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Posts Tagged ‘writing’

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):

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.)

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

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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.

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Quick ROW80 Update 8/14/13

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged book fair, book signing, las vegas, rnconvention, ROW80, writing on August 14, 2013| 10 Comments »

As most of you know, I haven’t been writing lately. There are several reasons for that, but not very good ones. I spent the last week at the RNConvention in Las Vegas, so I’m hoping being around a couple of hundred authors all week and sitting in on amazing classes will jump start my writing. So far, I still seem to be suffering from jet lag or something. Or maybe the little bout of dehydration (or heat exhaustion, who knows?) because of my stupidity in Vega. I hope I feel better by tomorrow!

Happy writing, everyone! Here is a picture from the RNConvention book fair. That’s me signing something. 🙂

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Late ROW80 Check In – I Need Focus!

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged focus, focus on writing, focusing on WIP, goals, ROW80, word count, writing on July 15, 2013| 12 Comments »

It’s unusual for me to miss the Sunday check in, but I just didn’t really get on my computer yesterday. I can tell that by all the emails I had waiting in my inbox today. I was just kind of unplugged yesterday. Not my normal day.

I really didn’t get much done last week. Fewer than 1,000 words. I finally figured out what my problem is, I just don’t know what to do about it. I can’t FOCUS. Every time I sit down to write, all these things are going through my head. Stuff I need to be doing. Like Saturday, all I could think of was that I needed to go to the pharmacy and get the needles for my insulin pens. And sometimes I’m thinking about the housework that needs doing. Or something. If any of you have any good ideas on how to stay focused on my WIP instead of my brain flitting around to everything else, PLEASE let me know. I used to be able to churn out a story in no time, my fingers flying over the keyboard almost every day. Of course, my plots are becoming more complicated, too. Anyway…HELP!

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ROW80 Sunday Update 7/7/13

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged exercise, goals, ROW80, working out, writing, writing goals] on July 7, 2013| 18 Comments »

I hope everyone had a nice 4th of July holiday. If you’re not in the US, I hope you still are having a great weekend! I had a lot going on the last few days, especially since my boss decided to close on Friday (unpaid day off) instead of just Thursday. We were able to fill those days with food, family, and fun.

I missed my three days a week writing goal, only writing two days. But my word count was 2831, so that wasn’t too shabby. I would really like to hit over 3000 a week, but I’ll take what I got. It’s been a busy week. 🙂

I haven’t walked on the treadmill for the past two days. I have a problem with my foot sometimes where a sharp pain will shoot through the top of it when I’m walking, and it’s so bad, I almost fall. This is a problem that usually lasts two or three days. The odd thing is that this time, it’s the other foot. I didn’t go to the gym, either. I have no excuse except that the gym is about 20-25 minutes away. I live out in the boonies. The reason I use that gym is it’s conveniently close to where I work, but I haven’t worked the past few days. I’ll get back on track tomorrow. Hopefully, my foot will be well enough to walk on the treadmill today.

How did the rest of you do last week?

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Wednesday ROW80 Update 7/3/13 & Quinoa

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged quinoa, quinoa recipes, ROW80, row80 check in, writing, writing goals] on July 3, 2013| 7 Comments »

I had gotten into the habit of only checking in on Sundays, but I’m going to try to do better. Part of the reason for that, though, is that many times I wanted to blog about something else that struck my fancy. But, you know, I can always write that and schedule it for the next day. 🙂

I managed to write one day so far this week, so that’s a third way through my weekly goal. During that session, I wrote 1717 words. I look at it this way. I used to have a 500 word a day goal, so that’s more than three days worth. 🙂

I’ve been trying to find a quinoa recipe that looks appealing to me. None have really got me excited about eating quinoa, especially after I tried a boxed quinoa dish. Bleh. Our local health food store sells both white and red quinoa in bulk, so I could get however much I needed. I would like to try both since the taste is supposed to be different, the red being more “earthy” or “nuttier” according to what I’ve read. Anyway, I found this recipe on Pinterest. Looks yummy. Garlic and Thyme Quinoa Patties. I just placed an order with Mountain Rose Herbs, and now I wish I had included thyme and paprika. 😦 Also, here is the link to the whole article 32 Ways to Eat Quinoa and Succeed in Life. I haven’t read the other recipes yet, but I will.

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ROW80 – Round Three Goals

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged books on sale, exercise goals, ROW80, row80 goals, smashwords, smashwords sale, smashwords.com, writing, writing goals] on July 1, 2013| 14 Comments »

I’ve thought and thought about what I want my writing goal to be. I don’t want to set a goal that I’m not likely to achieve, but I also don’t want to make it too easy. There has to be some challenge. Although, last round, writing at all was a challenge. So here is my writing goal. I know I can change it if I have to, but for right now…my goal is to write at MINIMUM three days a week for one hour. Those three days don’t have to be any particular days, just three days sometime in the week. And then we’ll see if I need to change that later.

I want to continue my healthier lifestyle. I don’t set weight goals, because our bodies don’t always cooperate, even when we’re doing the best we can. But I want to continue to work out with weights four days a week and walk on the treadmill 15 minutes in the mornings and 45 minutes or more in the evenings.

There is an announcement I need to make today, but I wasn’t sure it was appropriate on my goals post. However, I don’t particularly like to post twice in one day, so I’ll be brief. Smashwords is having a sale in the month of July, so some of my books there are free and some are half-price. HERE is my profile page and you can find my books from there. The coupon code to use is listed at the top right of each book page.

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Sunday Stuff 6/23/13

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged changing food habits, drinking water, eating right, health habits, motivation to write, weight loss, word count, writing on June 23, 2013| 9 Comments »

I’ve got my motivation back. I wrote 1410 words on Thursday. Since I skipped Friday and Saturday (Saturday I had stuff going on all day, and I don’t know what the heck happened Friday), I wrote today. Sunday is ALWAYS one of my writing days off. But I had to make up for the other two days. Before I knew it, I had churned out 2276 words! I had expected to write about 1000, so that was great.

I’m going to try to be more conscientious about what I’m eating this week. I’ve been stuck on this plateau for several weeks, so I need to do something to kickstart weight loss again. Sometimes, it just takes changing up the TYPES of food you eat rather than changing the amount of calories you eat. We’ll see what happens. And I need to drink more water!

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Fitness Friday…And Other Stuff

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged exercise, fitness, health, husband's job, weight loss, WIP, working out, writing on June 21, 2013| 14 Comments »

Weight loss can be so frustrating. I’m continuing to work out with weights four days a week. I added an extra five lbs. to some of the machines yesterday, so that was cool. I’ve been walking on the treadmill for 15 minutes in the mornings. I WAS walking about 45 minutes in the evenings, too, but my foot has been acting up again. It’s usually better in the mornings, but by the afternoon, it’s hurting too much to walk. This is a chronic problem and usually goes away on it’s own in about three days. I’m also eating less and TRYING to eat better, although eating better is a slow going thing. But I’m STILL not losing weight, even with all these changes I’m making. I sticking right at the 172 mark. The scale goes up and down all week, only to settle at 172 on Fridays. Maybe I’ve just hit a natural plateau since I lost so steadily for the first 21 lbs. I saw this happen a lot at Weight Watchers when I worked there. I’m not giving up. I know it has to come off eventually. If you expend more calories than you take it, you have to lose weight, right? I just need to make sure I’m eating ENOUGH. If you don’t eat enough calories, you body thinks you’re starving it and hangs on to fat. I’ve seen this happen, so I know it’s true.

Some pretty good news. Most of you know I was upset because hubby got disqualified from a great paying position in the company he works for due to some *#&$*&#$’s who have a beef with him. And then they put him on second shift on an entry level job with low pay. Well, apparently, human resources (I expect there was some help from the union) said they couldn’t do that. So, even though he couldn’t have the premium job back, they had to let him choose from three different jobs in the plant. Now here’s where I can show you what a decent human being my husband is. There was one day shift job he could have taken, but he would have bumped several people out of their jobs into other jobs, which would have made them unhappy. So my husband took a job where there was actually an opening. He’s going to be back on third shift (YAY!) and making about the same as he was before he got that better job. Thanks to all of you who sent good thoughts and prayers our way. 🙂

I actually wrote on my WIP last night…the first time in over a month.

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