Category: What I Love

Around the House, Organizing, What I Love, Writing

Morning Pages, Day Two

So it’s not morning. Morning was good.  Full of Animal Crossing and kids and happy, human goodness. David came over and we sat on the back patio and chatted online with Steph. We visited each others islands in Animal Crossing and made stuff for each other. We sat around and watched Community, I cleaned the kitchen, we ate some Shells and Cheese. A good day so far.

So now I’m at the computer and looking at my planner to see what I scheduled to write for today. Only I scheduled everything except for the writing. Oops. So here I am planning my writing in my non-morning Morning Pages.

Today: Finish critique for TCG

Tomorrow: Caro’s Quest writing – whatever the next scene needs to be

Wednesday: Getting class stuff together and writing ahead for that.

Thursday: Start work on Chapter 2 Magical PTA

Friday: Finish up work on Magical PTA for LCG submission

Saturday: Start work on The Dreaming end of Ch 5 or beginning of Ch 6

What else? I don’t even know.

Everywhere But Home, Speaking, What I Love, Writing

Speaking Engagement on 04/29/20

I will be speaking at the Tyler Public Library’s Writer’s Club Facebook Group on April 29, 2020 at noon. My topic will be “Scene Crafting.” You can join the group here.

Computers and Internet, Speaking, What I Love, Writing

Today’s Speaking Engagement

I spoke today at the Tyler Public Library’s Writet’s Club Facebook Group on “World Building.” I wasn’t as nervous this time and it went really well! If you are a member of the group, you can see the replay of the live video here: {link}

Everywhere But Home, Speaking, What I Love, Writing

Speaking Engagement on 04/01/20

I am once again speaking at the Tyler Public Library’s Writer’s Club! I will be speaking on April 1, 2020 at noon and my topic will be “World Building.” All are welcome to join the Tyler Public Library’s Writer’s Club Group on Facebook.

Computers and Internet, Speaking, What I Love, Writing

Today’s Speaking Engagement

I spoke today at Tyler Public Library’s Writer’s Club Facebook Group on “Writing Conferences and Writing Books.” I was pretty nervous at first because I’ve never done anything like this before online, but I felt like it went really well! If you are a member of the group, you can see the replay of the live video here: {link}.

Around the House, What I Love, Writing

Co-working woes will continue

I had no idea my husband was on the phone so much. Or in meetings. No, really. I know what he does in abstract. I’ve seen the engineering charts, I’ve watched him work during family vacations. I just had no idea being my husband’s newest co-worker would be so loud. Thankful that today is a half day. I’m seriously starting to go nuts here. I have gotten very little writing done and writing is what I do.

Next week the kids will be home doing what they’re calling Distance Learning. The kids will have classes through their Google Classroom Portals, I guess. They’re making a plan this weekend and will let us know on Monday.

The silver linings are that: 1) my sister ordered my kids a Yum box, so we have weird snacks from Brazil to eat, 2) my dad randomly sent me an awesomely creepy Mouse King nutcracker/music box and the kids are mesmerized, and 3) we are ordering pizza from Top it Off Pizza for lunch today. YAY!

The funny box the Mouse King was shipped in.
Mouse King with dancing mini mice soldiers
Computers and Internet, My Own Personal Weirdness, What I Love

More groups!

I like to post things on Facebook that I find helpful or that I think other people will find helpful. I’ve been doing it all week and apparently other people have noticed. I’ve been added to not one, but two East Texas Covid-19 Help and Support Groups (not their actual names, mind you). So I spent a substantial part of my last couple days copying and pasting links from my personal page to these pages. Then I cross-posted links previously posted from each group to the other one. Such fun! Seriously, though, it feels good to actually be doing something to help others right now. Everything seems to be getting worse out there. I can’t leave the house because of my own health issues. Kids are getting wacky. I’m just happy to help others out there in similar positions. If you’re interested in joining either group, let me know and I’ll send you an invite. 🙂

Everywhere But Home, Speaking, What I Love, Writing

Speaking Engagement

On March 25, 2020 at noon, I am speaking at the Tyler Public Library Writers Club about “Writing Conferences & Writing Books” via Facebook Live on their Facebook Group.

What I Love, Writing

Critiques

Here’s what I love about my critique groups:

  1. We have so many kinds of writers, so everyone has a different way of looking at stories.
  2. Everyone has a different thing they’re serious about, too. One hates adverbs, one obsesses with having enough romance, another is super descriptive about what she likes and what doesn’t work, one loves my sticky words, another one tells me every time I have a good hook…
  3. I can go through all four critiques and still have things to work on by the time I’m on the fourth one. It’s amazing how that works.
  4. No one can tell me why transferring from Scrivener to Word destroys half my apostrophes and half my italics. No one knows. It’s a mystery. I look at it in Scrivener, and they’re fine. Move stuff into Word, they’re not. WHAT EVEN IS GOING ON?!?!?!
  5. They would all get onto me about my excessive use of exclamation points and all caps in the last point. I can’t help it –I’m excitable.
  6. People in my groups know the difference between all three dashes and can talk about it. I have to have it in a file on my desktop and remind myself every day. I still don’t remember. Also, the shortcuts for them vary across apps and that drives me insane.
  7. Sometimes people draw pictures on my critiques. I love that.

What I Love, Writing

NANOWRIMO WINNER

I spent the last week of November feverishly writing. I got up at 5am every day and wrote straight through until 7am, when I took a short break to go out and kiss my kids and help them find breakfast. Then I went back most mornings and wrote for another hour or two until it was time to visit my dad and sister, who were here for the week of Thanksgiving. Some evenings, I would come back and write even more. I had so much to catch up on. The last three days I wrote nearly 20,000 words, which is a huge stretch for me. I know I’m probably going to throw out the whole first chapter in edits, but right now I’m going to sit here and glow about having finished the first 50,000 words of this novel.