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Posts Tagged ‘writing’

Sunday Update 7/29/12

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on July 29, 2012| 14 Comments »

I’m a little late with my check in today. I usually try to do it before church and then take care of my sponsor duties in the afternoon, but I just ran out of time this morning. I always make a good breakfast on Sunday mornings, and I got way behind. LOL

My goal is to write about an hour (or until my hands give out) five days a week. I was plagued by the dreaded headache on Friday, even going home from work early, and Saturday I still had the headache plus I had to help my mom with her computer that decided not to boot up properly. Grrrrr. Anyway, on the three days I did write, my word counts were good. Mon-1875, Tues-1281, Thurs-1532. I timed myself on Thursday to see how long it was actually taking me to write. I wrote during my lunch hour, and I had to eat, so I knew I wouldn’t have a whole hour to write. I always read the last chapter I wrote the time before first so I can get my head back into the story, and that took five minutes. So, basically, I wrote over 1500 words in about 40 minutes. I thought I could only write about a thousand words an hour, but it had seemed lately I had written more. Apparently, I’m getting faster. Who knows if that will continue, but I’ll take it for now. 🙂

I’m trying to get back into sewing. I was lucky to spend time with the lovely Susan Bischoff last Saturday, and she was able to help me pick out patterns and material. My plans were to write and sew (or at least cut out the pattern!) Saturday, but with my oldest son and his wife coming into town for lunch, then my mom’s computer problems, AND my headache I didn’t get to do either. I want this skirt and blouse, darn it! My biggest goal for this week is to BE MORE EFFICIENT AND GET STUFF DONE.

How is everyone else doing? Any snags last week?

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Sunday Update 6/24/12

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on June 24, 2012| 6 Comments »

Even though we are on a break between ROW80 rounds, I still want to continue to report progress on Sundays, even if just for myself. If not one person reads it, I’m still putting words down about what’s going on, so it helps me stay focused.

Writing: Mon-1119, Tues-1061, Thurs-722, and Sat-920. I’m a little disappointed in Saturday because that’s the day I have more time, but this Saturday I knew I was going to a wedding, so I felt kind of rushed. I’m one of those people who have a hard time focusing on something if I know something else is kind of hanging over my head. LOL

Exercise: Monday, Tuesday, and Friday I walked at lunch. 20 minutes the first two days, and 30 minutes on Friday. I have trouble getting back to work on time if I walk 30 minutes, so I need to start taking my lunch instead of going out. That’s another reason I had the plea on my blog yesterday for help finding foods. I want to start cooking more. Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday I rode my bike after work. That’s pretty brutal in 90 degree weather, but at least there’s a breeze when you’re riding that you don’t get when you walk. LOL

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Trouble with Timelines

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , on June 16, 2012| 8 Comments »

While writing my WIP, I’ve found that the biggest problem I have is with time. For instance, if something happens on Friday, I have trouble remembering the next day is Saturday. Or I’ll have two Saturdays in a row. Stuff like that. Because I get so focused on the actual story, I forget about those things. Another thing is time of day. I had a scene in The Gnome where someone’s hair was shining in the parking lot lights. But it was daytime. In my defense, I had changed some things around, and the original scene had been at night. I just forgot to fix that. A beta reader caught it. That’s why we NEED beta readers. And two of mine are great editors, too. What made me even write this post is that I just had to cut part of a scene out because a vampire that is supposed to only be out at night came upon two women having a picnic in broad daylight. I liked the scene because one of the women is his potential love interest, and he caught her and her friend being silly and they had been talking about him. So I had to either cut that part of the scene or change the picnic to nighttime. It was easier and more logical to cut it.

Does anyone else out there ever have problems with time, or is it just me? I want to know.

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I’m Baaaaack

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on June 13, 2012| 14 Comments »

I was going to post a video of Aerosmith singing “Back in the Saddle Again”, but I thought it might be a little much. And, really, who would watch the video all the way through? LOL. Anyway, I’m finally back on track with writing. I had no idea how I was going to manage writing after working all day, then teaching Vacation Bible School. I was going to put off writing for another week. But then I started thinking about how I really needed to get this story back on track. So I spent my lunch hours for the past two days writing. Monday I wrote over 700, and yesterday I wrote over 900. Today, I have lunch plans, so I may not be writing, but I’ll go back to it on Thursday. It feels great!

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Sunday Update 6/10/12

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on June 10, 2012| 17 Comments »

1. Writing – I haven’t written a word. I was so floored by my blood pressure situation that I decided to concentrate on health last week. Plus, I’ve spent HOURS preparing to teach Vacation Bible School. I hope I can get back on track on writing this week. I’ll be at VBS every night this week, but hopefully I can come home and write. I still need to get the junk off my desk in my office (piled up to get stuff out of the living room when I had my Pampered Chef party). I write better in my office instead of in the living room with the TV on.

2. Kittens – The kittens played non-stop for 6 hours in the house yesterday. It was like having two toddlers in the house. I had to constantly watch them to keep them out of trouble. They knocked over a plant, but I think I fixed it so hubby doesn’t find out. LOL. After six hours, they plopped down in hubby’s recliner and snoozed. I did decide on Willow and Oz for names.

3. Health – My goal is to walk five times a week. I started all of this Wednesday. I walked on the treadmill Wednesday after church and at lunch on Thursday and Friday. That was three times, but I didn’t start until the middle of the week. I’m learning to leave stuff on my plate, so I have leftovers from both last night and from lunch today. Actually, I have more than half of today’s lunch left over. I still haven’t been to the grocery store, so not much cooking done. With VBS all week, I may not get to the cooking until after that’s over. Oh, and I forgot to weigh this morning, so I guess I won’t be reporting weight loss (or gain) until next week.

4. Movie thoughts -We went to see Men in Black 3 last night since it was hubby’s birthday and that’s what he wanted to do. It was good, but not as good as the first two, in my opinion. I loved the first one. It’s one of my favorite movies.

How did YOU do last week?

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ROW80 Update 5/27/12

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on May 27, 2012| 8 Comments »

No writing since Monday. I’m on vacation this week in Panama City Beach, so I hope to start tomorrow morning getting up before everyone else and doing my writing then. (Today was church day.)

This condo has no WiFi. I have to connect my computer directly to the modem. Fail! That means my husband can’t be on the internet at the same time as me with his computer, plus I can’t get on the WiFi with my iPad. I also can’t use the 4G on my iPad because I can’t pick up Verizon inside the condo. I have to go outside. Grrrr. On the bright side…the condo owner says if I go pick up a wireless router and hook it up to the modem, he will reimburse me for it. Win!

On the way here, while I was driving, hubby and I talked over his ideas for the book he wants me to write. He was jotting down all kinds of things as we talked. This was a first for us. We’ve never brainstormed about a book together before. It was an interesting experience. I really think I can write this book. I’ve never been a ghost writer before. Not to be confused with Ghost Rider, which would be Nicholas Cage. Never mind.

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Sunday Stuff 5/20/12

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on May 20, 2012| 16 Comments »

1. Ok, I might as well admit right now that I haven’t been writing. About 10-12 years ago, I had some pretty bad hand pain, mostly deep down in that fat area under my thumb. Maybe down in the thumb joint. I even went to an orthopedist who said there was some arthritis, but not enough to cause me that kind of pain. They couldn’t find anything else. I was given an excruciatingly painful cortisone shot that did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. Gradually, through the years, the pain lessened to something very manageable. I almost didn’t notice it anymore. Then, in the past week, the pain suddenly flared up and I could barely use my right hand. It was scary, but it’s better now. Maybe I just injured it somehow and didn’t know it. That kept me from writing for several days, but I was feeling better and was going to write Saturday. I had all day to tinker with my story. However…we have a clothing giveaway at church once a month, and it wasn’t my group, but I ended up volunteering to help. Because NO ONE will do their job! There was only ONE person from the group that was supposed to do this…everyone else was volunteers. It’s true that 10% of the people do 90% of the work, especially in church. Oh, and then my husband says we’re going to leave right after this thing is over (at noon) and go to the movies. So my day is shot. I came home from the movies and went to sleep at about 4:00. Grrrrrr.

2. We went to see Battleship. I loved this movie! Lots of action, characters that grow, and moments that made me cry. And moments that made me want to pump my fist and say “Yes!” I feel stupid, though…I didn’t know that the movie was based on the game with the same name. LOL

3. My kittens are still as adorable as ever. Even if I do have to sweep up dirt from the potted plants. And we have one climbing plant that was wrapped around a broad stake that’s stuck in the dirt. Not anymore. The plant is no longer wrapped around the stake. The kittens tried to climb the stake. I need to buy them a climbing/scratching post.

4. Six days and counting until my vacation. I really want to get some major writing done during this vacation. The trick will be to get up before anyone else and write. That shouldn’t be to difficult. I’m the only early riser of the bunch. 🙂

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Am I Destined to Write Novellas?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on May 17, 2012| 14 Comments »

Some of you may remember when I was writing The Gnome, I had intended it to be a novel. As it turned out, it became a longer novella of almost 40,000 words. I went back and read it, added some things that I had thought of along the way, but it was basically still going to be a novella. I went ahead and charged $2.99 for it because it was longer than my novellas that are $1.99. There was just nothing left to add to The Gnome, at least not it my opinion. My beta readers liked it, even though I had worried about writing something in a different genre than I usually write.

So flash forward to the present. I’m working on something right now that I think has a great title, which is weird since I usually can’t think of one. I’ll reveal that title later, but for now I think it would be best to keep it quiet. The story line is good, but when I think of the critical points of the story (kind of like an outline, but not exactly), it looks like this is going to be another novella. I originally thought I wanted it to be a novel, but I don’t think it will be.

This is what I’ve discovered may be the reason I don’t write too many novels. I prefer to READ novellas. When I open a book on my Kindle, if it has too many “locations”, I inwardly groan. Why is this, you might ask? Because I want to hurry and get done so I can read the next thing, and the next thing. Different new things. This is also why I rarely read series (except the awesome ones). I don’t want to get too involved because I might be in the mood for a totally different kind of book the next time. Many times, novellas feel like “a great ride” because they’re usually fast paced and things get done. Now there are some exceptions to this rule I’m currently listening to Stephen King’s 11/22/63 on cd. And it’s LONG. 25 disks. But Stephen King is one of the few authors who make me want to keep reading a book and never stop. I feel sad when it’s over. There are very few authors that can do this for me. There ARE some, both indie and trad, but it’s definitely the exception to the rule.

Does this make me shallow? I hope not. Does it make me restless? Probably. Does it mean I get bored easily? Yep. I might mention I also prefer movies to TV series as a rule. And, no, I don’t have ADHD. I can focus on something intently when I need to (like my job in accounting). I’m just so darn eclectic. Yeah, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

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ROW80 Check In 5/16/12

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on May 16, 2012| 10 Comments »

I know this is a late check in, but I’m trying to be a better employee and not do too much personal stuff at work. And I had church tonight, so this is the first time I’ve really gotten to sit down and do anything.

I finally started back on the writing last night. I only got a little over 400 words down, even though I sat at the computer for almost an hour. This is partly because I changed a couple of things I had written earlier. I know most people think you should write a first draft, then do all the editing later. I work better if I edit as I go, then I have a cleaner first draft when I’m finished. When I think of something I want to add or change, I usually do it right then. Anyway, those changes plus a little snag slowed my word count down. The snag was because I couldn’t figure out what a certain artifact was supposed to do. I’ve done a little brainstorming with hubby, and I think we’ll come up with something. He’s proven to be a lot of help lately. He had a lot of input in The Gnome. One of the major ideas in the book was his. He’s come a long way from back when he was calling my writing a hobby. LOL

On the kitten front. I’ve been letting them come in the house and play some in the afternoons. Monday, instead of staying under the couch like they did the first time, they decided it would be fun to get into my potted plant and fling dirt everywhere. I tried to sweep up all the dirt before my husband saw it, but they can fling faster than I can sweep. 🙂 I just had to wait and clean up later. I WILL eventually get pictures, but right now I can’t get them to slow down enough. They’re just a blur of fur and claws.

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ROW Check In and Other Stuff

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on May 13, 2012| 18 Comments »

I need an intervention. I’m addicted to Words with Friends. And Draw Something. And Solitaire. Stupid iPad. I have to learn to put the iPad down and not pick it up until I’m finished with important things. You know, like writing. And housework. And exercise. I haven’t touched my WIP in a week. I’m disgusted with myself, and I’m determined to get back on track this week. The vacation’s over.

Speaking of vacation, I’m going to Panama City Beach in a couple of weeks. I really hope to get a lot of writing done that week. What better place and time to write…out on the balcony, listening to the ocean, drinking my morning coffee…

My kittens are still as cute as ever and really seem to be happy in their ginormous cage. I’ve watched them climb and play. I let them in the house last week, and I was planning on getting some pics and videos, but they seemed to only want to play under the couch. On the bright side, they do clean out the dust bunnies under there. I had to pick dust off fur and off whiskers. LOL

Hubby and I went to see The Avengers yesterday. Such a great movie! I could definitely see the Joss Whedon influence, especially with all the snarky comments. Of course, Tony Stark was his usually smart a** self. I loved his lines. Of course, I enjoyed the Tony Stark and Thor eye candy. 🙂 I had heard that the Hulk was a scene stealer, and I kept telling my husband I just didn’t see it. But I realized that came later in the movie. The Hulk did a couple of things that even got my husband laughing out loud. If you haven’t seen this movie, you need to go. See it on the big screen, don’t wait for the DVD.

Happy Mother’s Day!

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