Top Ten Pet Peeves, And The Trouble With Too Many Tabs

I love it when I sign on ready to share some meaningful behind the scenes moment, not only because I get to share something I've learned, but also because it's proof that I'm still learning. But the truth is, I have quiet weeks just like anyone else, and sometimes author life is actually...well, boring.

Some days pass peacefully, and instead of discovering some deep revelation, I just get out of bed, take my kid to school, go home and write, pick my kid up from school, eat dinner with her, and go to bed. Sure, I might read a little in between, or find something funny online, and my daughter and I often have long conversations I value deeply, but most of the time, those slow days are their own quiet kind of treasure.

The trouble is, they leave me without anything big to say—and here's a little fun fact about me: having nothing to say is SO. ANNOYING. So it was almost funny when I realized that maybe the things that annoy me are actually a great place for this post to land.

And it's not like I haven't talked about this before. I've mentioned rage-bait culture and why I generally refuse to participate. I've mentioned my trauma history and how painful it is to spend time around people who make it their hobby to piss everyone off. But pet peeves? Those little things that irritate me no matter how hard I try to look the other way? The everyday annoyances we all have?

Maybe today's a good day to get honest about mine.

A friend of mine recently finished reading the Freedom Series, and she texted me all the way through the second book (by the way, those texts are absolutely my new drug of choice, caffeine be damned). She told me how she shared parts of the story with her boyfriend, how Christine's trauma sat itself down and held hands with her own. She sent me quotes from sections she loved, told me when the story made her laugh, made her cheer, made her angry.

She told me how she felt about the end. She told me it's a true story—and when I said, "Not exactly, but it's based on real things that happen to real women," she put ten toes down and came back with, "It's a true story in my opinion." Because she found so much of herself in it.

Then she said, "I finished. I wrote a review. Never done one before." And she asked for more.

So I told her about Selkie, where I am in the process, and when to expect a new release. And I felt bad because I wanted to share more. I wanted to send screenshots and scenes. Pieces of Annie and Malik and the sheer beautiful magic of the Selkie Trilogy. I wanted to give her a promise that storytelling lives in the next story long after the first has ended, even when the two are not at all the same.

But then I thought about you. And I wanted to share with you, too. So I held back, planning to set up the Selkie page here on my author blog.

And honestly, that's where the peeves come in. I hate incomplete things. I hate a long to-do list. I hate holding back and I hate waiting and I hate the long-form admin that lives behind these stories that wake me up in the morning.

But I couldn't make the Selkie page right away because I had too many tabs at the top of this blog. Could I have made another one anyway? Sure, but it would've looked weird. Could I have set up the page and added it as a link in the sidebar? Sure, but it would've felt disconnected from the others. And thus began an entire day of effort, during which the Selkie page never actually got created and blog navigation made me want to tear my hair out.

Writing life is not all glamour, I promise.

So there I sat, consolidating three pages to make room for one. My favorite books, favorite products, and favorite Undaunted women are now listed together under "Top Tens." Just for fun, I also added a top ten list of things I've found myself wishing for. And by the end of the day, when it was finally time to set up that Selkie page?

Y'all, I closed the laptop, grumbled a couple of words Jesus wouldn't approve of, and went to bed.

And what's funny is that I ended up finding a list of my own Top Ten Pet Peeves a few days later, and it felt a little like my past self teasing my present self. "Keep it real, girlfriend, and don't sweat the small stuff." Which is hilarious, because that Top Ten list? It really is mostly small stuff.

But what can I say? I'm human, too.

*****

Sometimes there's no big revelation, and that's okay. Sometimes a quiet week sprinkled with minor irritation and ignorable grievances actually is the whole story. And even if this whole thing started because I needed a place to share information about the Selkie Trilogy, I think it all worked out just fine. The Top Ten page is up and I love it. The Selkie Trilogy page is up (excerpt included), and I love that too. I'm already checking my texts for tidbits from my friend, which is crazy because the new book won't release until January...

Exhibit A: We get impatient, too.

The thing is, it's okay if it took some rearranging to get there, because that's what life really is anyway. We're constantly changing, rearranging our views, our preferences, our hobbies, our habits. And yes, even our personal pet peeves.

And maybe the funniest part of this is that it all started with an impulsive trip down an unplanned administrative rabbit-hole, and I still ended up glad I took it. Either way, I'm proud of the progress. I'm proud of pursuing the best way instead of settling for the easy way. But most of all, I'm proud of another book that helped another reader...

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