At some point during the stay-at-home experience, I jumped onto the decluttering and simplifying wagon. It's something I've meant to do for entirely too long now but without the excuse of being away from home all the time, well, there were no more excuses (okay, there were but harder to sell). 

If you asked me before 2020 what I collected, I would have answered crystal horses and Venetian masks. And I do ... but, it turns out, they are the smallest of my, um, let's just call them collections. 

This didn't come as a huge surprise, but I have a mug problem. I love mugs. If you've followed me on social media for any length of time, you've seen many of my mugs. And, well, yeah ... just look at the top of any blog post and my addiction is kinda obvious. When I reorganized the kitchen cabinets, I moved the mugs to the larger of the cabinets right above the espresso machine. My justification was "above the espresso machine" but that didn't fool anyone. 

And you'll be proud to know that even during the stay-at-home stint I managed to acquire a new mug.

It's a well known quirk in my family that I have to save every cork. There are containers throughout the house literally overflowing (especially now that I haven't gone to stores in search of another glass container. Several years ago I made a cork board but really, that didn't make much of a dent in the stash.

Griffin is trying to help with the overflow situation by stealing corks and taking them to his own hiding place (same place I assume he keeps the erasers and pens and whatever else he manages to steal from me).

And one more thing I seem to be incapable of passing up ... cooking magazines. Now if I only made some of the recipes in those magazines!

There's a building in our community that used to be a charming restaurant. That restaurant went out of business several years ago and the building sits empty and boarded up. Every time I drive by, I imagine it transformed into a bookshop. I can see comfy chairs next to the oversized fireplace, a little coffee shop in the "sunroom", and shelves of inspiring books.

You won't be surprised then to learn that any book about a bookshop is almost an automatic read for me. Add to that long lost artifacts hidden in the bookshop's walls, family secrets, a charming old man, and the possibilities of love, and The Lost and Found Bookshop went right up the TBR pile.

From Goodreads:
Somewhere in the vast Library of the Universe, as Natalie thought of it, there was a book that embodied exactly the things she was worrying about.

In the wake of a shocking tragedy, Natalie Harper inherits her mother’s charming but financially strapped bookshop in San Francisco. She also becomes caretaker for her ailing grandfather Andrew, her only living relative—not counting her scoundrel father.

But the gruff, deeply kind Andrew has begun displaying signs of decline. Natalie thinks it’s best to move him to an assisted living facility to ensure the care he needs. To pay for it, she plans to close the bookstore and sell the derelict but valuable building on historic Perdita Street, which is in need of constant fixing. There’s only one problem–Grandpa Andrew owns the building and refuses to sell. Natalie adores her grandfather; she’ll do whatever it takes to make his final years happy. Besides, she loves the store and its books provide welcome solace for her overwhelming grief.

After she moves into the small studio apartment above the shop, Natalie carries out her grandfather’s request and hires contractor Peach Gallagher to do the necessary and ongoing repairs. His young daughter, Dorothy, also becomes a regular at the store, and she and Natalie begin reading together while Peach works.

To Natalie’s surprise, her sorrow begins to dissipate as her life becomes an unexpected journey of new connections, discoveries and revelations, from unearthing artifacts hidden in the bookshop’s walls, to discovering the truth about her family, her future, and her own heart.

If I had to put a one-word label on my writing from 2020 it would be Jumbled. I started out the year on a pretty solid path but it didn't take long for me to lose my footing. I spent a couple of frustrating months flip-flopping between self-doubt and determination. One week I was writing like a woman possessed, the next I was deleting more than I was putting down. And if that wasn't enough, I couldn't settle on what project to work on (but that's another post). 

We've all heard the advice to go for a walk in nature or manhandle exercise equipment or clean toilets or use all the hot water in the shower or whatever gives you the change of scenery and mental break when you're struggling with your manuscript. 

I've used exercise to jump-start ideas and I crochet when I'm stumped on a plot point. But the busy brain that took over this year was more than either of those could cure. What worked? Switching genres. I wrote a draft of a children's book and a short story. Here's why that helped ... 

When I write women's fiction, I have to be on a computer. I've tried writing longhand, nothing happens. The first draft is a messy collaboration between my brain and fingers. I don't stop to edit or reread. Editing, however, is done on paper but again, different post. 

I've learned over the years, though, that children's books flow from brain to pen. I have to write those out longhand and then edit on the computer. 

And the short story, well, that turned out to be a typed first draft and typed edit. Go figure! 

The switch in formats and genres, allowed my creative braincells to let loose while still working on the fundamentals that are consistent across all writing -- character development, story structure, conflict, plot, setting, etc.

Now for the fun part of seeing what -- if anything -- can become of those new projects. :-)