The Train Is Still On the Track!

You are doing this because you are fantastic and brave and curious. And, yes, you are probably a little crazy. And this is a good thing.
— Chris Baty

As Isaac Newton observed, objects in motion tend to stay in motion. When writing your first draft, being busy is key. It may feel frustrating at first, but having daily writing periods curtailed by chores, family, and other distractions actually helps you get the thing done. This is partly because the hectic pace forces you to type with a fleet-fingered desperation. But it’s mostly because noveling in the midst of a chaotic life makes “book time” a treat rather than an obligation. It’s a small psychological shift, but it makes all the difference in the world.
― Chris Baty

Deadlines bring focus, forcing us to make time for the achievements we would otherwise postpone, encouraging us to reach beyond our conservative estimates of what we think possible, helping us to wrench victory from the jaws of sleep.
― Chris Baty

I don’t know if it’s because of the pandemic, because we’re not supposed to go out and do stuff, but I don’t feel as frazzled with this NaNo as I usually do. In past years I’ve climbed aboard the crazy train trying to get everything done and get my words in, but I’ve been very Zen this year.

In the past couple of weeks I’ve interacted with friends, cleaned my office, made the meals, done laundry, took a couple of trips up to Costco and other shopping, kept up with my blog posts without having to stay up extra late to do so, and even took a road trip with the daughter to pick up her new puppy.

Could I actually be getting the hang of this NaNo thing?

I can remember when doing a story from a prompt once a week became such a chore that I finally stopped doing it. But now, I’m doing a story a day and I’m pretty much rocking it, if I do say so myself. My longest story so far has been 2,808 words, and the shortest has been 1,402 words. In fact, out of the thirteen stories I’ve written so far, only three have been under 2,000 words, and only two failed to meet the 1,667 daily word goal for NaNo.

In case you’re wondering how I’m keeping track . . . I used to keep track with pen and paper, writing down my daily word count and keeping a running total, but someone posted an Excel Spreadsheet template on line about 10 years ago and I’ve been using it ever since. I keep a blank one as a master, and just have to change the year at the top and save as that year.

I really wish I could remember who posted it, they did an amazing job. It shows the goal, the daily quota, word tally, words left, daily average and a bar graph at the top. Below that it has columns for the date, target total, words today, hours today (which I don’t fill out), running tally, percent today, words left, days left, daily average, projected finish date, and percent complete. The only one I have to fill out is the Words Today – everything else is automatic.

AND there are tabs at the bottom for pages for Progress (which is a bar graph), Novel Info (for your cover picture and synopsis), Characters (with a chart for character names and descriptions), Chapters (for titles and outlines), Plot Sheet (with helpful suggestions for plotting as well as space to do it in), Character Sheet (for individual characters), and Plot Example (a filled out plot sheet to show you how it’s done).

Clearly someone put a lot of work into it, but to be honest, the only thing I use is the Word Tracker. Being a pantser, I tend to let my characters reveal themselves to me bit by bit, and I never plan ahead for chapters, even when I do chapters that begin with journal entries. As for plots, well, they never turn out the way I expect anyway.

Still, having worked with Excel, my hat’s off to whoever created the spreadsheet.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

Wordage Report

NEW WORDS:
Flash anthology – 14,880
Blog Posts – 1231+707+542+1278=3,758
Total = 18,638 words

I was a little more up and down with the word counts for my stories last week, but I’m still ahead of the game over all. After all the editing and re-writing I was doing over the last many months, it’s kind of nice to write something fresh.

EDITING:
It occurs to me that just because I’m doing NaNo, where you’re not supposed to edit until you’re done, doesn’t mean I can’t be editing something else. I’ll have to think about that going forward.

WHAT I’M READING:
Still not doing a whole lot of reading. I’m about a quarter of the way through The Book of Magic by Alice Hoffman. It’s making me want to read the others in the series again, only I’d want to put them in order first. Still working away reading Lichen, and I’ve discovered it’s a literary journal put out by a writer’s group (I think).

On the Kindle I finished Signed, by Layla Nash, which was about mail order brides and bear shifters. At one point I really wanted to just thump the two main characters on their heads – if they’d just talk to each other they could’ve avoided a whole lot of misunderstanding, but of course if they’d done that it would have made for a shorter book, so I guess I’m glad they didn’t. LOL

Now I’m reading . . . to be honest, I’m not sure what I’m reading. I started reading another bear shifter romance, but I didn’t like the way it was starting out so I switched to something else, only it’s been a couple of days since I’ve been on my Kindle so I don’t remember what it was. Oops!

GOALS
Well . . . two out of three ain’t bad, right? I’m still acing my NaNo, and I got all my blog posts up, although when I scheduled the spice post to appear I forgot to schedule it on my regular blog so it didn’t get up on time.

But as far as getting out to enjoy the sunshine, that was a bit of a bust. I did get out one day for a walk down to the beach with a friend, but it started drizzling, and then turned to rain. The only other day I got out was Wednesday, when I drove the daughter to pick up her new puppy (two hours each way). I guess that doesn’t really count, does it?

THIS WEEK’S GOALS
1. Keep up the good work on NaNo.
2. Keep up the good work on the blog posts.
3. Try to get out and enjoy the sunshine, if we get any.


Write on.

Spring Thaw Writescape Re-emerging Retreat

He who retreats lives longer.
— Michael Scott

I've decided to retreat to the spirit world where I feel appreciated and understood.
— Dov Davidoff

In order to understand the world, one has to turn away from it on occasion.
― Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays

It only took a year and a half of waiting, but as I type this, I’m at my writer’s retreat. Woot! Whether you’re seeing this post at the regular time or much later today will depend on whether or not I can sign into the dashboard for my blog (I’m on my Lenovo here, not my MSI and I still switching back and forth between the two for some things, like blog posts).

I gotta tell you, third time’s the charm.

The first retreat I went on, Winterfire, was pretty much a learning experience. And I don’t mean learning as in I learned a lot there, I mean learning as in learning to investigate a little more fully about what I want/don’t want out of a retreat. It had a beautiful setting – a big manor house up on Lake Simcoe – but was a little lacking in the amenities, and it was run by a Toronto Based writer’s group so naturally a lot of the participants were from that group. They seemed to be dabblers more than writers; only a couple of them were serious about their writing and they pretty much kept to themselves.

The second one, the Kingston Writersfest, was pretty good (really good compared to Winterfire). It was an urban setting, but set on the waterfront. It was more down to the brass tacks of writing with its lectures and masterclasses to pick and choose from to make your own schedule. There really weren’t many opportunities to socialize outside of the classes, but I did learn a lot.

This retreat is everything I was looking for in a retreat. It’s a picturesque setting, the cabins lined up along the north shore of Rice Lake. Each cabin has its own kitchen, fireplace, and deck, but it’s part of a resort so there’s also a restaurant and all kinds of stuff to do should you want to. We have group writing sessions, but lots of free time to do our own thing. The cabins are shared, but we each have our own room – one shared bathroom with a spa tub, one small bathroom with a closet sized shower attached to one of the bedrooms.

This retreat is for more serious-minded writers, or writers who are trying to take their writing more seriously. The cabins were supposed to have a writing desk in each bedroom, but the only “desk” in here is a table-like thing with a chair against the wall beside the fireplace. But that’s okay. There’s a long table in the kitchen that’s big enough for at least two of us (socially distant) to work on our laptops. Mostly we’ve been writing in notebooks.

These writers are friendly and more sociable, and the only bad thing about it is that I only signed up for three days, not the five or seven. It’s even worse when the moderators announced that this will be the last retreat they’ll be offering. *sigh*

Looks like it’s back to the drawing board to find a yearly (or more often) writing retreat to go to. However, if I feel the need to get away to write I can always book a cabin on my own. Maybe even talk a writer friend or two into going with me.

Can’t say as I got a lot of writing done last week, other than the blog posts. I seem to recall running a lot of errands, mostly in the morning which is when I’m supposed to be writing. I managed to get together with one of my writing friends and we had coffee down on the waterfront one cool and grey-looking day, and another of my writing friends and I have been unsuccessfully trying to connect by phone.

Of course I can feel the creative juices starting to ignite from being at the retreat. Let’s just hope I can keep fueling the fire once I get home.

I’m more than halfway through The Green Man, by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, and I probably don’t even have to say how much I’m enjoying it.

The Week Ahead . . .

I have no idea what this week’s spice is going to be. My big book of spices is at home. But rest assured there’s always room for more spice in your life.

Other than writing every day, I also have no idea what I’ll be doing this week. I’d like to try and nail down my mornings for writing in my office, but I suspect first I’ll have to clean it – again!

One thing I’d like to do for sure is nail down my idea for this year’s NaNo. Maybe I’ll have to write them on a list or something – I have several of them. Although the Kiranthus book isn’t out of the race yet.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

Destination vs. Journey

When you reach the end of what you should know, you will be at the beginning of what you should sense.
― Kahlil Gibrán, Sand and Foam

The end of THE END is the best place to begin THE END, because if you read THE END from the beginning of the beginning of THE END to the end of the end of THE END, you will arrive at the end.
― Lemony Snicket, The End

If I have one complaint about my Kindle, it’s that it makes it hard to skip to the end of a book. You know, how when you think you know how the story turns out and you skip to the end to see if you’re right? Oh, come on. You know you do it too.

And yes, I know that it’s probably not a problem with your Kindle, but mine is something like 10 years old (I think it’s a third generation, with the keyboard) and it works just fine as long as I don’t try to update it. Plus it has a great deal of sentimental value, so I won't be replacing it any time soon. Unless I absolutely have to.

But I digress. We were talking about skipping to the end of books. I’ve always done this – not with every book, mostly with romances to see if things work out the way I think they should. They usually do, but not always. Sometimes I just skip ahead a few chapters to see if I figured out the way things are going to unfold.

I had a writer I did editing for who was so appalled I’d do such a thing that she threatened to withhold the last chapter from me when I did work for her and I had to solemnly swear I would not skip to the end of any of her books. It was an easy promise to keep because her books were so predictable I didn’t need to skip to the end. LOL

She claimed it ruins the story if you know how it ends, but I’ve never found that to be the case. Maybe that’s why in my writing I don’t start writing a book unless I have an idea of how it’s going to end. Like the saying goes, it’s not the destination, it’s the journey that counts.

I know there are people out there who only read a book once, and I don’t understand them at all. While there’s nothing better than a new book, I can enjoy re-reading an old favorite just as much. It’s like re-watching a favorite movie or T.V. series – you pick up details you hadn’t noticed previously and it makes the story almost like new.

Speaking of new, I started reading a new book this week. I finished Teeth by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, a refreshing take on vampire stories, and The Dressmakers of Auschwitz by Lucy Adlington, a powerful book on the holocaust. Now I’m reading Blackbird House, by Alice Hoffman. It’s not a single story, like I expected, but a series of stories about the different people who’ve lived in the title house over several generations.

Aside from blog posts, I wrote a handful of poems, four of which were to illustrate the poetry form I showcased on Friday. BUT I’m just about finished marking up my draft copy of Magickal Mayhem. I’ll easily get the last few pages finished today and then I can start making the changes to the electronic copy. And once that’s finished it’ll be sent off to my good buddy so she can tell me how much it sucks. :-)

The Week Ahead . . .

It’s October now, and you know what that means. All things pumpkin. So my spice of the week will come as no surprise to you.

Now that the edits on Magickal Mayhem are finished the pressure of getting it done so I can move on to other things is gone. Next up is An Elemental Spirit, which pretty much needs to be rewritten, not just edited.

I’m also still determined to start writing every day – a one word prompt, a flash prompt, something. Or maybe, considering last week’s post on finishing things, I can pick one of my unfinished projects and . . . finish it.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

Here's An Idea . . .

The irritating question they ask us -- us being writers -- is: "Where do you get your ideas?" And the answer is: Confluence. Things come together. The right ingredients and suddenly: Abracadabra!
― Neil Gaiman, Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fiction and Illusions

I always had plenty of ideas. I didn’t exactly have them. They grew—little by little, a half an idea at a time. First, part of a phrase and then a person to go with it. After a person, then a little corner of a place for the person to be in.
― Carol Emshwiller

I know it’s early yet, but with the weather starting to cool off my thoughts have been drifting towards November and NaNoWriMo. Normally I wait until closer to the start before I begin to waffle – should I/shouldn’t I – but I decided to skip that part this year. We all know I’m going to do it, if only because I don’t want to break my winning streak.

So . . . wanting to be prepared I started considering what to work on. Only the idea well seems to have run dry. I don’t really want to do a sequel to one of the books I’ve already done (or started and didn’t finish), but when I started thinking about something new my mind was a dust bowl. We’re talking complete with tumbleweeds.

I briefly considered doing a 1667 word flash a day thing, but I’m not sure I could keep up the momentum. Then I considered the idea I had a couple of years ago for a themed anthology, there’s enough time to do the research that put me off before, but again, I’d need to do a story a day to complete it.

Then I started kicking around a themed anthology idea revolving around flowers . . . That might be doable. I could get my research done ahead of time, maybe even jot down an idea or two about each story. The stories could be as long or as short as I like. Hmm. That might be doable.

Or I might just write the beginning story of Kiranthus (from The Moonstone Chronicles). Lord knows I have enough notes about him. And I know the story pretty well. When I first conceived the idea for the Chronicles, there were going to be 9 books in total – three about Kiranthus, three about Jessica, and the final three about what came after. I don’t think Kiranthus needs three whole books, and I’m wrapping this up nicely in Blood Ties so there’s not going to be much to add afterwards. So a book about Kiranthus just might fly.

It’s nice to know there's still a trickle of water at the bottom of the well. :-)

Unfortunately, I’m still not getting much writing done, other than my blog posts. I didn’t even dabble in poetry last week, although I did make a few entries in my writing journal. But I did make myself a handy dandy chart to keep track of my weekly words. You know, when I actually have some.

I didn’t get much editing on Blood Ties either. I don’t really know where my week went – it’s not like I had anything special going on. I did start doing a free course on “show, don’t tell” that I found on-line to try and encourage me to do other writing but so far although I’m learning stuff, I don’t feel any more motivated to getting back at the writing.

Reading wise I’m still reading The Coyote Road, by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling and I’m really enjoying it. I’ve been alternating it with a couple of writing books, again, to encourage me to actually write. So far I’m still resisting.

The Week Ahead . . .

While last week’s episode of my non-fiction series wasn’t any easier to write, it wasn’t as stressful because I started it earlier. I need to keep doing that.

I really need to quite dicking around and get back to the edits on Blood Ties. Which I’m renaming again – Blood Ties is now going to be Magical Mayhem. It makes better sense and it ties in with the first book in the series.

I’m also determined to start writing every day – a one word prompt, a flash prompt, the scene I need to finish the book I’m taking with me to the retreat, it doesn’t matter as long as I write something.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

It’s All In Your Head

A headache, I get the kind of headache God would smote you with in the Old Testament.
― Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters

“I don't want to die now!" he yelled. "I've still got a headache! I don't want to go to heaven with a headache, I'd be all cross and wouldn't enjoy it!”
― Douglas Adams

The word for the week is headache. It’s been so hot that we’ve had to have the air conditioner on upstairs at night and it’s loud enough that I’m not getting a good night’s sleep. I wake up super tired and headachy. Also, we’re coming into allergy season, and not only do I get sinus headaches, the pressure from my sinuses gives me earaches. *sigh*

Still . . . I feel like I’m moving closer to being able to use my old format here; you know, the one that included actual word counts and progress reports.

One of the reasons for this is that I moved my desk. Not a lot, but instead of it being angled with my back to a corner, I have it perpendicular to the window so my back is to the wall. Surprisingly, I have a lot more room with the desk this way. And the big thing is, it’s brighter. The way it was angled before, it didn’t matter how bright it was outside, the low hutch that contains the roll top threw a shadow on the desk top. I had to have a light on top of the bookcase beside me because the overhead light is kind of dim.

And one of the interesting things I discovered, originally I had the desk parallel to the window with my back to the wall so I was looking out the window. I couldn’t have had it that way for long because I don’t even remember that, but I have the pictures to prove it.

In any case, I like the desk perpendicular to the window. I can still access the bookcase right under the window, and the one against the opposite wall, as well as the filing cabinet the printer sits on. And I feel like I have more room – I don’t have to shimmy to get behind my desk. LOL

The other reason I got more writing done last week is because the Solitaire Garden website still isn’t working. *sigh* The other games just aren’t as much fun, not even the hidden object games. I am valiantly resisting the urge to look for new games.

After more endless back and forthing – filling my shopping cart, deleting my shopping cart – I finally settled on a Lenovo ThinkPad Gen 15. I’m trying not to dwell on why I didn’t just go for a different IdeaPad with its superior battery life. I’m sure I had my reasons – it was probably some bad reviews that scared me off. Anyway, the ThinkPad is on its way.

I finished my mandala poem. The amount of information I’d gathered about mandalas was so overwhelming I decided to put it to good use and do a black out poem. Friday being the first Friday of September, I figure I’ll post it then.

I finished The Bookseller’s Secret by Michelle Gable – I really enjoyed the way it went back and forth between the past and present. It was really two stories in one, and I can’t decide which one I enjoyed more. But unfortunately after that I started sliding back into the Nora Roberts black reading hole again. Blame the hot, yet overcast weather for that. But at least I’m down to her early stuff, which is much shorter. :-)

The Week Ahead . . .

I almost started a brand new series on Wednesday, but it was so late Tuesday night when I started it, I didn’t get very far. But be on the look-out for The Spice of Life, starting this Wednesday. As you may surmise, it’s about spices and their uses. I’m not going to put them in alphabetical order (boring!) and it’ll run until I get tired of it. LOL

Work is proceeding on the edits for Blood Ties. The beginning is totally changing and there will be at least a couple of parts of the rest of it that’ll have to change too. But I’m confident it’ll be a better book for it.

I picked out the novel I’m taking to the retreat in October. And the winner is . . . The Perfect Match, formerly known as The Eros Portal (NaNo 2016). It’s a science fiction romance about a scientist who creates a machine that’s meant to find a person’s perfect romantic match, but things go a little awry when the wrong DNA is used. Not only do I really like this story, it’s really close to being done. I only have one scene (I think) to add to complete it.

I think I’d like start working with some prompts again, just something quick and easy to start my writing day. Maybe even start doing a weekly flash story to post on Fridays . . .

So . . . what’s your week looking like?

Confession Is Good For the Soul

The act of writing can be a form of release – a confession performs the same action: putting your inner life on the page or into the hands of a trusted person releases tensions and sheds light on what often seems hidden until spoken – or written.
— Connie Nielsen

I have a confession to make. I’m back up to level 492 on Solitaire Garden. And the ploy of going to the craft store to replace some of my gaming time with crafting time did not work. *sigh*

And that’s not even the worst part. The worst part is that between rounds they show advertisements, and the ads they’ve been showing the most are for Lenovo laptops, the laptop I was lusting after before I got this one.

There’s nothing wrong with the lap top I’m using now. Sure, it gets a little warm when I’m using it on my lap, and it’s heavy and the battery life sucks, but I really like the backlit keyboard with its adjustable colours and it’s smooth to type on . . . But Lenovo has a fingerprint lock, and it’s lighter, and some of them come with a built in fan.

I told the hubby about it, thinking he’d tell me there’s nothing wrong with my old laptop so what’s the point in getting a new one, but he let me down. He said I should go for it. I could use the old lap top for gaming and social media, and the new one strictly for writing. Say what?

So then I told him that if I got a new one I could wipe the old one so he could use it – his lap top was never great to begin with and it seems to be going downhill fast, but he doesn’t want to go to the trouble of switching all of his music programs over to a different computer.

I’ve gone to the Lenovo site a couple of times to check them out – so many choices! – and I’ve narrowed it down to a couple, but I’m still having a hard time justifying it in my mind. Maybe I should just table the whole idea of a separate laptop for writing until I’m actually, you know, writing consistently.

I did get my regular blog post done and my Fiction Friday post done last week, I didn’t start the new non-fiction series yet because I’m waffling between two different series.

Poetry played a big part in my writing last week. I did quite a lot of research for this month’s “poemwork” for my poetry group, which was to “write a mandala poem.” At first I wasn’t too keen on the idea, I mean as prompts go that’s pretty vague, but then I got a few ideas and started doing some research, and then I figured out a really unique way to present it. Then I was sitting out on the deck working on my mandala poem and a whole different poem kinda swooped into my head, so I wrote it down on the back of one of my pages of notes.

I also, be still my heart, generated some interest in the two books I have sitting here waiting to be edited. Elemental Spirit was featured on Fiction Friday, and when I was going over it to find an excerpt I had a brilliant idea of how to re-do the beginning. And I’ve also come to the conclusion I’m going to have to bite the bullet and do journal entries for the beginning of each chapter like I did in Fire and Water.

I’ve been trying to edit Blood Ties on the computer, and I really wasn’t getting anywhere, so I finally printed it out – all 328 pages of it – to work on a few pages at a time. And I also came up with a new idea to begin this one, but I’m going to think about it for a bit before I tackle it.

With Elemental Spirit, it’s in such terrible shape it won’t matter if I take a section from later on and move it to the beginning, But with Blood Ties, it’s pretty much done except for the final polish, and to change the beginning at this point would take a bit a work. Twenty or thirty pages worth of work. I’ll probably do it, it’ll make for a better story, but it won’t make me happy doing it. LOL

I managed to pull myself out of the Nora Roberts black hole with my reading, switching my attention to fairy tales, including some non-fiction books about them. But I didn’t get back to Bird By Bird last week, which means no exercises in the writing journal. I didn’t get around to the three minutes with three words writing prompts either.

The Week Ahead . . .

It’s going to be a busy week this week. I get to do some actual babysitting of the grandbaby, I’ve got to clean up the old couch set for the charity group that’s coming to pick it up, the new set is going to be delivered, and there’s a business meeting with my poetry group. Plus my office is still a mess and I’d really like to fix that. Maybe move some books around.

I want to dive head first into the edits on Blood Ties, even if it means rewriting the first 30 pages or so, and ideally I’d like to start with the rewrites of Elemental Spirit.

And finally, I need to pick a new novel to take with me to the writing retreat I’m going to in the fall. You know, the one I was supposed to go to in the spring of 2020. :-D I was originally going to take Knightsong (the novel I started for NaNo 2010) but it’s nowhere near finished and I’d like something a little closer to being done.

So . . . what will you be writing this week?

The New Leaves Are Stirring

The woods are hush'd, their music is no more;
The leaf is dead, the yearning past away;
New leaf, new life
the days of frost are o'er;
~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

So . . . the new leaf I was turning over is a little crumpled around the edges, but dare I say I think I’m starting to smooth it out? I mean, check it out – I got my poetry post done for the first Friday of the month. Can more posts be far behind? LOL

I ordered myself a copy of Anne Lamott’s Bird By Bird and I’ve been reading it a little bit at a time for inspiration. Though it’s not a writing instruction book per se, it starts out with her talking about the writing classes she’s given and describing a few of the exercises she’s given her students. Trying to get back into the writing habit (as a start to getting into a productive writing habit) I thought, why not give them a try?

The first one had you thinking back to your childhood and describing your early school years, starting with kindergarten. Anne advised that you don’t worry about the order, just write as many details as you can remember.

It was a kind of interesting exercise. Given kindergarten was a long time ago for me I didn’t think I’d have much to say, but the more I wrote the more I remembered. Before I knew it, I’d filled a couple of pages.

I’m still fumbling a bit, trying to find a routine, but I am writing more. Finding a balance is harder than you’d think. Or maybe it’s just me.

Maybe there’s hope for me yet.

The Week Ahead…

I’m hoping to expand on the writing I did last week. And by that I mean continue the exercise from Bird By Bird. I’d probably be happy with just that, but I’d like to see about adding a daily ‘three minutes with three words’ writing prompt.

My reading has slowed down considerably, but I’d really like to pull out of the Nora Roberts black hole I seem to be in. I did start reading a book of poetry written by one of the members of my poetry group. I’m quite enjoying it, but I’m taking my time, reading only a few at a time to make it last.

And finally, I’d like to reduce the amount of time I spend mindlessly playing games. I got tired of waiting for them to come up with new levels for Solitaire Garden and reset it. I’m ashamed to admit I’m already back up to level 389. Seeing as I made a trip to Michael’s (craft store) yesterday for more craft stuff I really don’t need, I’d like to replace at least some of that gaming time with crafting time.

Wish me luck. ;-)

A New Leaf

You know, there’s nothing worse than becoming addicted to a game and having it fail on you. I’ve been playing Solitaire Garden for a few weeks now. There are 800 levels to it and despite the fact it’s a tri-peaks solitaire game, it’s been getting progressively harder. The idea is to play a round of solitaire to earn a star, then use the stars to complete tasks in the garden. Tasks can take anywhere from 2 to 5 stars so you have to go through several levels to complete a task.

As I said, some levels are easier than others and it’ll often warn you if it’s a “hard level” or a “really hard level.” But I’m nothing, if not persistent. It took me several days to get past level 626 and after that the tasks dried up. All I get is the message “More tasks will be available soon. In the meantime, beat more levels to earn more stars.” So I kept going, racking up 39 stars for future use, until I came to level 649. Now I’m getting a message “New levels coming soon! Stay tuned.”

*sigh*

It’s pretty obvious that fate has stepped in to force me to turn over a new leaf. I’ve making noises about getting back into some good writing habits (or any writing habits for that matter) but despite all my good intentions, every time I open my lap top (while sitting in the living room) I automatically gravitate to the games. So what does fate do? Take away my favourite game.

Okay fate, I hear you. Here I am in my office typing this.

To be fair, I really have been wanting to get back into a routine. And on the weekend I started thinking about stuff I needed to get done, stuff I wanted to get done, jotted down a few ideas for moving forward . . . . I even made a couple of lists – not just for writing stuff, but for every day stuff as well.

Then I started thinking about my blog format and how a wordage report doesn’t really work anymore because I haven’t really been doing any writing. And while I have a non-fiction series in mind for Wondering Wednesdays, I’m not sure what to do about Fiction Fridays. I can finish the excerpts from my NaNo novels, but then what? Do I start over again with different excerpts?

It would be great to start something totally new, but can I justify that with all the novels I got that need finishing? And I’ve still got the final edits to do on Blood Ties, the final book in the Moonstone Chronicles. I’d like to see it over and done and out by Christmas.

Which doesn’t really solve my problem of what to do about a Wordage Report or Fiction Friday, does it? That’s just the way my mind is circling these days, I guess.

In the end, what matters is that I’m here in my office and I’m getting new words down, even if they are words in a blog post. But it’s either that or clean my office. Which would you rather do?

Rebooting

My second surgery (reversing my temporary colostomy) went well but the recovery has been slow. Funny how the body objects to having two major surgeries within a few weeks of each other. I’m having to learn to be patient with myself and pace myself.

I’m still spending a lot of time sitting around, but at least I’m more mentally alert so I’ve been reading a lot, and (I admit) playing a lot of online solitaire and hidden object games. It finally dawned on me that if I’m well enough to play games, I should be well enough to write. So here I am. :-D

It’s been what, three? four months since I’ve done any serious writing? And the writing wasn’t going all that well prior to that, although I did get the first round of edits done on Blood Ties.

So . . . time to get back in the saddle – set some goals, dust off my editing hat, check out some new prompts. That's what I'll be working on this week - getting myself organized and working out some kind of a schedule.

There was a meeting of the CPW (my poetry group) last week – we gathered down at the waterfront and a good time was had by all. I actually wrote some new poetry to share and it got me thinking that maybe I should do more of that. So starting this week, the first Fiction Friday of the month will be a poetry post.

Not sure if I’m going to dive back into my non-fiction Wednesdays yet or not, we’ll have to see how it goes.

One step at a time, but at least I’m stepping forward again.

Indexing

As much as it’s difficult for this die-hard pantser to admit, there might be something to the whole plotting thing after all.

While attempting my eleventy-billionth rewrite of Driving Into Forever, it’s come to my attention that there’s a lot more going on in this story than I realized. There is a lot of stuff that should have been included that I skipped over or only alluded to. Stuff that really needs to be included now.

Seeing as it was my first NaNo (and I was pretty clueless), I looked around at all these people who spent the month of October making character sheets and detailed outlines and I figured I should probably do something similar. So what I did was, I made a list of everything I wanted to have happen in my book – that’s as good as it got, a point form list.

When it came down to the actual writing, I cherry picked from this list, writing a scene for each point. I thought I was being so smart when in fact I was being incredibly stupid. I did not do them in order and I was left with a series of scenes that were in no way connected with each other. If I ever do a piece on how not to write a novel, it will be all about that.

Anyway, I realized to make Driving Into Forever work, at the very least I need a good outline so I can flesh the story out properly. And the way I’m going to do it is by using index cards, which I should have done from the very beginning, and would have if I’d known this method existed.

For those of you unfamiliar with this method, the idea is to take a stack of index cards and write a sentence or two on each one that describes a single scene. Once you run out of scenes/ideas, you can lay them out and put them in order before you start writing.

This is especially handy if you have more than one story line going on. It has the advantage of allowing you to make sure everything is balanced. This would have come in handy with Blood Ties. It has three, sometimes four, story lines going on at the same time and it would be nice to be able to see at a glance if I was spending too much time on one at the expense of the others.

To make it easier to see what card belongs to what story line in Driving Into Forever, I’m going to use coloured cards – one colour for Hannah’s scenes, a different colour for the scientists, a third for the bad guy, and a fourth for the good guy. I’ve only got four colours, so if there’s anything else I’ll have to use coloured pens on plain white ones.

Once I’m done with the cards, it should be easy enough to weave the story lines together in a logical manner and then I can go to town on the writing. I should mention that I’m keeping the very beginning, where Hannah is driving in the fog and ends up in the Myste, but then I’m going to get rid of all previous versions including the hard copies so I can write fresh.

God help me.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

Wordage Report

New Words:

Driving Into Forever – 0 words
Blog Posts – 867+0+651+1190=2,708
Total = 2,708

Progress on Driving Into Forever ground to a halt while I work on the index cards. Hopefully next week will show a jump in words.

And once again I didn’t do Monday’s post – I really had nothing to say. It’s still the pandemic and I’m still not going anywhere or doing anything.

Editing:

If you believe TraxTime, I spent 14 hours and 20 minutes editing Blood Ties last week – best editing week so far!

What I’m Reading:

I was moderate in my reading last week – I spent more time on it than the week before, but I’m not binging. I started with Unfinished Business, by Nora Roberts. I didn’t care much for the heroine at first, and I still think she should have woken up to smell the coffee about her father, but I did enjoy the story overall. This was followed by Cottage By the Sea by Debbie Macomber, which I really enjoyed, and I’m over halfway through Window on the Bay, also by Debbie Macomber.

I didn’t do any extra reading on the e-books, so I’m still working on Captured & Seduced, book three of Alien Shenanigans by Shelley Munro. I shouldn’t have any trouble finishing it this week, and then I’m done with the shenanigans and I’ll be looking for something new to read.

Goals

Technically I met all my goals last week. Blog posts are not on my goals list, so missing Monday’s post doesn’t count.

The editing on Blood Ties is going really well, but I gotta tell you every time I delete more than a single sentence I start second guessing myself. I’m working on the only copy of the draft I have, so anything I delete is gone forever. Scary stuff.

Realizing that there was more going on in Driving Into Forever than I realized was kind of an epiphany for me. No wonder I was having so much trouble with the previous versions. Hopefully the index card outline with get me back on track and keep me there.

It was easier to buy new yarn than to search the craft closet for my yarn stash, so I did, and I started working on a granny stitch ripple crochet afghan. To be honest, I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed crocheting and it’s a much better use of my time than gaming.

This Week’s Goals

1. Keep up the good work editing.
2. Finish the index cards for DIF and get writing.
3. Continue with my balanced reading time.
4. Continue with the crocheting instead of gaming.

Looks like I’m getting there, eh?