Author portraits don’t lie…

I created this for my author picture on my Amazon Author Central page:

D. W. Weaver sitting in a dark living room by the fireplace writing his next novel on a laptop. A cat is watching his work from the armrest. A glass with an adult beverage is sitting on an end table next to the chair.
Author’s Dream

This is what writing is all about, right? Peace and quiet. A blazing fire. The glow of a laptop–unromantic, but easier than trying to read my handwriting. A kitty purring contentedly nearby. An adult beverage nearby so I can purr contentedly. And plenty of time to just think.

The words should just flow, right?

Well, the artwork doesn’t lie, but it does stretch the truth…

  • Fireplace: We don’t use it that much, and I don’t sit that close to it, but there is a fireplace in the living room where I work, so this is moderately accurate.
  • Laptop:  Mine’s a Mac, but other than that, it’s accurate.
  • Occasional adult beverage: Usually tea, occasionally spiked with something, never as fancy as the crystal in the artwork, but other than that, it’s accurate. Come to think of it, a mug of spiked tea might carry even more literary romance!
  • Me: Not as young and not as skinny as my avatar. Hey, it’s the Internet.
  • Cat: The cat in the artwork does look like one of our cats, but she’s not as young and not as skinny as her avatar either. The big problem accuracy-wise is that she never just sits there and observes. Either she’s not around at all, or she crawls into my lap, tries to squeeze under my arm in search of scritches, and/or walks over the keyboard. If you have a cat and a laptop, I’m sure you’re shocked–shocked–to hear this.
  • Time: I work full-time and write when I can. What’s this “time” of which you speak?
  • Peace and quiet: Here’s where accuracy goes right out the window. For one thing, when either cat does decide to play the crawl-all-over-us thing, our dogs get agitated, and I have to put down the laptop to restore order. For another thing, Mrs. Weaver is an interactive news junkie. When she’s keeping up with the news–either on TV or her tablet–she likes to interact with it. Usually by commenting on dumb things and yelling at the really dumb things.

So if the next story is slow in coming, I blame the news. And the dogs.