| Page 5

Archive for 2013

Sunday ROW80 Check-In 9/15/13

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged eating healthy, flylady, healthy habits, manuscript, ROW80, WIP, writing on September 15, 2013| 16 Comments »

Last week was hectic since I had my friend’s 10-year-old son for almost a week. But that’s over, and although I miss him, it’s good for life to get back to normal. My goals are:

1) Write at least three hours this week. I didn’t write three hours. But there was a day at work where a scene was itching to get out, so I ended up writing it at work. I didn’t put it into my manuscript, but wrote it as a separate Word document. I need to figure out exactly where I want to add it since it’s from a “supporting” character’s POV.

2) Do at least 15 minutes of housework per day using the FlyLady challenges. I didn’t do it exactly this way, but I did get some housework done. I bought a couple of nice trunks, in two different sizes, to put some things in rather than have them scattered all over my bedroom or in ugly shoe boxes. And I got the Mt. Everest of paper off the bar that separates the kitchen from the living room. That looks much better now. 🙂

3) Get back to my healthy eating habits. It’s getting better. I’m taking baby steps in this.

So, are any of you finally getting some fall weather? We were actually in the high seventies yesterday instead of in the nineties. This was great since we went to my husband’s company picnic yesterday. Wonderful weather to be outside!

Read Full Post »

Wednesday ROW80 Check-In

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged al kessel, audio book, haunted lake, ROW80, storyteller productions on September 11, 2013| 10 Comments »

When was the last time I did a Wednesday check-in? A while, I think.

So…this has been an interesting week, keeping my friend’s ten year old son. We’ve watched Scooby-Doo (I fell asleep), The Aristocats (I fell asleep), Mulan (I fell asleep)…you get the picture. I haven’t been bored, just tired. His air mattress is in the floor in front of the TV, so we both fall asleep watching TV, me on the couch. I end up getting up in the middle of the night to go to my actual bed. I sure am going to miss the little rascal when he goes back home tomorrow. I take him to another friend’s house during the day, where she home-schools him with her own kids. This has all forced me to make, you know, actual dinner. LOL

Today, the narrator (Al Kessel from Storyteller Productions) that’s doing the audio book for Haunted Lake sent the first six chapters. I approved it, so we’re moving onto the rest of the book. I’m so excited! And as I listened to it, I heard, once again, why it’s my favorite of all the books I’ve written. I only got to hear six chapters, and I was SO wanting to hear the rest of it. Even though I had read it many times. Even though I wrote it. It’s just my favorite story.

Read Full Post »

ROW80 Check-In 9/8/13

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged eating healthy, goals, Housework, plotting, ROW80, writing on September 8, 2013| 22 Comments »

I didn’t post last week because I was on my anniversary trip. Here’s how I’ve done on my goals this past week.

1) Write at least three hours this week. This didn’t happen. However, I started from the beginning and reread my whole WIP, which is about half finished. I added a little scene from my male main character’s point of view. And I’ve done some plotting for the rest of the story. So I’ve been fairly productive.

2) Do at least 15 minutes of housework per day using the FlyLady challenges. Major fail. But I did do a little housework, mostly picking up things from where they don’t belong. I’ve been slowly getting rid of some things. It’s hard to let go of things, thinking I might use them again. But if I haven’t used/worn it in a year, it needs to go away.

3) Get back to my healthy eating habits. I’m actually doing better. I haven’t made any drastic changes…that usually leads to failure. But I’ve gradually worked on eating better. And I’m still walking on the treadmill every day, so that helps.

This week, I’m keeping my friend’s ten-year-old son while she and her husband go on a business trip. This is an interesting experience. My boys are now men, so it brings back fond memories, although this child is a lot different from my sons. It’s going to be a fun week. I’m looking forward to playing games and watching kid’s shows. 🙂 (I’m being serious, not sarcastic.) The biggest problem is he and his parents are late to bed, late to rise. I’m early to bed, early to rise. I woke him up early this morning by making noise walking on the treadmill. I told him he would just have to adjust. LOL

Read Full Post »

Home Again!

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Accordion player, Fireworks, Helen GA, Old Bavaria Inn reastaurant on September 3, 2013| 12 Comments »

I’m now back to work trying to recover from my weekend. Why do we always have to rest from our vacations? LOL

My son said I shouldn’t have complained about the kids making so much noise above us in the motel room. He kind of made me feel bad. I got to thinking…what if there was a reason the kids were pounding their feet across the floor like a herd of elephants. But it turned out they were UNSUPERVISED kids, and each adult thought the other one was watching them. So maybe I did them a favor. What if they got hurt in the room alone? See, that’s what I keep telling myself so I don’t sound like a total horse’s butt.

Anyway, there were fireworks…

FIREWORKS

And accordion players…

ACCORDION PLAYERS

I used to be able to embed the videos in a post, but I couldn’t find that option. Maybe it’s not available on the iPad app? I’m having to use my iPad because my work computer is in the shop. I love my iPad and my iPhone, but I still prefer a computer. SO much easier.

Read Full Post »

Day One in Helen, GA

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Helen GA, Holiday, Labor Day, Old Heidelberg Restaurant, reviews, Wedding Anniversary on August 31, 2013| 6 Comments »

Hubby and I arrived in Helen a little before lunch time. Our motel room wouldn’t be ready for a couple of hours, so we parked and walked around a bit. We ended up at one of our favorite restaurants, Old Heidelberg. We had a huge pretzel, hubby had a couple of sausages (can’t remember which kind), and I had a Reuben sandwich with German potato salad. Now here’s the weird thing. Later on in the room, I was looking at reviews, and this restaurant had some bad ones. And this just proves how subjective reviews are. Hubby and I couldn’t finish our meals because of the amount of food. He had two HUGE sausages with two sides. But a couple of the bad reviews complained about the small portion sizes. Who ARE these people? The portions are BIG. That shows that what’s big for some people is small for others. That’s the same thing with our book reviews. Some will like our work and some won’t. Just a little food for thought…no pun intended. Okay, yeah, I really intended that pun. 🙂

Another thing that happened. When we got back to the room, there were people in the room above us who RAN for two straight hours. I thought they were going to come through our ceiling. I knew it had to be kids and couldn’t figure out why their parents let them do that. I finally went to the front desk to complain. It turns out, the people up there had three rooms and were regular guests at the motel. They were called and it turned out the kids were playing in that room by themselves without adult supervision. These were kids 6-8 years old. But, the noise stopped immediately. So yay!

I hope those of you who live in the USA are having a nice holiday. And everyone else, a nice weekend. 🙂

Read Full Post »

ROW80 Check In 8/28/13

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged goals, new book idea, paranormal romance, plotting, ROW80, susan bischoff, WIP, writing, writing goals] on August 28, 2013| 12 Comments »

In my last blog post, I stated my three main goals for this week. They were:

1) Write at least three hours this week
2) Do at least 15 minutes of housework per day using the FlyLady challenges
3) Get back to my healthy eating habits. (I’ve been doing great on exercise, but my old eating habits are sliding back into my life.)

I was a miserable failure at 2 and 3. No housework to speak of. I’m still struggling with the eating habits. Not TERRIBLE, but not that good, either.

Let’s talk about that first goal. Honestly, I can’t say I succeeded or failed since the week isn’t over. However, I’ve been reading all of Susan Bischoff’s notes on plotting (using the term “notes” is putting it mildly) and figuring out how to apply them to my current WIP. So I HAVE been working on writing stuff, but not actually writing. I’m planning on doing the actual writing on Thursday and Friday, when I’ve got some things sorted out. I usually write more on Saturdays, but since hubby and I are doing our anniversary trip on the weekend, I’m going to try to get my three hours of writing in on those two days.

More writing news. I’ve been tossing around a paranormal romance idea (no vampires or ghosts this time!) for awhile, and I think I’m going to start doing a little plotting with that. I want to see how I do with Susan’s method on something I’m just starting rather than something I’m halfway through. I’m excited about this idea because, like Soul of a Vampire, the title came in my mind before the story. And the cover for this one can be awesome considering the subject matter. Curious yet? 😉

So, how are the rest of you doing so far this week?

Read Full Post »

ROW80 Update – Regrouping

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged fear of writing, flylady, goals, healthy eating, Housework, plotting, ROW80, susan bischoff, WIP, writing, writing goals] on August 25, 2013| 25 Comments »

Yesterday, I spent several hours with Susan Bischoff. This is always fun, not to mention that she always inspires me to write. We talked about a lot of things. First, she helped me expand on the plotting I was trying to do, giving me lots of good advice about plot points and where they should be in my story. And I finally admitted to someone (Susan!) that I had been finding excuses not to write because every time I thought of my WIP, I got this scared feeling in the pit of my stomach. I’m AFRAID of my manuscript. (And Susan GETS this.) There, I admitted it to all of you. Honestly, this is very new to me. I used to be able to churn out words with no problem, they all made sense, and I wasn’t afraid to publish them. This fear of my own work is SO not me. But I guess it IS me, isn’t it? I’ve never understood writers that were afraid. Now I get it. You know what, though? I’m not going to let myself be held back by that fear any longer. I’m tired of it, and I’m stronger than this. So there! *blows raspberry at the fear*

So my goals for this week (baby steps, no long term goals):

After this week, we’ll see what needs to be done next.

Read Full Post »

Plotting. quivers in fear

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged jimmy thomas, julian mora, justin tatum, kait nolan, lynn lorenz, michael hendrickson, michael mecucci, mr casanova contest, plotting, plotting with spreadsheet, shawn cunningham, susan bischoff on August 22, 2013| 18 Comments »

During lunch today, I took Lynn Lorenz’s spreadsheet template and started (oh my!) doing a little plotting. I actually filled in chapters and scenes that I had already done on my WIP and will work on the future stuff tonight or this weekend. I can already see that I’m going to have to tweak it a little and do it my own way. Lynn makes a great big cell for each chapter, and I have trouble fitting stuff in. I think I’ll make rows for each chapter and maybe have columns in each row for my scenes. I don’t know. I just love playing with spreadsheets. I do want to pay attention to her plot points, though.

I remember when I was eating with Kait Nolan and Susan Bischoff one time, they were trying to explain to me that plotting didn’t have to be scary. That I didn’t have to lose my creativity. That I could still be flexible. Then I tried it and failed miserably. Did I do it wrong? IS there a wrong? Was I just not ready then? Or was the thought of USING A SPREADSHEET what sparked my interest? I don’t know, but I was all excited after I talked to Kait and Susan that time, and then I was disappointed that I couldn’t do it. I think maybe we should have talked about it longer, and they should have beat me senseless so I could have awakened as a plotter. LOL. So let’s see how my latest venture in plotting will go. I’ll keep you all posted. 🙂

Now for something fun. These are the guys we got to spend time with all week at the RNConvention in Vegas. Four of them were the Mr. Casanova contestants, and the one in the middle is a Hunk-O-Mania dancer and a friend of Jimmy Thomas, who was the creator of this convention. Their names are Justin Tatum, Michael Mecucci, Julian Mora, Michael Hendrickson. and Shawn Cunningham. Shawn won the Mr. Casanova contest. The guy is 6’8″ tall! And all of these guys are really sweet and friendly. You know, because it doesn’t matter that they’re GORGEOUS.

Read Full Post »

Need Opinions! Please?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged audiobook, haunted lake, music in audiobooks, narrator, ROW80, writing on August 21, 2013| 19 Comments »

No writing yet, but I’ve decided to pick back up my earlier goal of writing Thurs-Sat every week. I need the other days to get my house and other aspects of my life in order. After I get a handle on everything, I’ll probably add another day to the schedule. Last night, I cleaned out one side of the cabinet under the bathroom sink. This was a big chore, and I ended up with a full trash bag of stuff to get rid of. HOW did all that fit under the sink?

Now, what I need your opinions for. I’m having an audiobook narrated for Haunted Lake. The producer/narrator wants to know if I want music. He said he could do music at the beginning of each chapter or just at the beginning and ending of the book. I’ve listened to a LOT of audiobooks, and most of them don’t have music. Some of the well known authors have music. I’ve heard the music both ways that the narrator asked about. At the beginning of each chapter, the only problem I have is when the music is louder than the narrator. Otherwise, it doesn’t distract me. I’m kind of leaning toward music at the beginning and the end. So, what do you all think? Music at each chapter, music at the beginning and ending of the book, or no music at all? Haunted Lake has a ghostly mood, so I wondered if the music might add something.

Read Full Post »