I’m going to be teaching Beginning Crochet at the Tyler Public Library on April 8th, 2025, starting at 5:30pm. We’ll be learning basics of crochet and everyone will have a little project to take home with them. Hope to see you there!
Category: What I Love
I hesitated in posting this on April Fool’s Day, but please know that this post is in earnest. 🙂
In March, I wrote 21,346 words, which boggled the mind. Of those words,
- 473 were for this blog (5 short posts),
- 1,564 were for my journal,
- 15,562 were for handouts, scripts, and slides for lessons (one for East Texas Writers Guild and one for the Open Door Writing Group and one for the Tyler Public Library’s Try It Tuesday Class),
- 1,355 were on various social media accounts,
- 894 were poetry (6 poems),
- and 1,716 were in short stories (11 pieces of flash fiction).
There were 8 days that I didn’t write anything, but this month included traveling for Spring Break and two out of town Winter Guard competitions for my kid. I also haven’t heard back from any of the submissions I’ve sent out lately, but all the submitting guidelines said I probably wouldn’t hear back until mid-April or later, so I’m not worried about that yet.
As for reading, I read parts of:
- Concessions by Libby James (e-book; thriller)
- Agatha Arch is Afraid of Everything by Kristin Bair (e-book; mystery)
- The Practice of Poetry: Writing Exercises from Poets Who Teach edited by Robin Behn and Chase Twichell
- How to Read Poetry Like a Professor: A Quippy Guide to Sonorous Poetry by Thomas Foster (paperback; non-fiction)
…and I finished reading:
- If Women Rose Rooted: The Power of the Celtic Woman by Sharon Blackie (audiobook; non-fiction)
- Our Lady of Mysterious Ailments by T. L. Huchu (e-book; fantasy)
- Such a Thing to Behold by Umar Turaki (e-book; fantasy)
- The Midwife (volume 1) by Jennifer Worth (e-book; non-fiction)
- The Truth of Me by Patricia MacLachlan (e-book; children’s lit)
- Storyteller: 100 Letter Poems by Morgan Harper Nichols (e-book; poetry)
- Call Us What We Carry by Amanda Gorman (hardcover; poetry)
- The Poetry Home Repair Manual by Ted Kooser (paperback; non-fiction)
So I have finished 16 books so far this year (and read parts of another 8, mostly for research, but also a couple of things I’ve had to mark DNF.).
I feel like I’ve finally hit my stride with this year, so of course the next couple of months are going to be ridiculously busy in my personal life, as I have graduating high school senior in my household and another kid who’s applying to law schools and may need help moving. Wheeeeee!
I’ll be speaking tonight at the meeting of the East Texas Writers Guild on “Sounds in Poetry” at the Tyler Area Chamber of Commerce Building at 6:30pm.
Tomorrow night I’ll be leading a lesson on “Beginner Calligraphy” at the Tyler Public Library at 5:30pm.
A busy week – I’m so excited! 🙂
I have been rescheduled to speak at the March meeting of the East Texas Writer’s Guild on March 10, 2025. They meet from 6:30pm-8:00pm in the Genecov Room of the Tyler Area Chamber of Commerce Building (aka The Blackstone Building) in downtown Tyler. I’ll be speaking on Sounds in Poetry. Hope to see some of you there!
I’ve been asked to lead a a couple of sessions of the Tyler Public Library’s “Try It Tuesday!” programs. On March 11, 2025, I’ll be teaching a beginner calligraphy lesson and on April 8, 2025, I’ll be teaching a beginner crochet lesson. Both sessions are free to the public. They run from 5:30-7:30pm in the 3rd floor Makerspace at the Tyler Public Library. Hope to see some of y’all there! 🙂
In January 2025, I wrote 9,847 words. Of those words,
- 830 were for this blog (six posts)
- 3121 were journal entries
- 3149 were lessons, scripts, and slides (for one ODWG lesson)
- 2045 were on various social media accounts
- 151 were poetry (one poem)
- and 651 were short stories (three pieces of flash fiction)
I sent off three poems and three short stories for publication, but haven’t heard back from any of them.
I also read parts of these books:
- A Poet’s Guide to Poetry by Mary Kinzie (paperback; non-fiction)
- Call Us What We Carry by Amanda Gorman (hardcover; poetry)
- The Wonder Engine (Clocktaur War #2) by T. Kingfisher (audiobook; fantasy)
- The Green Man: Tales from the Mystic Forest edited by Ellen Datlow (e-book; fiction short stories)
And finished these books:
- The Wonder Boy of Whistle Stop by Fannie Flag (e-book; fiction)
- Just Dying to Glamp by April Nunn Coker (e-book; mystery)
- When She Returned by Lucinda Berry (e-book; thriller)
- Peace is a Practice by Morgan Harper Nichols (e-book; non-fiction).
January is always a tricky month, I think. The first couple weeks are still half-way holidays and then there are a few random at-home days for my school-age kiddo as well. Which means that you don’t get a full month of writing days, but I managed to write at least a little something for 26 out of 31 days in any case. I think that’s pretty good. 🙂
Today I’m giving a lesson on Sounds in Poetry over at the Tyler Public Library at 1pm in the Makerspace (behind the computer lab on the third floor). But don’t let that scare you away if you’re not a poet. I’m covering poetry, a little bit about songwriting, and how to use lyricism in your prose as well.
Hope to see you there!
If you know me in real life, you know I love analyzing things. One of my favoritest things to look at is my writing data. I love seeing which months I had the most success in and in which category and then what that looks like over time. So here’s what 2024 looked like.
All Writing Combined:
140,352
Number of Words By Month:
January: 9,017
February: 19,253
March: 9,440
April: 6,562
May: 6,166
June: 9,417
July: 13,961
August: 23,215
September: 5,966
October: 13,824
November: 22,477
December: 1,054
Number of Words By Category:
Blog: 2527
Essays: 1,063
Lessons: 43,549
Lake House Mystery: 36,258
Journal: 21,503
Miscellaneous: 16,939
Short Fiction: 13,664
Poetry: 4,434
Best Month for Each Category:
Blog: January at 546
Essays: June at 487
Lessons: February at 12,031 (that surprised me – I really thought it’d be October)
Lake House Mystery: November at 18,468 (that did not surprise me)
Journal: April at 3,811
Miscellaneous: October at 2,890
Short Fiction: June at 2,494
Poetry: February at 2,157 (that poem about teeth was LONG, y’all!)
I will be speaking at the Open Door Writing Group – Night Group today at the UU Fellowship (1629 Old Omen Road in Tyler) at 6pm on the topic of “Humorous Writing”. Come on over and join us!
How is it already September? The summer went by so quickly and I’ve spent so much of it rushed off my feet with all the background, real-life stuff that is hard to cover in a blog post.
Here’s an update on my word counts from the last few months:
June: 8,880
July: 12,807
August: 22,434
Look at how I’ve improved! I’ve triple-checked that last one, but it is correct.
June’s improvement mainly came from writing more short stories. I stayed pretty busy with all the behind the scenes stuff from the other house, getting my eldest ready to go spend a month in China, teaching at both the ODWG writing groups, etc.
July’s word count bump came from not only more writing days in front of the computer on short story work, but also in the category I call “Lessons”, which I write for my local area writing groups. I was trying to get ahead for the busier times of the year when I’d have less time to prepare a lesson. It’s wild to me that I had any kind of improvement at all, really, because my spouse and I spent two weeks flat out with Covid.
August’s giant improvement came in the form of a road trip with my husband. For our anniversary last month, he surprised me with a trip to a little town in the middle of nowhere, which had a fantastic vibe, lots of fun things to tour, and quirky town oddities. Well, that tied in to the long-neglected Lake House Mystery in my brain. So I pulled out that old manuscript, updated a few bits here and there, and then started adding some fun stuff that popped into my head during the trip. After six days of adding little bits here, there, and everywhere, I had an extra 16,000-ish words added, all easy-peasy, which was amazing because that literally doubled the size of this manuscript.
I’m not done there, though. This mystery needs about 30,000 more words before it’ll be done. I’m wanting to finish that this month, while the mood is still is the air, so to speak. Crossing my fingers and hoping real hard.
-L
Lisa Holcomb 