Let's Go Crazy

Welcome to the first Coffee with Tawdra

☕ Good morning from the porch.

Today’s coffee is in my Prince mug, because it seemed like the appropriate choice after a week of traveling, unpacking, and getting ready to begin Chapter Two.

“We are gathered here today to get through this thing called Life.”

Prince had a point.

Life has a funny way of taking us places we never planned to go. Sometimes those detours become some of our favorite stories.

This week feels a little like that to me...

I just returned from my first year as a signing author at Writers on the River. After almost fifteen years published, and almost twenty in the business, firsts are few and far between!

While my invitation to sign at WOTR was extended last fall, and I had every intention of being there, I had a few small bumps in the road that made me second-guess the decision, including a pop-up respiratory infection and a son who decided to move to Montana two weeks before I was scheduled to depart.

BUT! With a good deal of encouragement from my family, I decided to take the leap and drive to East Peoria on my own. I’m so glad I did; the signing was wonderful, I met incredible readers (some of whom are reading this Substack!), and the drive was so much fun.

Now I’m home, unpacked, and settled in to concentrate on the launch of Chapter Two while I enjoy my morning mug of heaven—um, I mean, coffee.

Where do you most like to start your day? Are you a leap-out-of-bed type who hustles through a shower and prep for the day before sailing out the door to commute to work? Or do you lie in bed, scrolling and reading and waking up slowly?

I’ve always been a lie-in-bed-until-they-kick-me-out kind of woman, but in the past year, that’s become more difficult to enjoy. Our fourteen-year-old kitty Lenni (short for Mrs. Lennon, a name chosen by my Beatles-loving kids back in the day) has begun standing in my bedroom doorway around 7 AM and meowing LOUDLY until I drag myself out of bed and into the kitchen, where I open her favorite window (she sits there to judge the neighbors) and serve her a small bowl of whipped cream. (Don’t ask me how this habit got its start. It’s absolutely ridiculous and proof that I’m a big old pushover when it comes to my furbabies.)

Somehow, between serving my small furry overlord, I manage to brew coffee, pour it into a mug, doctor it up (for me, that’s stevia and Nutpods, with a scoop of collagen powder), and sit down with my journal, my daily NYT puzzles (I do Wordle, Connections, Strands, the Midi, and the Mini—and sometimes the full crossword).

And on Tuesdays, of course, I’m also chatting with you.

Coffee has always been a social beverage for me. I began drinking it around the kitchen table with my boyfriend’s Italian family, or sitting in a hotel suite at the Thayer Hotel with my soon-to-be mother-in-law. Later, it was what my family did at the close of a meal, lingering at the close of dinner, chatting and sharing ideas. Or sometimes, my mom or sister or cousin or aunt might stop by to have a cup of coffee during the day.

I miss that.

So right now, I’m sitting on the porch, my feet up on the ottoman, letting my brain wake up. I’m picturing you in the deep and comfortable chair across from me, hands wrapped around your own mug of caffeinated goodness, as we talk about the important things in life.

Family.

Friendship.

Music.

And books. Oh, yes, here on the porch we talk about books all the time. We dish on our favorite characters and what they’re doing or not doing. We gasp over a dreaded cliffhanger. And we sigh when someone brings up that guy.

These days, my book thoughts are preoccupied with Kyle Ward and Lissie McConnell, the two main characters in Ball Skills, a book I’ve been writing off and on for over a year. This is not my norm, taking so long to finish a book, but then, a bunch of stuff isn’t normal these days—and who’s to say what’s normal for me now?

I like to live with my characters for a while before I write their story. I already know a little about Kyle; he’s the older brother of Jenny Ward, who you may have met in Playing Pretend, a fake-romance, brother’s-best-friend love story. Kyle is the aforementioned brother, and I’m not sure how jazzed he’s going to be when he hears what little sister has been up to down in Florida.

But it was actually something about Lissie’s past that broke this story wide open for me. Something I hadn’t guessed but that makes her motivation—and her choices—so much more understandable.

Ball Skills will be released next year, but I’ll be sharing some tidbits with you here and there.

And if you follow me on Instagram or TikTok, you got a peek at Kyle’s football trading card yesterday! Hubba, hubba . . .

Well, my friends, now that my brain is clicking away on all cylinders (or at least most of them), I’m going to jump inside to my desk and get some words on the proverbial page.

Besides, my coffee needs a little refresh.

Until next time...

Keep believing in happily ever after.

Love,
Tawdra <3