Spring in Florida

It’s that time of year again, the time when the birds on our canal engage in their mating rituals. I witnessed one the other day between two large herons that was spectacular—strutting and carrying their wings out to their sides, making themselves look larger than they already are. Turtles, too, engage in their lovemaking, no small feat of congress while swimming. The mockingbirds have returned in number to begin building nests in our hibiscus bushes, so we’ll have to be careful not to disturb the nurseries when we prune. So, Spring is in the air as they say. But that’s not what I mean by this time of year.

It’s hard to enjoy the spectacle of season change amid the files and papers that are spread through our small house. It’s time to prepare our taxes to be sent to our tax preparer. Despite the minimal amount of record keeping to remain current with book sales, purchases and promotional activities that come with being an author, it seems that the work necessary to file the Schedule C is not in proportion to the return on the “author” designation. Perhaps if I made more money at this profession, I would feel less burdened at the paperwork, but, if I made more money, I’d probably hire an accountant to do my books.

The preparation angst is exaggerated by many other factors. We spend half our year in Florida and the other half in New York. Tax preparation takes place in Florida, so there is always the chance that some important paper has been left up North. That is usually the case. Both of us are authors, doubling the paper clutter. In addition, our place here is small and all the rooms except for the bathroom and bedroom are contiguous with one another. The only way to get away from the clutter is to take a shower or go to bed. Papers reside on every horizontal surface. There is almost no place to sit for either us or the cats. It’s difficult to eat meals because the kitchen and dining table as well as our tiny desks are covered with files. Books to be checked to make certain our inventory counts are accurate sit on the floors in the living room and dining area. You need a GPS to find the couch and the television.

That’s just the physical disruption. There is the emotional turmoil brought on by misplacing papers. Neither of us likes doing this task, and we each have our own approach, so asking each other for help is, well, no help. We probably write cozy mysteries because we have expended our swearing vocabulary at this time of year and nothing that would offend the gentle reader is left over to spill onto the page. We are in a state of stress and anxiety which we communicate in not so nice words to the other and to our cats who then become stressed also. Drinks before dinner become not merely a luxury but a necessity. Our cats hide in their kitty cubes and come out only to seek food.

Federal taxes completed, we move on to state taxes, for both states. Once we get through this, there is a good month ahead for selling books with an arts and crafts show here in our community and a library presentation in the area. We try to ignore the obvious downside to those events: more book keeping. Yet we enjoy meeting those who love to read and who read what we write.

In the coming month I will finish my edit on hubby’s third book, and then I’m on to an edit on one of the books in my Florida series and continued work on the seventh book in the Eve Appel mysteries. Writing, and even editing, is the best thing about being an author. By the beginning of January next year, I will have forgotten the dark days of tax preparation and will be reminded only when I find my tax preparer’s forms in my email. I will begin the horror all over again.