Things and Stuff

New Words - 1052
Poetry - 177
Total Words - 1229
Editing Hours - 0
Paragraphs of Notes- 3

Honestly, if it’s not one thing it’s another. Last week was another week that was not conducive to writing, and I can’t even blame the hubby being on vacation. Actually, hubby being at home was a bonus because he was determined to barbeque every night, which meant he was doing half the cooking for dinners.

No, the culprit last week was all the extra babysitting so the son-in-law could spend time visiting his mother, who was in the hospital. I love my grandbaby, but she can be pretty exhausting. She may only be 2 ½ but she’s already a force of nature.

What surprised me the most about last week was I was able to get my blog posts done. Especially the Friday ones. Thursday I babysat from 8:30 a.m. until 7:30 p.m., and then Friday the hubby and I took the day off to go to the CNE, which you can read about HERE if you like.

Thank goodness for the prompts from Brazen Snake Books last week or I might not have anything to show for my week except a few paragraphs of notes for a story idea. The poetry prompt was to write a poem about something (anything) going bad, which came just at the right time for me.

I’d like to move my office across the hall to a sunnier room in the house, but in doing so I also need a smaller desk. I’ve always dreamed of one of those small, roll top desks with all the pigeon holes and secret drawers and such. So on a whim I did an online search and to my surprise I found one I could afford within driving distance. I emailed the seller and yes, it was still available. It was going to be a couple of days before I could get to it and in the mean time someone else, with cash in hand, swooped in and bought it. You can read my poem about it HERE.

And anyone who knows me knows I love all things mystical, so it was impossible to resist last week’s story prompt: A character went to get his/her fortune read six years ago. Today, that fortune is coming true in the most unexpected way. Tell us about it… You can check out the resulting stories HERE. I really love that Jamie’s story (it comes first) is light in contrast to the darkness of mine.

The new PROMPTS for the week are up at Brazen Snake Books, you should really pop over and give them a try. And once you’re done with your story and/or poem for BSB, check out my picture prompt of the month HERE. Last month's prompt inspired someone other than me to write a story, I'd love if that happened again.

Needless to say, I made no progress on a writing routine last week but this week things are back to normal, despite the long weekend. So cross your fingers for me.

A Trickle of Words

I was going to start this post with more excuses and whining about not being able to settle into a routine because of life throwing me a curve ball every time I think I’m finally getting on track, but the truth of the matter is, if I’m not making a lot of writing progress I only have myself to blame.

Now the thing is, I used to get the bulk of my writing done in the evenings, but frankly after dinner is over with I don’t have a lot of energy left at night. Plus I have this addiction to on-line solitaire and hidden object games, and I get distracted easily.

Which means I need to start sucking it up and get my writing in during the day. It makes it a little difficult when I babysit four hours a day (right in the middle of the day) but I get at least an hour free during nap time, and I’m good for a couple of hours first thing in the morning. So really, it’s just a matter of self-discipline

That’s not to say I haven’t been getting any writing at all in. Over the last couple of weeks I’ve written a couple of stories and I got my notes all organized to get back to work on Wandering Wizards. I found these mini index cards at the dollar store, and jotted down a note or two about each of the remaining scenes on them, one scene per card. I have three scenes to be inserted throughout the beginning, and ten more scenes to finish the book.

I’d like to take a moment to remind you about the prompt I posted for February. You can either just scroll down to see it, or you can find it HERE . You’ve still got a couple of weeks to come up with your idea - fiction, non-fiction, poetry ...

And you may notice in that post how I said I didn’t want to get locked into a weekly thing. So I find it a little ironic that the two stories I’ve written were for the weekly prompts over at the Brazen Snake Books site.

For those of you who are curious, my story Broken can be found HERE and my story Retribution can be found HERE They were a fun challenge to write, and if you’d like to join in the fun, check out Snake Bites, the Brazen Snake Books blog on Monday for their new prompt.

They might not be the greatest stories I've ever written, but they got me writing again.