Annette Dashofy's Blog

When I was a kid, our farm gardens were massive. We had acres of potatoes. My grandmother's "kitchen garden" had to be at least a thousand square feet. Corn, cabbage, cucumbers, tomatoes, green beans, kohlrabi, onions, peppers, and so much more. Rhubarb, horseradish, and dill grew along its borders. We had an apple orchard as well as pear and peach trees. 

Now, we have a ten-acre chunk of that 150-acre farm, and our little garden has grown progressively smaller over the decades. This year we have onions, cucumbers, a few sad tomato plants, peppers, and one plant each of yellow squash and zucchini. Those last two are threatening to take over the world alongside the cucumbers.

We've given bushels of the things away. People see my husband coming and run. They can't escape. He drives by when folks aren't home and leaves squash on their doorstep. 

I've been cooking and eating squash and cukes for lunch and supper every single day. Yes, I'm sick of them. And just when the piles of them start to look manageable, my husband goes to the garden and brings back twenty more. I kid you not. 

This is the modest collection currently on our porch. 

That big one had been hiding.

Plus, we have another collection inside.

And we haven't checked the garden yet today. Yes, I should make pickles. No, I'm not going to. I have a book deadline looming. 

But if anyone out there wants to do it, let me know. I will happily provide the cucumbers.

Fifteen years ago today, the Universal Cat Distribution System deposited this tiny, wormy, flea-infested little one on our front porch. I tried to find a home for her, but Kensi had already decided THIS was home, and I was her human. I've learned to never question her again. 

Kensi 2010Happy Gotcha Day, Kensi. Kensi 2025

I'm breathing a little easier this week. I completed and turned in my proofreads of No Stone Left Unturned early this week and have been pounding away on the first draft of the fifth Honeywell mystery. As of today, I've topped 75,000 words. I expect this one to be around 90K or a little under, so I'm on target to meet my goal of completion by the end of August. Yay me!

I do have one item on my to-do list that will take up part of my time this coming week. As I mentioned last time, I'm teaching a two-hour workshop for Steel Quill Workshops. It's titled Creating 3-Dimensional Characters and is geared toward all genres and all skill levels. If you're interested, click here to register. The workshop takes place on Sunday, August 24 from 1:00 p.m. until 3:00 at 5858 Forbes Ave., Pittsburgh, PA. 

I'm still here. I even managed to get out for a few in-person events last month.

First, I had the honor of being Linda Castillo's conversation partner for her Pittsburgh stop on her book tour. RAGE, her new Kate Burkholder novel, is fabulous. I loved it and was reminded that I need to go back and pick up a few of her earlier books that I somehow missed.

Photo courtesy of Mystery Lovers Bookshop

Then, I spent a little time at our local Senior Citizen's Center to chat about books with the hometown crowd. 

Photo courtesy of Burgettstown
Senior Center

Finally, I was honored once more to be the conversation partner with Shari Lapena. Her newest thriller, She Didn't See It Coming, was riveting! And the crowd was amazing. 

Photo courtesy of Mystery Lovers Bookshop

Now, for the month of August, I'm mostly holing up in Book Jail. I'm juggling two books right now: drafting Honeywell #5 (which needs a working title) and proofreading No Stone Left Unturned. 

I do have one in-person appearance this month for anyone who's a writer. I'll be teaching a two-hour Creating 3-Dimensional Characters class for Steel Quill Writers Workshops in Squirrel Hill (Pittsburgh), PA on Sunday, August 24. You can check out the details or register here.    

After what has felt like forever, I have book covers for the upcoming third and fourth Detective Honeywell Mysteries.

 I may be totally am biased, but I think they're gorgeous!

You can read the back cover copy descriptions on my website.

Back in March, I was happily munching a salad when something didn't feel right. The hard piece of something that I spit out was one of my crowns. No big deal, I thought. Call the dentist, go in, and get it glued back in place. Then I looked closer and realized the crown had taken a large portion of what was left of the tooth with it.

Okay, so it WAS a big deal. There wasn't enough of the tooth left to repair, so I had to see an oral surgeon to have the root extracted.

(Don't cringe. I'm not going into great deal.)

Unfortunately, while I got in right away for the assessment, I couldn't have the procedure done until this past Monday. Yes, that's a long time.

It wasn't that bad. The doctor was FAST. I was in and out in no time. I refused the narcotic pain meds, opting to use over-the-counter products instead. Note: I highly recommend the Tylenol/Advil combo I've been told to use on several occasions.

However...

While I wasn't in any real pain, I was a tad loopy and a lot sleepy. Monday, following the procedure, I mostly did nothing but wait for the Novocain to wear off. Tuesday, I napped, read, napped, and read some more. Shocking as it may sound, I DID NO WRITING. At all.

Wednesday, I dived back in, but only for a little while because I had another appointment. Not for me. For Kensi and her heart murmur. Thankfully, the report from the veterinary cardiologist was glowing. She told me to keep doing what I've been doing. I'm a relieved cat mom.

Kensi couldn't wait to come home and start washing off the yucky vet hospital stuff.

I'm happy to be back to work on normal stuff today. No doctors, no dentists, no veterinarians. Just me working on my next book and Kensi napping in the sun. Let me tell you, while napping and reading sound heavenly on most days, when it's forced on you, it's not my idea of 

Have you ever put off a task because you expected it to be grueling? That's basically how I approach developmental edits. I have pages and pages of notes from my editor, and I need to find a way to rip apart my book and put it back together to patch the holes she found. 

Guess what? It's never as bad as I think it's going to be. The hardest part is dragging my writer's brain out of the book I'm drafting to sink it into the book that needs to be edited. 

And that's where I am. I received my editorial letter early in the month. It's only a page and a half, which is virtually unheard of for me, and a good part of that is raving about the characters and twists. At the time it hit my inbox, we were recovering from a vicious windstorm and had no power. Then there was preparation for the Pennwriters Conference. 

And my editor told me "no rush." Never ever tell me "no rush" because that' permission to procrastinate. 

I ran out of excuses this week and jumped in. Once again, it's not as bad or as difficult as I anticipated, although all of the issues she pointed out are in the final pages where I didn't satisfactorily wrap up all the threads. I've been re-reading the whole thing and making notes of where I can plant a bit of internal dialogue or where I can insert a touch of foreshadowing to go along with the changes I need to make near the end. All of which, I must say, will make the story more complex and stronger emotionally. 

My goal is to complete these revisions in the coming week so I can get back to drafting Honeywell #5 as of June first.  

 The new laptop arrived.

I remember the old days when I would spend hours...days...a week...getting the new computer set up. Every program had to be installed. Every password had to be remembered, looked up, or changed (because who can remember ALL their passwords???) And that was after the original start up and hours of updates.

Thanks to fiber optic internet, updates took maybe twenty minutes. Then I had to sign in to one account, using a PIN. Voila! My email and photos and virtually everything else effortlessly showed up on the new machine. Even my screensaver was transferred. 

I did have to install my preferred browser since Edge isn't it. Plus Dropbox. Plus Zoom. I'm sure there will be more, but for now, it's pretty well ready to roll. 

Meanwhile, the old laptop is still limping along, so I haven't sent it to the electronics graveyard just yet.

Last weekend's Pennwriters Conference went off without a hitch. Mostly.

Having been a conference coordinator once a long, long time ago, I know there are lots of hitches and glitches behind the scenes. The trick is how you handle them. This year's coordinators handled them beautifully. I'd guess 99.9% of the attendees were unaware and were too busy having fun to notice. Smiling faces abounded.

I had a glitch of my own to contend with. After teaching two workshops on Friday, I had one more to go on Saturday afternoon, and it was the one that totally depended on a PowerPoint slide show. 

Friday night in my hotel room, I reached into my computer bag to pull out my laptop and was startled to feel how hot it was. Not scorching hot, but warmer than usual. Let me add that my beloved laptop is five years old, which seems to be their life expectancy. The battery no longer holds a charge, so I need to keep in plugged in when using it. 

Anyway, I decided to err on the side of caution and powered down the laptop to avoid unpleasant and smokey surprises in the middle of the night. 

Fast forward to Saturday afternoon. Prior to my third and final workshop of the conference, I went upstairs to boot up my laptop and load my PowerPoint presentation so that all I needed to do was plug it into the projector. 

I plugged it in and hit the power button. The lock screen popped up. I typed in my password...

...and the screen went black. I waited. Nothing. I rebooted. The same thing happened again. And again after the third start. I may have said some nasty words. 

The good thing is I was prepared. I had saved the PowerPoint to a flash drive. Even better, I remembered to stick it in my computer case! I shut down the laptop and headed downstairs, clutching my flash drive. 

My travel buddy, Liz Milliron, came to my rescue by lending me her MacBook. With a bit of help from our Pennwriters President/IT expert, I was up and running. And only a few people were aware of the momentary panic I'd suffered minutes earlier.

Lesson learned: ALWAYS have your workshop saved to a flash drive and ALWAYS keep said flash drive in your computer bag.

Epilogue: Sunday morning, my computer came back to life after being left plugged in a while. Apparently, the battery had been so dead, there wasn't enough juice to start it up, even when plugged in. 

My new laptop arrives tomorrow.  

The Pennwriters Conference begins thisFriday, and I’m teaching three workshops, so right now, my focus is on makinglists, packing, and preparing my classes and handouts. I may not be writing,but I’m thinking about writing a lot. 

I do have more news to share. While I’vehad my doubts in recent months, it appears there will be two moreDetective Honeywell Mysteries coming out this year! I have release dates andtitles! But still no cover art. 

The third in the series will be TheDevil Comes Calling and will be released in eBook format on November 7,2025. The fourth will be out in eBook on December 19 and is titled No StoneLeft Unturned. Preorder links are starting to pop up sans the still-missingcovers, but I’m not promoting them until there’s something interesting to lookat. Call me superstitious. It simply never feels real until I have that coverart. 

I also got my developmental edits for NoStone Left Unturned, and they don’t look too daunting. I’ve put a hold ondrafting the fifth book of the series until I tackle these edits, because the waythey affect the ending will also affect the beginning of #5. As I said, I’mthinking. I also expect to feel reenergized and motivated after the conference.I always do. So, I’ll launch into those revisions as soon as I return home andcatch up on sleep.