Tag Archives: writing

First Day of Fall!

22 Friday Sep 2017

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Would you believe we only have about a quarter of the year left before it’s 2018?

Ever since my dad passed away, I feel like the days just fly by before I can grab them and know what’s going on. I don’t know where the summer went, or the other first half of the year, really. I look around and there’s not too much to track the year past doctor notes and bills. This year especially hasn’t been great health wise for mom or I. But we’re managing as we can.

I have been reading a little, tiny bit. Not enough to finish a book. But I’m hoping to finish one this weekend. So there’s that.

WIP wise, I added a little to a current work but not a lot. I need to really get in there and finish. I think my problem is I knew how it started, so I have that down. I know how I want it to end, but I never fully thought out the middle part and so my brain is kind of doing a ‘what do’ thought process as I start at the page. I’m thinking of skipping that section for a little bit and writing the parts I know and maybe the middle will come to me later. I’ve never written the end before the middle before, but hey, I guess there’s a first time for everything.

Also. Did you know we’re getting dangerously close to NaNoWriMo Prep month? Because we totally are. Just 8 days before Prep Month, and a month after that we’re into NaNoWriMo. I’m not sure if I want to try conquering a new project when I have two WIPs that need to edit and polish. But at the same time I don’t think there’d be enough polishing the WIPs that would get me through NaNoWriMo.

Choices, Choices.

Are you thinking about participating in NaNoWriMo? If you are, will you use October to prep for November and what you’ll be writing? Do you plan to pants your way through the month? Let me know in the comments below!

September! September! Where have you gone!

13 Wednesday Sep 2017

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Would you believe that it’s already almost half way through the month? If you didn’t know, I work 9-5 for a University. I won’t say which one, but I take care of the day to day for a small department, helping faculty and graduate students alike. And one of the most hectic times of year, there are two, is the end of August/beginning of September. We have new Graduate Students coming in, getting settled, trying to make sure they’re registered for the classes that they need to take. On top of that normal, we started a new Masters program that I’m lead contact on, so I’ve been getting the small cohort for that program settled.

Personal wise, I’ve been healing from that concussion. My being on a computer has finally worked its way out, mostly, so there’s little to no pain when on it for long periods of time any more. And the headaches and migraines that I’d been getting have slowly gone away. Mom’s been seeing doctors for her breathing issue – it’s still not cleared up at all. They’ve confirmed that she’s only getting 60% of the lung capacity that she should have, but they still can’t actually pin point what is going on to cause the decrease. So still watching over her, making sure she rests as she needs to.

My weekends have also been taken by things, though happier things. A good friend of mine got married, and that was an amazing and beautiful time. Too short, in my opinion, but that’s only because I wasn’t able to stay too long at the reception.

I’m working, extremely slowly – snails speed slowly, on my WIPs. I am. I’m trying to implement a better schedule (or a schedule at all really), where after work and dinner before TV and video games and/or crashing I write for at least an hour. Of course, a good chunk of this time has been spent cleaning my desk to be able to feel like I can write first. But I’m at the point where I should be able to write starting this week.

My cats don’t like it. They sit and stare at me, meow at me. Because after a long day of not being home they demand attention. I try to give it to them between thoughts and word flow without killing my concentration. Though, that’s sometimes hard because my one has a habit of slipping behind the computer and wiggling the power cord JUST enough to unplug it. I’d be impressed if I wasn’t pissed every time.

Here’s to goals of getting my schedule set up though. I’m hoping by October I’ll be set in my writing ways and will be far more productive on my WIPs than I am now.

What goals do you have for the remainder of the year? Or just the remainder of the month? Let me know in the comments below!

Life & Booktubeathon 2017

19 Wednesday Jul 2017

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Don’t think I forgot about you, my valued and lovely readers. I most certainly did not. I know it’s been a little over a week since I last posted on here, and there is definitely a shame on me for that, I do have a reason. I was sick. I ended up with a cold of some kind on the 3rd. I pushed through it and seemed to be getting better until I ended up with sharp pain in my ears. An Urgent Care trip, if you’ve been following my Twitter you probably saw this already, diagnosed me with a mild ear infection on the left and a serious ear infection on the right. And I’m always lethargic when on antibiotics. So between meds and healing, things just didn’t go well for me. On top of that, my mother, who I dragged into Urgent Care with me, was diagnosed with pneumonia. So I’ve been keeping a close eye on her. She, this last weekend, also ended up having her shoulder seize up, and we still haven’t been able to get the muscle to unlock so we’re trying to manage her pain as we can. But, all the health problems have meant, sadly, that no words have been typed and stored and added to the word count.

Camp NaNoWriMo really isn’t fairing well for my poor little novel. But, health is more important than words, right? Right.

I am hoping to get some time to write in. I am going to be pretty stuck at home this weekend. We’re having a contractor come in to redo the bathroom floors. Subfloor is shot, so I’m taking the ability to replace the tile in there and everything. But it means lazying about so if he needs anything I’m around. Here’s hoping that words can be done while he works.

Also, as the title suggests, I have another goal. Booktube-a-thon is next week. And I’m thinking of following lots of booktubers and readers in reading books! What is booktube-a-thon? It’s a readathon held by a booktuber over on Youtube. You can find out all about this year’s event by watching this video! The goal is to read as much as possible during the week long event. Comic books, graphic novels, audio books, ebooks, print copies, if it’s a book of some kind, it’s fair game to count.

I’m still working out my TBR list for this event, but I’m definitely interested in participating. Any suggestions on some good books? Make sure to leave them in the comments below!

Holiday Weekend

02 Sunday Jul 2017

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This weekend is going to prove to be a loud one. It already has been, truthfully. Last night, there were a ton of fireworks going off even though there is still some time before the 4th. I don’t mind them over all, so long as they’re not from the neighbors coming into my yard, but my cats don’t particularly like them or know what to do with the sounds and scares they get from the super loud noise. I expect that they will only get worse as we head toward the 4th.

Over all, my whole plan for this Holiday weekend is to try and relax some, get some reading in, and of course, getting some writing done. Camp started yesterday, after all. And Camp is all about writing. Getting those words on the page is my goal. And it shall happen. I believe in myself.

I also ended up finding a used online bookstore. So I might do a bookhaul blog once they all come in. And hopefully after some quick reads, they’re all cozy mysteries, get a couple reviews up on here. Reading and writing! It’s important for days off!

Though, tomorrow I do have half a day of work. But it’s better than a full day I guess.

How are you spending your 4th of July weekend? Do you have Monday off?

Photo by Mike Enerio on Unsplash

 

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!

New Writing Prompts on the Horizon

15 Thursday Jun 2017

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So, I was at the bookstore the other day with my best friend and I happened upon this book just sitting on a shelf staring at me. I get distracted by shiny, and I don’t mean shiny like pretty but shiny like actual shiny. The writing on this book was all shiny reflective gold and I kind of loved it. The title of the book also caught me, no lie.

Write the Story – yes, the image that probably dragged you in here to read my blog post.

It’s this mostly empty book, with a prompt and ten items that you should be including in your writing when filling the prompt.

I’m excited to try to use this to help me better at writing. Because these can be used just for exercises to get me a little more back in the writing spirit. I think it will be fun to see what crazy interesting things will come from these prompts.

Maybe I’ll even share them here. Or at least pieces of them. We’ll see.

I’m hoping to start working on doing these prompts maybe once a week in July. I know they’re not really meant to be all that long, the book only gives you a page each prompt, but I never know how long my short prompts are going to be until I’m writing it and it’s coming to a close. After all, my current WIP was originally planned for 30,000 and it’s going on 50,000 words. We shall see.

What do you use to inspire you? Let me know 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!

Updates and Cleaning

01 Thursday Jun 2017

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So, with family obligations – birthday party things Memorial Day weekend – I wasn’t able to get a lot of writing done before the end of the month. Which means that WIP isn’t all that finished. I was able to get a few words done on it though. Slowly. Very slowly. Though, sadly, I’m not going to be able to get too much writing done this weekend either.

I have a Picnic in the Park event that I’m headed down to tomorrow, one state over from me so tomorrow is travel day.

While I won’t get much, if any writing done though, it will still be a beautiful time. There are some workshops I’m looking to attend at the event, and I get to see a friend I haven’t seen in like a year. So pretty excited about that too.

And who knows. Maybe I’ll be able to find some more inspiration for new stories. Though, I’m not sure I need TOO much more inspiration, before I finish projects.

Which brings me to the cleaning part of this. I’ve been trying to clean up some. Spring cleaning and what not in the house. And I ended up finding three different starts to stories.

Three.

I’m adding them to my idea binder so that I can hopefully work on them later. All in told I think I have like five or six starts to stories sitting and waiting for me to finish, and a myriad more in a journal that are currently merely concepts that need to be seriously flushed out. Soon, my pretties, soon.

And if you’re wondering where I get the flower pictures I put in my blog posts, I take them. I dabble in photography, and flowers are my favorite subject. Most tend to be taken in my own garden, or the gardens of friends and family.

Cheers everyone. I hope your first weekend in June is bright, beautiful, and full of inspiration!

Novella becomes Novel…? Maybe?

25 Thursday May 2017

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So, last post I was calling one of my WIPs a novella. And then I took the time to actually look at it. And, hefty job, print it out at 100 pages printed from Word. Word was also kind enough to let me know that my WIP is currently 48,000 words approximately.

48,000 words.

Can I still call it a novella at this point?

I mean, no one would call The Great Gatsby a novella, and it’s roughly 50,000 words. And my WIP should be about that range when I finish.

When I started it, I didn’t expect it to be much longer than maybe 30,000 words or so. That total would put it firmly in the novella category, and I never really paid too much mind to the word count while I was working on it. I never noticed when I passed the 30K mark, and then the 40K mark.

Of course, this thing needs a heavy revision after I finish it, but really, I guess I should start calling it a novel? It’s kind of crazy to me that my tiny idea turned itself into a full fledged novel.

When do you consider a work a novel, instead of a novella?

NaNo Flop & Moving Forward

23 Tuesday May 2017

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So, it’s probably easy to tell that I never ended up finishing NaNo. The lack of posts tooting my progress, explaining my struggles, and cheering my victory? They never came. Truthfully, a lot never came.

I could go into reasons, and I could give excuses as to why the words didn’t come, why the blog didn’t get updated, why I haven’t been on twitter all that often. But really, at the end of the day, I don’t want to get caught up in the past.

I want to get back on track.

I want to leave the past in the past.

I want to move forward.

So this is me, shaking off the past. I’m going to shed it, kind of like a second skin and leave it where it belongs. Behind me. This isn’t to say I’m going to forget why and what all happened. After all, those that forget the past are doomed to repeat it. But, I don’t want to focus on it.

I have a couple projects that have been sitting by the wayside for far too long. One novella needs to be finished – a cutesy cozy mystery, and one high fantasy that needs me to actually go through and do structural and line editing on it so it’s polished and I can finally decide once and for all if I’m going to be self publishing or going the query letter/traditional publishing route.

I know people have strong opinions about both, but after attending a panel at a convention where an author basically said you can do either/or, or be a hybrid, it’s up to you and what you feel is best for your novel, I’m back on the fence with trying the traditional way.

At the same time, I just watched a friend query a book and she had three agents write her back to tell her that they loved her book, but they wouldn’t be picking it up.  And it’s left her wondering, if they loved her book enough to say so, why. Because the letters don’t say. It’s a little disheartening to hear that, and my heart goes out to her because she’s trying to take a critical eye to her story and make some changes in the hopes that next time she sends out query letters maybe someone will love it AND pick it up.

The question for me is, do I really want to go that route? Spend time querying it, potentially not get any takers, and even if I do not see it released for a year or two based on any publishers wanting it, and if they do having it fit into their schedule for release and marketing. It’s a lot of time to sit on a finished product.

Truthfully, I don’t know. I’d love to see it published by a company, and on the shelves in stores. But at the same time, I want to see it sell period. And sitting in a publisher’s cue for one to two years, that’s a long time to wait for it to be released.

Choices, choices, as they say.

I guess I’ll mostly cross that bridge when I get there. When the novel is as good as I can make it after some heavy editing.

Right now, the novella needs to be finished. So my goal, I’m setting one officially, is to be finished writing the novella by the end of May. That way I can take a breather and then circle back to it mid-June for edits. This seems like a super short timeline that I’m giving myself, I’m sure. But truthfully, the novella is about one or two chapters from being done. So I’m hoping by setting this deadline I can really strive and push myself to get it done.

Here’s hoping, at least.