Tag Archives: time

To Camp!

23 Friday Jun 2017

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I’m going camping in July!

Well. Not camping in the traditional sense. At least, not until August – at which points there will be tents and bugs, and a lot of sun.

No, July’s camping is much more virtual. I’m going to be participating in Camp NaNoWriMo. 30 days of cabinmates, forums of other writers, and me finishing this work in progress I have been wanting to finish.

A friend of mine suggested that we both participate. Me, so I can finish my current WIP, and her so she can finally really dig into a book that’s been floating around her head for like two years now.

Now, some of you are probably going, ‘what’s NaNoWriMo?’ and others, who may know about the main NaNoWriMo may be going ‘Camp NaNoWriMo? Did you make this up?’

First and foremost, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. It was started way back when, and it’s when a bunch of us (thousands of us) writers get together for the month of November with the solid idea of writing 50,000 words in a month – ideally it’s towards a novel but some use it to rewrite novels, or do a compilation of short stores, etc. You can find more information at their website: nanowrimo.org

Camp NaNoWriMo is run by the same people who run the original NaNoWriMo. They created Camp NaNoWriMo because they had enough people going ‘but guys, I have finals in November, and we have this whole Thanksgiving Holiday because I live in the states where I have to be social with family! I can’t hole up for a month to write!’ And such, Camp NaNoWriMo was born. Camp is held twice a year, in April and in July. Unlike NaNoWriMo the Original, you can set your own word count for the month. Which makes it the perfect session to finish an already started project, verses trying to write one from start to finish.

And instead of regions that you’re broken into when participating in NaNoWriMo, Camp splits you into cabins of people and there’s a community discussion area where you can chit chat and encourage each other while the month gets going.

Find Camp NaNoWriMo at their website: campnanowrimo.org

Over all, it should be fun. And by the end of it, I should be able to go ‘It’s Finished!’. At least, that’s the plan!

Are you planning to participate in Camp NaNoWriMo? Let me know down in the comments below!

Gettin’ Hot in Here

06 Tuesday Jun 2017

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 So, my weekends plans had me out and about this past weekend. I drove down to St. Louis, MO and had a wonderful time out in Tower Grove Park. If you live in the area and never been, I suggest it. If you’re visiting St. Louis and want a nice place to eat lunch all picnic in the park, I suggest it for that too. The park is absolutely beautiful.

Though, even more so when it’s packed for several blocks with vendors selling books, clothes, hand made soaps, jewelry, and the like. And even better when some of those vendors sell these amazing Kebabs and frozen lemonade.

I didn’t come home with a lot of items, except for a tarot reading and dream pouch from a beautiful and amazing woman, everything I bought was food. And only one of those food items came home with me. Normally I’m all over getting the cute things to hang in windows, or a book from one of the local authors that sells their books there. But this year I was really trying to scale back. I’m trying to take cleaning my house seriously, and for better or worse that includes not bringing stuff home from a big show like this.

The frozen lemonade though. Kept me running. This whole weekend was 100+ degrees. Thankfully a tree was kind enough to share it’s branches with me and keep me shaded for most of the day. What sun I received, that made me look like an angry lobster on Sunday, has already faded into a tan color. Being very pale (ancestors were Swedish, German, Polish, and Irish) it’s super weird to have a little color on me right now.

Between the heat and the activities, and the driving, I wasn’t able to write at all while I was away. And yesterday was writing fail. I came back from a four day weekend to find that basically everything was going wrong and the office I work for was sinking without me. Great for job security, not so great for being able to get a little writing in before hours, during lunch, and after hours. Coupled with my new mattress arriving, I was basically zonked out after I was able to lug it up to my room and get it all unwrapped and then sheet-ed. I’m hoping for a little more success with getting words on a page tonight after I get home. And while for you, my lovely readers, this counts as words on a page, I’m not counting it towards words on a page myself because it’s not words towards my WIP. So time to buckle down when I get home.

Granted, a lot of times I like to use my laptop and write from bed. The last couple months have been a little more difficult doing that because my mattress was uncomfortable and crap, so this new mattress should lead to more writing at night before I crash too. Here’s hoping anyway.

Until next time, let me know how your weekend went. Did you get a lot done? Did you relax due to the high heats? Leave me a comment below!

Life – Forever Tired & NaNo Prep

03 Monday Oct 2016

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jax with yarn

Hello wide world of readers, I hope that your day, your week, is going well so far. Though, it is only Monday.

I wish I had exciting news about why I’ve been so missing, but in reality it’s fairly boring. With everything going on, coupled with a re-emerging issue with low iron, I’ve pretty much had no energy to do much of anything but sleep after I get home from work. Which, means that there’s also very little time for writing, editing, and plotting out new books. I keep hoping things will change, who knows, as I try to take iron to supplement the problem, maybe I’ll find it a little easier to try and get more work done. I can, as ever, hope.

And I’m sure you’re asking, well what about weekends? That would be a good question. Weekends have been fairly busy doing stuff for a non-for-profit organization that I’m part of. This last weekend, as we transitioned into October was the first free weekend I’ve had in a long while, and I spent Saturday DnD’ing with a group of friends to blow off some steam and have fun – we ended the night watching Deadpool, and Sunday ended up being a mass cleaning day. The always sleeping or out of the house hasn’t just affected my writing but also the cleanliness of my house, so I’m now trying to fix that some and create a better writing environment for myself.

Which does kind of bring me to my, hopefully, exciting news, which is that I’m going to dedicate my November to writing and participate in a new year of NaNoWriMo!

I’m thinking of doing a set of shorts, possible. Though I have a friend that’s been wanting to co-author a book with me, so if we can get that planned out and it works we may try to write that together for NaNo instead. I really need to dig into the edits for my two previous novels, but that will hopefully come in December, when I’ve gotten back into the writing habit and working habit, and with more iron in my system hopefully giving me more energy over all.

Wish me luck!

Are you participating in NaNo? Leave a note and let me know in the comments!

The Busy Girl and the Non-Existent Updates.

11 Monday Apr 2016

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Bellville clock Back in January I set up some goals for myself. Personal things I wanted to accomplish with this blog. And looking back on everything now, I’m left standing here wondering exactly where the last three months went.

Time. It’s something that everyone wants, and we just never seem to have enough of. I’ve been told I’m bad at budgeting my time, a fact that I make no mistake in denying. Working a 9-5 job Monday through Friday means that I have very little time left for myself personally, and my downtime, what helps me to destress a lot recently has been video games – specifically Stardew Valley and Sims 4. So when I could be writing, I’m playing video games for a little bit before bed. When I could be writing, I’m playing video games before mom’s up and moving and we’re starting our day on the weekends. A end up playing a lot when I’m not entirely in the writing mood, or too tired to really do anything else. But, I do also agree, I need to get back into better writing habits. Not just for my WIPs but for these blog posts as well.

I always have the best of intentions, and I don’t always follow through on them. I’m a serial procrastinator to boot.

So all I can do is try. Try to do better writing. Try to do better updating. Try to not let my 9-5 job eat so much of my time and energy that I don’t have any when I get home. I’m kind of a WIP myself, trying to do better and not fall into the same, old, bad habits.

I’ve been reading a little more, so I’m hoping to get a few reviews up soon. And hopefully more and more as I read more, and write more. Here’s hopin’ right?

NaNoWriMo – Check In – Day 8

08 Sunday Nov 2015

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kittensleep Today I didn’t do any writing. While it might seem like a not so great choice for some people, I just needed a me day. I went out and did some shopping for things I have been needing, and a couple things I wanted. And then I went out with a friend and we did a double feature movie night at the theater, seeing Crimson Peak and Paranormal Activity back to back.

So while I will have double the word count to do tomorrow, I think over all it’s worth it because it’s made me feel better as a whole. I was able to relax and do a couple fun things today. Something I needed.

Words Written Today: 0

Total: 11,725

Writing, ever Writing

02 Sunday Aug 2015

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Warning! Rambling Ahead – Kind of a stream of consciousness post.

Sometimes I’m just not sure how other authors do it. They just have book after book coming out, and I’m stuck with just a very small collection. Granted, life hasn’t been exactly kind to me recently in the letting me write department between my dad dying, and now my mom contracting a serious medical condition. It’s left my head nearly constantly in migraine land, and my will to do much at all almost nill.

But I’m not sure watching other self publishing authors come out with books every few months helps me either. How does that work? Did I just decide to get my self publishing-ness out there too soon because I only had two finished works and a notebook of ideas that are either on my ‘to start’ list or on my ‘started but not complete’ list? Or is it just that my pace, especially with life is just slower all together.

I know I should probably stop worrying about others and focus on what’s currently in front of me, which means writing and taking care of my mom. But, well, as nearly everyone knows, the internet is hard to stay off of sometimes, and once you’re online, it’s really easy to pick up bad habits like watching things.

This week I’ll be headed out to a campground, with some sketchy wifi that only works if you’re in the right spot in the camp barn, and nearly no cell service either. (gotta love nature, and just proves that if the cell companies promise you they’ll reach everywhere – they’re lying because this little campground barely gets anyone service provider wise)
Mom and are are trying to get away some, leave work behind, try and relax and breath in nature. The weather is even supposed to be dropping to the 70’s for us so it shouldn’t be too hot or humid.

I’m hoping to try and get some of those works in progress complete, or at least limping closer to completion. Maybe take a stroll through my ideas and either flush some out, or narrow some focus down so that I can work at a productive rate.

Focus has been my hard thing as of late. Too much noise, too much going on, too much emotion that I’m bottling up. Not enough outlet, and not enough energy to ignore the white noise. I have been told by friends, take one day at a time, which is great advice, but I think she was still too broad, and that I need to start working on taking an hour at a time to really try and get things moving. Maybe once I can get moving again, it’ll help my motivation in all things. Because it’s not just my writing that’s suffered, but my performance at work and the state of the house – and the fact that we never cook anymore. I LOVE to cook, and we’ve been doing take out nearly every day for lunch and dinner – and if not ordering fresh just re-heating the left overs.

I want to get back into cooking, get back into those delicious smells not coming from the front door, but from my kitchen. It’ll not only save on the wallet, but it’s healthier over all too. The biggest thing I need to hunt down are some easy recipes. Things that can be prepped and cooked in about 30-45 minutes, because after I get home from work I have little to no energy.

So once I’m hope from camping, that’s going to be one of my priorities – finding recipes that I can cook for us after work.

Have a recipe you think I should try? Leave it in the comments.
(Though note, anything shrimp is a no go because we both hate shrimp)

Musings of the day

24 Tuesday Jun 2014

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Do you ever take a look at an author you follow, after a long break of reading their books because something in life just didn’t let you get to it, or you just have so many authors it takes a while to circle back to them and by the time you do they have a long list of books that you’re now sorely behind on? That’s me right now. I have so much going on at my 9-5 and at home that I haven’t been doing much ready, as you may remember from my last update. But also, I follow so many authors, and am trying to read/keep up with so many series that occasionally I let one slip. And I turn around and what used to be on book 3 is now on book 16. And I look at my bookshelf with it’s full stacks and no space and whimper because where am I going to find space for those 13 books, and how am I going to find the time to read all 13 books, and truth be told because it’s been that long I might as well call it 16 and start at the beginning in reading them.

It’s not just one author I’ve done this with either. I have several authors I paused in my reading when their books were in single digits and now that I’m looking at the series we’re into double digits.

Aside from finding the time to catch up on them, I have another serious question that I’m facing. Do I finish out my printed, sits on a shelf collection, and buy a new bookshelf in the process, or do I throw the feel of those pages in my hand to the wind and just start getting the series in ebook format? I’m torn on which to do because as someone that suffers from very, very mild OCD it really bothers me to not have the complete collection of things, and I like the feel and weight of books in my hand while I read, and there’s something awesome about the look of them on the shelf, all together and spines cracked because they’ve been well read. On the other hand, I’m running out of space in order to store my books and I am starting to fear the move if I ever need to go anywhere.

What are your thoughts on ebook verses print copies?

First Steps

07 Monday Jan 2013

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Finding time to do everything that needs to be done in a day just seems like such a challenge these days. As a kid, there’s never enough time, but it’s for games and fun. And honestly, there really is never enough time for having fun. Especially since fun seems to shrink when set next to work and the rest of life as a whole as we grow older.

Now it’s not just fun I seem to be missing out on, but the ability to write as much as I want. Keeping up with everything is a full time job all on its own sometimes, and then there’s the actual job stuff, and the stories that need attention. Here is to the new year giving a little more time for the better things in life, good friends, good times, and as an author I always need good stories to make it out of my head and into a word document.