Lamb or Lion

I can’t tell today whether the fresh snow on the ground counts as a Lamb Day or a Lion Day. When I was a kid–and I don’t know if this is a thing everywhere–I remember teachers in a couple of grades making a big deal out of “in like a lamb, out like a lion” (or vice versa) for March. One year March started like a lion and I remember making a lion out of paper.

As I typed this, I actually paused to google whether this saying is even a thing, as it feels ripe for that kind of Mandela Effect (I am from the Berenstein Universe) since I never hear that phrase used as an adult. But no, apparently it’s still a thing.

The phrase reminds me of the first detective novel I wrote, it was my third finished book and fairly standard thriller/complicated heroine/serial killer kind of thing. I’ve never done anything with it, and will never do anything with it, but one day I might reuse the opening which was some reference to the lamb/lion start of March and it was quiet clever for a nine-teen-year-old.

So I flipped the calendar this morning before getting on the treadmill, and here are my boys this month:

Today’s my writing day for the week and I might actually get some raw words in today, as opposed to revisions, edits, and admin duties.

Saturday night I wrote 4K to finish a West POV story for Patreon, which has been about ten times as hard as it should’ve been because I have to sever myself from books so completely to publish them–which means I’ve done that several times with that series–that it becomes harder and harder to open up again. All patrons are also getting a glimpse at the start of Untitled Livi 7 this afternoon, and I hope the book will continue to shake itself loose and I’ll be able to connect with it.

At the very least, I’m hoping for a few thousand words on Waverly 5 today. It’s not a priority to write but I will feel so much better if I’ve got something really rough done by the time the first releases in May. I’m doing the research for it right now and falling down the rabbit hole of adoption disruption and the loopholes that allow “rehoming” of children.

I have a very high threshold for real-world horror, and I previously figured out the only way I can engage with and write this series is to tackle them but…whew. It’s sort of like true crime involving violence against women, like you reach a point where you just want to walk into the middle of the street and start screaming incoherently over how little anyone seems to care about the vulnerable.

Anyway, I have to stop picking at The Killing Beach and actually format it, so maybe I’ll do that today. Fingers crossed I’m over burnout.