Category: Speaking

Around the House, Available Now, Computers and Internet, Everywhere But Home, Family Time, health, I Am Traveling, Lifelong learning, My Writing, Speaking, Writing

October Catch-up

I really don’t know how other people keep up with all the social media, blogging, etc, AND do actual writing. I can’t juggle that many things and still arrive sanely to the end of the month.

Here’s what October looked like:

Week 1: I took my midkid to the East Texas Fair and heard the TJC Jazz Bands play, spent many hours watching marketing videos with Marsha, screwed up my courage and went to the post office to mail things to my sister and my best friend, go set up to do business as Wee Little Dog Publishing with Marsha (more about that later) and got a post office box together so we can both have a non-home address for our newsletters, wrote a couple thousand words on Caro’s Quest, and did all the usual things I do (ETWG, ODWG, UUFT Spiritual Practices, driving kids everywhere.) Started working on NaNoWriMo Prep with my Lady Air Pirates story idea from a couple years ago (the one that I started outlining, but only got two scenes written for), and went to my youngest’s football game marching show on his birthday and took him out for ice cream afterward.

Week 2: Attended Writers in the Field, which deserves a post of its own. It was fantastic! 🙂 Also went to the pulmonologist for lung testing, which after all the craziness turned out that my lungs are just fine. Started tearing all the romance out of Caro’s Quest because it just felt shoehorned in, no matter what I did, and I really hated it. Taught a class for Spiritual Practices, read “The Invisible Wall” for book club, added dangly sparkle lights to my writing studio, and added another couple thousand words to Caro’s Quest to make up for the scenes I’d taken out.

Week 3: I didn’t do too much writing. I made a Scrivener file for the marketing class notes, organized my ETWG files some more, and spent hours trying to re-outline Caro’s Quest now that the romance was gone and I could re-focus those portions of the story on more magical stuff. I wrote a bunch of magic related fluff for my files so I understand the magic rules better now, but none of that will go in the novel, so it doesn’t really count, right?

Week 4: I realize this was just last week, but my brain is gone and I can’t remember what I did yesterday, much less last week. I do have a spectacular bruise on my right forearm, though, from where the phlebotomy tech thought he knew my veins better than I did and he didn’t just blow my vein, but absolutely collapsed it. It’s about the size of a business card right now, but it keeps spreading, so we’ll see. (I was there for more lung testing, to see if I had hidden blood clots. I did not.) Honestly, I probably just worked on Lady Air Pirates, locating all my old files, which were everywhere because I’d done a little bit in Word, a little bit in Plottr, a little bit in yWriter, and a little bit in Scrivener. Oh, and the link dropped for the podcast that I was on over at Authorpreneur’s Unleashed. Click here to go have a listen.

Last little bit of October: Wrote about 1,000 words on Caro’s Quest, exported my church membership database into my personal address book, and talked about joining my church’s worship team because they need more people and I’m good at standing up and talking in front of people now. 🙂

NaNoWriMo starts tomorrow and usually eats my brain, so at this point, I’ll probably just see you at the end of next month. Hope you have a happy November! 🙂

Around the House, Computers and Internet, Everywhere But Home, Speaking

Speaking Engagement: Authorpreneurs Unleashed

Last week I got invited to be a guest on the Authorpreneurs Unleashed podcast! I have to admit, y’all, that I was soooo nervous about it. While I’ve gotten better at public speaking over the years, I always worry about saying “umm” too much or waving my hands around wildly. Kathryn McClatchy was a great podcast host and made it all so very easy, sending tips and tricks ahead of time so I knew how to prepare, and helping me feel at ease in the recording session today. It was such a wonderful experience! If you ever get a chance to be on her podcast: say YES! 🙂 And if not, just go listen; it is chock full of fun guests and great information for writers.

If you’re interested in seeing a fun behind-the-scenes podcast moment, be sure to join my mailing list.

The topic for my guest experience was Nano-tactics, for National Novel Writing Month, which you all know is one of my favorite parts of the year as a writer. The episode is scheduled to drop on Sunday, October 23, 2022, and will be episode #15. I’ll post a direct link to it when it becomes available. 🙂

Everywhere But Home, Lifelong learning, Organizing, Speaking, What I Love, Writing

First Speaking Engagement of 2022!

I don’t remember if I mentioned this before or not, but last month I was elected as President of the East Texas Writers Guild. I will be speaking at their first meeting of the year this next Monday night at 6:30pm. Come on out! We’re a fun group. 🙂

Around the House, Family Time, Friend Time, My Own Personal Weirdness, Speaking, Writing

Happy New Year!

2022 definitely started off with a bang for my family.

I promise we wet the ground and the trees first.

It hasn’t stopped moving since. January first was technically a “rest” day from writing for me, but because we were hosting our Board Game Extravaganza on the second, January first was all about cleaning and setting up my dad’s Tyler house for the party.

You didn’t want a photo of me cleaning, did you? No. There was a gorgeous sunset on January first, though. Bonus: my husband nearly ran me over while I was taking this photo because I was standing in the middle of the road. 🙂

So January second came and only one party guest arrived. We usually have around 50 people at this event, but a) Covid sucks (so many people were exposed the week before), and b) cold weather sucks (I am not leaving my warm house for you), and c) (the most entertaining response) an owl attacked some chickens. But still, we played a bunch of games with our new friend, who asked when we were doing this again.

My dad asking a question about the Lords of Wonderdeep.

January third was a blur of me trying to do all the things that had been piling up, undone, in December. Imagine me whirling around with laundry, binders, notecards, glasses, and eyeglasses in hand while pushing a shopping cart loaded with cleaning supplies and you get the general idea. No writing occurred, but much planning and tidying at my own home. Plus leading my first East Texas Writers Guild Board of Directors meeting as President of the Guild.

Today I am working on typing up note from last nights meeting, writing scenes 2-5 in Chapter 11 of Caro’s Quest, and booking a photographer for my headshots for the UtNC Anthology.

Off I go! Hope y’all had a happy start to your new year.

Computers and Internet, Speaking, What I Love, Writing

Today’s Speaking Engagement at the Wednesday Writers Whatchamacalit

I spoke today at the Wednesday Writers Whatchamacalit. I had gotten a slide show and topic prepared, but we got a little off topic, as sometimes happens with the WWW. Instead, I got to coach a group of ladies on Gender Identity, Personal Pronouns (and how we don’t say that anymore), and how language change can sneak up on you if you’re not paying attention. Eventually we got around to my topic, but we came at it sideways, so I never got around to my slides. We had a great time helping one of our writers figure out how to redraft parts of her novel, so the midpoint was really the midpoint and what to add that would carry the rest of the story on through with the theme she wanted. It was a really good experience and I still have this slide show in my back pocket for another speaking engagement. 🙂

Computers and Internet, Speaking, What I Love, Writing

Speaking Engagement at the Wednesday Writers Whatchamacalit on 10/20/21

I will be speaking at the Wednesday Writers Whatchamacalit on October 21st, 2021 on the topic of “Rewriting Your Nearly Finished Novel.” Come on over and join us!

Family Time, My Own Personal Weirdness, Speaking, The Past Comes Back to Haunt Me, What I Love, Writing

Today’s Speaking Engagement at TPLWC – Cancelled

I’m sorry, guys. I’m just not in the right headspace to teach anyone anything today. I asked the other leaders to post something, so someone should be there at the group doing just that today.

Computers and Internet, Speaking, What I Love, Writing

Today’s Speaking Engagement at TPLWC

Today I spoke about “Using Enneagram to Create Character Conflict” at the Tyler Public Library Writer’s Club Facebook Group. I thought it went really well. 🙂 Here’s a link to the video, which you can access if you are a member of the aforementioned Facebook Group.

Speaking, What I Love, Writing

Today’s Speaking Engagement at Unleashing the Next Chapter

Today would have been my parents 53rd wedding anniversary and instead of being sad, I got to be awesome today. I spoke at Kathryn McClatchy’s Unleashing the Next Chapter writing group on Zoom. My topic was “Using the Enneagram to Create Character Conflict.” It went so well, y’all! I had an audience that was already pretty well versed in the Enneagram, so there were a lot of interesting questions and tangents into things I had wanted to put in the talk, but thought it was too much. Always overprepare! I love this group so much. Thanks for inviting me, Kathryn! Here’s a link to the video (which you can only view if you are a member of that group, but it is free to join.)

Computers and Internet, Speaking, What I Love, Writing

Speaking Engagement at TPLWC on 08.25.20

On August 25, 2020 at noon at the Tyler Public Library’s Writer’s Club Facebook Group, I will present a lesson on “Using the Enneagram to Create Character Conflict.” It is mostly the same as the one I presented to a more private group a week or so ago, but this one is in a more public group.