Readin’ and Writin’

I have advice for people who want to write. I don't care whether they're 5 or 500. There are three things that are important: First, if you want to write, you need to keep an honest, unpublishable journal that nobody reads, nobody but you. Where you just put down what you think about life, what you think about things, what you think is fair and what you think is unfair. And second, you need to read. You can't be a writer if you're not a reader. It's the great writers who teach us how to write. The third thing is to write. Just write a little bit every day. Even if it's for only half an hour — write, write, write.
― Madeleine L'Engle

Madeleine’s advice seems simple enough. I do keep a journal, in fact I keep two of them. One of them is for everyday stuff, mainly used as a letter writing source. The other one is my writing journal which I use to jot down interesting quotes, ideas, poems, rants, and honest accounts of how the writing’s going (or not going).

Reading – well, we all know that’s not a problem for me.

Which brings us to writing a little bit every day. *sigh*

Well . . . I’m getting better, but I’m not at the “every day” part yet. I’m still struggling a bit with my focus – I get distracted easily and this week was full of distractions.

I had a visit from my niece and great-niece, stopping here for lunch as they drove from Hamilton to Ottawa where the great-niece is going to be starting a writing course at Algonquin College. I have to admit, I’m pretty envious. Not only of the course (which I looked up online) but the fact the great-niece gets to live in one of the most beautiful cities in Canada.

But the visit did have the positive effect of making me want to do more than sit around reading Nora Roberts books all day. Until . . .

My new lap top was delivered later that same day. It’s small, it’s light, and totally intimidating. I waited until the following day until unpacking it, and then waited some more before hooking it up and turning it on. Then I spent a couple of frustrating hours jumping through Microsoft hoops to get just the basics set up.

Yes, I know I would have had to go through the same thing no matter what lap top I got, but that doesn’t make it less frustrating. I never did get the fingerprint scanner to set up, so I still have that battle to fight. And I sprang for the Microsoft Home and Office 2019 (I’ve been using Office 2007) which I realize was a mistake. I paid for the full version, which I’m assuming came pre-loaded, but without the access key I won’t be able to install it on any other computer. And yes, it’s totally different from Office 2007 so there’s another distraction – learning to use my new software.

Other distractions this week included a morning at Jungle Cat World with the daughter and granddaughter, followed by an afternoon of back-to-school shopping (always a good time) followed by a visit the next day by a bunch of the hubby’s family from Ottawa. Any excuse to have a sausage barbeque is a good one. :-)

Still and all, I did get my blog posts done this week, including the first post in my new non-fiction series. I worked for a week on that post, and then the night before I was to post it I realized I was writing about an herb, not a spice. So it was back to my big book of herbs and spices to pick a new one.

The first post in a series is always the hardest because you have to work out a format that the rest of your posts will follow. But the nice part is, I know what the next series will be about. LOL

No editing done on Blood Ties last week – too many distractions I guess. But I am kicking around the idea for a new, better title. It started out as Wandering Wizards, which made it sound like my characters were wandering around without a purpose, which they weren’t. Blood Ties doesn’t really cut it for me either, so I’m going to think about the new title I’ve come up with before announcing it.

Reading wise I zipped through those Nora Roberts books I found (they were some of her early works which were much shorter) and now I’m reading The Coyote Road, which is an anthology of trickster tales gathered by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling. I have another in this series The Faery Reel, but I haven’t been able to find a copy of the third in the series, The Green Man.

The Week Ahead . . .

My new non-fiction series is off to a great start and I want to keep up the momentum. So this week’s goal is to get my post done earlier.

Since I got no editing done on Blood Ties last week, I really need to buckle down this week. And I’ll probably be doing it on my old computer until I get used to the new version of Word on the new computer.

If I get tired of editing, I still need to get that last scene written for the book I’m taking with me to the retreat, which is coming up fast. And if I’m going to follow Madeleine’s advice and write every day, there are many prompts out there just begging for stories.

So . . . what’s will you be doing this week?