to think about. so lots of photos and because i have so many with the bumblebee in the apple blossoms as well as the blueberries, one photo a day for awhile with no words. words aren't needed.

you know, to post this looking like my brain is right now, i left out all caps except for titles. do you know how hard that is to do...

I am ready

A good time to think positive... well, actually every day is good for that. This is one of my photos with the quote on my calendar for April.

dreams and reality as a mix

Basically I am not a person who thinks much about what was. Only once in awhile do I purposely think of what my life has been in the past. I am not sure of the why of this. I more or less have the view that today is what matters and either living in the past or future only leads to less joy in the one time I have.

When my son was 6 months old and my daughter three, I thought-- this is it-- this is as good as my life will ever be. I think I might have been right. It's not that I am unhappy with today. That time, however, was an apex, a mountain top moment. Most of the family I loved was still alive. I had my family, my babies. I was strong, felt empowered. Wow, does it get better than that?

I won't say it does get better. Having your children, before the world draws them away is definitely a high, but there have been a lot of wonderful moments since then. They are ongoing and often come in the most unexpected ways. I've said it before and totally believe it-- the smallest moments are often most filled with joy, and they happen all the time for those aware.

We discovered something last week that totally amazed me. I knew that food growing in the ground is still alive when we cook or eat it. That is I knew it abstractly speaking-- like potatoes sprout if they are not used soon enough. You can cut off a carrot from its top, give the top moisture and it will grow  a new top. What I hadn't known was you can take an onion, peel off it's outer layers, slice off part of it to eat, and that onion is still alive. 

It kind of had me thinking about that. I know some feel eating living plants is different than killing living animals to eat; but how do we know the plant doesn't have feelings also? We sliced off part of this living onion, cooked and ate it but it did not kill the onion. We will plant it in the garden and see what happens, but right now it's been one of those things I had never thought about. Does it make for a bit of a philosophical thought as to what is life?

When I am writing something like the recent paranormal trilogy, it requires my thinking a great deal about life, its meaning, and what we take as reality. My dreams this week have been scary with violent people in them. I don't know if that relates to the books I've been writing or the newspapers. A dream the other night was vibrant, very full of images. I woke remembering it. Understanding why I might have dreamed it and very much hoping I don't get more like it. 

In the dream, I had a friend who was having a kind of gathering of mostly Jewish friends but with some like myself also. So I had been to a similar event this lady had in the past, but this time I was surprised how it had grown in sophistication and popularity, as the room was totally filled with all ages, from when she began with maybe six attendees. She was leading it and said everyone would be given a reading to share. I was nervous whether I'd do well with that and kept looking at mine to be sure I would read it right as others did theirs. When it came my turn, I looked down and saw advertising type words, not the ones that had been there. When I hesitated, the friend running this event told me just read; but when I began, she stopped me as the words didn't fit. I looked down and realized the original words had been a layer over these; they were crumbled on the floor. I'd evidently worried them off by holding them nervously and looking at them so many times. About then, there was a knock at the door. A group of Nazi type neighborhood guys showed up, barging in checking whether the room had too many people in it, using any excuse to harass. One of them stopped in front of me and said I was beautiful. He wanted a kiss. I said no. I was married and pointed to my husband who was talking to some others and oblivious to what was going on. This guy then said, that I was too beautiful for someone else to have me, if he couldn't, and he brought out a knife to either slash my face or kill me. That's when I woke.

There are dreams where i can totally understand the why. Our newspapers could explain this one more than my recent writing, but some aspects of it still surprise me. For instance when I was young and probably was beautiful, though I didn't think much about it at the time, I didn't have dreams where people were always telling me how beautiful I was. Now I do. Is my subconscious trying to reassure me about something? I sure don't spend my days lamenting lost beauty. I understand life has changed as have I, but my mind is on other things. So the popping up of people to tell me this is a mystery to me. In the dream I was probably much younger than today although the event seemed very current. 

The woman having the event is not a close friend in my daily life but someone whose blog I read; so not sure why I'd have had her dominant in the dream as though I really knew her. Characters in my dreams rarely relate to who I am interacting with daily. When my kids are in a dream, it's generally them much younger-- even if I am not.

Also why the violent dreams lately? It's the second one this week where a group is proving dangerous. The last one was going to a parking garage to get my vehicle where nobody was on that level except a threatening youth gang. Again I woke before bad things happened-- even if they seemed eminent.

If I watched violent movies I'd understand this better; but I am being very cautious in what I see-- currently sticking to comedies, musicals, chick flicks, or kid movies. I guess the newspapers are enough because we don't seem as a world community to have learned anything by past mistakes. 

Where it comes to nightmares, I might normally get one several times a year not several times in one week. Can I blame it on the blood moon-- which we didn't get to see thanks to cloud cover?

Finally on this business of great moments. This week when I was taking a catnap, one of the cats came to lay with me-- then the other. They provide so much joy to each other and us. When we lost Pepper, one of those low points, I knew we needed a cat who would work for the three of us. With Raven we found her.

life is fair-- or not

 Yachats, Oregon March 2014

Once in awhile it seems good to stop and think about life values and philosophy. For me, there are so many things that can inspire that kind of thinking. I read someone talking about how unfair life was in a certain situation and i wrote the following.

One thing about fairness... life isn't. As best I know and have seen it, it's just the truth. We do bring on some of our own woes but often what happens is something we call fate. Seeing it go well for someone who doesn't deserve it based on faulty character and another suffer with losses or trying to do something good and finding it turned to dust definitely can be frustrating if we think there should be fairness. Maybe it is fairer than it looks, if we could see the cosmic picture, but my personal take on fair is don't look for it in how things work out. Live it as best you know and that's the only reward you can expect-- that you did it your way and true to what you believe is right.

If someone has a belief in a cosmic daddy, they will look for rewards and punishments to what has been done. it gives the believer comfort to think it all is balanced out eventually. I even wrote a novella (second in the series to come end of this month) called When Fates Conspire, which came from a dream, about purpose and fairness in life. It's a paranormal but based on things I've read and that dream.

The book indicates that life is fair but only in the long run and with the assumption that reincarnation is true. I know some think the fundamentalist Christian view of life is fair but to me it would not be. So a man lives an entire lifetime as a good person but at the very last he rejects Christ because he ceases to believe-- hell. Another man lives a life of hell raising and hurting others but at the very last he declares he believes-- heaven. 

The Old Testament view of God and eternity would seem even less fair. It indicates a god who can attack for reasons humans barely understand, who can ask a man to kill his son to prove he loves God, who tests a loyal man by putting him through hell but then it's okay because he later rewards him... Really, you want to believe in that version of fairness and God? It's more like the Greek gods than what I'd want to see as the god that really determines our fate.

So if reincarnation is true, regardless of the story of Jesus or not, then life can be fair but not in one lifetime. That would mean we learn and make right what we can and if we didn't in this lifetime, we will in another. For those who suffered seemingly to no reason, it would be fair because it would be their choice to have gone through that to grasp a deeper level of say compassion. Reincarnation would enable life fairness-- nothing else really does.

And even with reincarnation, we cannot worry about whether it's fair. We should concentrate on learning our lessons and understand that we can't make right a terrible wrong with a few pretty words. It will take recompense. We should not look for life being fair to determine how much joy we can receive from living. 

If we have been blessed-- good. If we have suffered-- hope it had a purpose we cannot see. But live each day as best we can with what level of truth we have to date. Then fairness doesn't matter.

a beach garden

 Whenever I am at the coast, I enjoy the gardens. The temperatures are just a bit more temperate and often I have found delightful yards to photograph as I walk down a street. I rarely know much about those who created them.

Here, however are more pictures from JJ's garden where I did get a chance to know more about its creator. I think what made her garden so exceptional was not just the many different influences or the use of plants and textures, but those tiny vignettes where you came around a corner and there was another surprise. Because of her use of diverse plants, even when there weren't a lot of flowers, there was so much to admire.

I do want to go back. A painter could spend a week painting just her gardens with their delightful juxtaposition of shapes and ideas.

Then when I did a bit of a search, I came up with this. It was a garden tour a year after JJ had died. It shows clearly how when the bones of a great garden are established, they continue to remain strong years later. Yachats Garden Tour.  This tour was in 2004 and yet the garden still looks much today as it did ten years ago. That says something all on its own.

ACA and a rant

Although I haven't yet put my rants into my blog list  (I am debating whether I want it there), for you who are interested, know that I opened it up again-- at least for now. The ACA and the misinformation out there on it is part of why. 

So check it out if you are interested in either a rant or discussing the ACA. As usual, the comments, both pro and con are what make it better. It's good to read what others think and great when readers add their own experience, fears or ideas.

The ACA

life of a writer... or two

while in Yachats

 

This week, for my other blog, Rain Trueax, I wrote a piece on how I do my writing-- my personal goals for what I want my books to say. 

It must have been a good time for thinking about such as I came across an article by another romance author with her own process which I not only related to but found fascinating. 

If you are interested in writing yourself or reading, I think you will find both pieces of interest.

The hero's journey

Crazy life of a mostly sane writer