How about this winter, huh? I don’t know what it’s like where you live, but here in Skelleyville we’ve gotten about 3,000 feet of snow this year. Couple that with the polar vortex and its subzero temperatures, and we have not been able to maintain our routine of walking conferences.

Call us wimps if you must, but we’d rather stay inside with the fire and a mug or two of hot buttered rum.

A few weeks ago the temperature rose several degrees and we felt brave enough to suit up and take some walks in the winter wonderland. It felt good to stretch our legs, and to have the time to talk through some of the issues that have come up in the editing of the music novel. Sure we can have those conversations inside, but we find that we often make more progress as we progress around the neighborhood. A change of scenery is always good, and the physical activity puts us in a different headspace. New ideas emerge. It’s pretty cool.

So it’s a good thing we found another way to derail ourselves!

Meet Lady Marzipan. She’s incredibly cute, and incredibly distracting. When we’re working in the writing cave, sometimes she’ll lay and quietly guard the door against invading uffdeguffs (and teenagers), but more often she loses her tennis ball under the furniture, or chews on her squeaky octopus, or rattles her plastic chew bone on the hardwood floor. (Yes, our cave has a wooden floor. Doesn’t yours?)

And who can resist that face?

Now when we take walks, she joins us, and our conversations go like this:

Jen: How’s that scene you’re working on?

Kent: Going pretty well. I’m getting close to the — hey, Lady Marzipan! That’s not your squirrel!

She’s a fuzzy little test of our multitasking abilities. (They’re not all that impressive, turns out.) But on the plus side, Kent and Jen now have someone to cast the tie-breaking vote on those rare occasions when it’s needed!