The Winter Slowdown

I tend to book fewer author events once October is gone. In the first place, the tourists have returned home, at least the ones who shop for books. Visitors who come north in the fall and winter tend to have goals like skiing or snowmobiling, so they don't visit bookstores much.
In the second place, people who live up north start heading south. Michigan bookstores don't host many authors outside the summer months because there just isn't the return on the time invested.
In the third place, the weather is full of surprises, so booking a trip to Traverse City or Grand Rapids is a bit of a crap-shoot. Will I be able to get there, will it be a nail-biting ride, and will anyone else show up if I do make it?
In the fourth place, I need time to focus on writing. I plan one more Dead Detective book (though #3 has yet to appear). I got the cover art for the 4th Simon & Elizabeth (left), which comes out early in 2015, and I'd like to do one more of those. And my Maggie Pill books are taking off nicely, so a third one is forming in my head, sort of a cloudy mist right now with a title (MURDER IN THE BOONDOCKS) and a story line involving rescue horses.
I can't write more than one book at a time, so I need to get them prioritized and sketched out, possibly getting two rough drafts done over the winter. My rough drafts are always REALLY rough, but I write them (to get them out of my head), leave them alone for a month or two, and finally
go back and revise (usually I scream in dismay at how awful they are and THEN revise.) :)
So winter is a good time to stay home and get back to what I'm completely nutty about: writing. That is not to say that if there's a sunny winter's day when someone wants to meet for lunch, I would ever, ever refuse.

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