Making Word Art – Writersfest Part IV

Good cover design is not only about beauty... it’s a visual sales pitch. It’s your first contact with a potential reader. Your cover only has around 3 seconds to catch a browsing reader’s attention. You want to stand out and make them pause and consider, and read the synopsis.
― Eeva Lancaster

Aspiring authors, get this through your head. Cover art serves one purpose, and one purpose only, to get potential customers interested long enough to pick up the book to read the back cover blurb. In the internet age that means the thumb nail image needs to be interesting enough to click on. That’s what covers are for.
― Larry Correia

I always think that it's wrong to put images of my protagonists on the cover of my novels because readers can identify with characters only if they are given the chance to imagine them independently.
― Orhan Pamuk

Back to the Writersfest reports this week. 😊

Day two, workshop two was Making Word Art, facilitated by Oliver McPartin.

Are you an artist wondering how to get into book design? Are you a writer wondering how book covers are made, and who gets a say? Want to develop your own unique typography to make your work unique? Graphic designer, illustrator and artist Oliver McPartlin offers an insight into the book jacket and typography design business.

This was another more seminar than workshop, so all we could do was sit there and take notes. And I gotta be honest here, my note-taking leaves much to be desired. But we weren’t allowed to record the workshops, so now I’m stuck trying to figure out what I’m talking about. LOL

There were a few technical glitches in the beginning. Mr. McPartlin’s presentation depended on being able to run a slide show from his laptop, and no one seemed to know how to get the interface between the laptop and the projector to work. We were finally saved by one of the maintenance men who doubled as the hotel’s IT guy.

When considering cover art, you must first consider what type of book you’re working with – who the audience is, who’s going to be buying the book. You’ll need to look at the demographics, genre, comparison titles, and do an evaluation pitch for the book to come up with an author kit.

Clichés and tropes are useful to let readers know what to expect. However, people on the cover will lead to that person sticking in the reader’s mind. This is why many books only show part of the face on their cover. Some trends serve a purpose. Big type is easy to read in Amazon thumbnails. But some design trends are just trends. The end goal is to sell more books.

Who gets a say in book covers? The author, publisher, marketing department, designer, retailer, distributer . . . all input is welcome. New authors tend to be more picky about their covers. Seasoned authors tend to be more easy going.

You need to learn the language. Authors and non-designers often know when something is wrong, but not how to fix it. Take direction with a grain of salt but try to meet them halfway. Don’t get attached to your first idea – pick your battles! Showing some flexibility on an inconsequential decision might lead to more important things.

Timelines are usually a season ahead for promotional purposes. The front cover is done well in advance of the back. Things can change along the way, like last minute title changes.

The number of versions needed varies. Short story collections are the most difficult and have the most versions. You can present a bunch of concepts, but not a bunch of variations on one concept. The Carson Method (named for David Carson) is to make fifty versions and tell them to pick.

The creative process is the fun part. Read the book only as much as you need to so you can skim for imagery. Iconography is important and useful. The trick is to use it in an interesting way. Look for the book’s internal iconography, an image that jumps out at you. Make sure the image fits the content.

Draw on visual elements from the text, even if no one will ever catch it. Reflect themes using existing symbols – green for jealousy, a dove for peace, pomegranate for knowledge, a rose for love, a dying rose for death/dying/murder.

Strive for quality. Take a step back and ask yourself if it looks good or not. If not, keep going. Taste is part of the process and is cultivated by practice. Pay attention to signage, fonts, photos, and ads. Spend time in bookstores looking at covers.

Know the elements of your own style so you know what to fall back on and to keep from overusing certain ideas. Follow designers on social media. Keep a stack of design books. Stay up on font trends – what’s overused, underused, esthetically pleasing, current.

Keep a list of techniques you want to try. Spend time with your software.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

WORDAGE REPORT

THE WEEK IN REVIEW
The word for last week is . . . roller coaster. It may seem like a kind of strange word, but it’s fitting for the way my week was, including the weather.

When I was slacking off, I really slacked off – reading, playing games, napping – but when I mustered the energy to get doing stuff, I really went to town. So it was a pretty up and down week.

Weather-wise we seem to have had it all – wind, clouds, sun (a tiny bit), rain, snow . . . it was pretty up and down. My mood, however, pretty much stayed down. I don’t know if it had something to do with a change in my medication, or it was just me. I’m kind of hoping it was the medication, because that would make it temporary. If it’s just me, then who knows how long this mood will last?

It rained/snowed on Halloween, but that didn’t stop the 25 kids that came to our door. I was smart this year and made up bags to give out – 30 of them – and then got small bags of chips to go with them. So there’s not a whole lot of leftovers, as there was in previous years.

I was off to a slow start with NaNo. I kinda knew which idea I was going to go with, but I wanted to hedge my bets, so I was going to consult this oversized notepad I like to write longer ideas down in, only I couldn’t find it. I have no idea where it could be – I’ve gone through pretty much everything in my office, including the storage closet, but it seems to have vanished. Just like my little password book did.

And speaking of passwords . . . I did a factory reset on my Galaxy Tab E tablet (that I rarely use) and passed it on to the daughter so she could set it up for the granddaughter. Well, I’m not exactly sure why, but when I went to check my email Friday night, it wanted me to verify I was who I said I was, and to do so I had to sign into my email. The problem was, I had no clue what my password was because it was in the little password book I lost.

The next option for verification it gave me was to send a code to the Tab E, which I don’t have anymore. The third option was to send a code to my Hotmail account, which I haven’t checked in I-don’t-know-how long, and which took several tries before I got the password right. *sigh*

I did eventually get everything all straightened out, but it would have never happened if Staples hadn’t taken it upon themselves to sync my devices when I had my laptop in for a virus scan.

NEW WORDS:
2250+509+1197+1224=5,180
UP: 563 – words

Guess I had more to say than I thought last week. And the blog posts were all up early, too. I gotta tell you, it was a nice feeling to be able to relax at night instead of scrambling to get a post finished.

It made it easier to turn my attention to other things too, to read or stitch without feeling guilty. I hope this is something I can keep up in the weeks to come.

Goals For Next Week:
Keep up the good work with the blogs

NANOWRIMO:
Day 1 – 1730
Day 2 – 1651
Day 3 – 1651
Day 4 – 1724
Total for week 1 – 6,756
Total for month – 6,756

I will admit that I got off to a very slow start with NaNo this year. In fact, I was pretty lethargic about it, even on November 1. I had pretty much decided on the idea I was going to go with, but despite it’s potential, I was still pretty meh about the whole thing.

Late Wednesday afternoon I finally spent an hour searching for a name for my main character, and this was followed by working on a mock up of a cover for it so I could make my official announcement on the NaNo site.

And I will tell you for true, I hate the title and as soon as I can come up with something better I will be changing it. But so far I don’t know enough about the story to do so. It’s revealing itself slowly to me. I’m making my daily quota, but just barely. And it’s been mostly later in the day when I’m writing.

Goal For Next Week:
Keep making the daily quota; maybe try to get my words in earlier in the day.

POETRY:
Despite the fact that I had a form all ready to go, in the spirit of Halloween, I decided to go with a classic poem. I posted The Raven, by Edgar Allan Poe, and included a video of Vincent Price reading it.

One of my goals before NaNo started was to have a couple of forms done, or close to being done, just to have ready to use in case I needed to focus on the words for NaNo. Well, I did the example for one of the poems that I’d researched and distilled the information for, and then researched and distilled the information for another form and before I knew what I was doing, I did an example for it too!

So that makes a total of four forms ready for posting, and three that just need an example. But I gotta tell you, one of those forms is going to be more challenging than one of the coded Welsh forms!

Goal For Next Week:
Take my time getting the remaining examples written.

CRAFTING:
This week it was back to the library for stitching, where admittedly we all got more talking than stitching done. Everyone was impressed that I wore my witch’s costume.

One of the ladies brought her woven basket to work on – she was down to just having to hand sew the strips at the top down. I would like to feature mine on my Monday post, which means I’ll need to unweave it so it’s flat and take pictures. I wish I’d thought to take pictures from the beginning though.

We talked a bit about the upcoming stitching retreat – 5 of the 7 of us who were at the library were going – and settled on our car pooling. Then I’d no sooner got home than one of the driving forces behind the retreats phoned me and talked me into signing up for one in March, too. LOL

I’ve given up on finishing my zentangle sampler, but I think I’ll take it with me to the retreat (which is next weekend!) to work on. Meanwhile, I have another bag I’d started years ago. The embroidery is finished, it just needs to be sewn together.

Goal For Next Week:
Finish my basket, sew together brown bag.

WHAT I’M READING:
I’m a little over halfway through The Invisible Hour by Alice Hoffman, and I’m finding it fascinating.

On the Kindle I finished Pawsitively Poisonous, by Melissa Erin Jackson. And I’m working on Dead Even, by Patti Larson now. BUT I updated my Goodreads, and I’m showing as having read 66/50 books read for the year. Guess I’ll need a bigger goal for next year, eh?

Goal For Next Week:
Keep up the moderate reading habits

THE WEEK AHEAD:

Well, I’d have to say that new leaf of mine is beginning to grow. Maybe not in the direction I was expecting, but it’s starting to push through.

This despite the fact that I didn’t spend as much time in my office as I would have liked, but that’s not entirely my fault. I don’t know what’s gotten into the cats lately, but they’ve been super cuddly. Khaos spent an entire day snuggled up to me in the recliner. Even after I had to gently move her so I could have a lunch/bathroom break, she was right back with me when I sat down again. Incidentally, this was the day I got all that poetry done. Maybe she’s my poetry mews?

Tuesday should prove interesting. My car needs to go in for servicing and to get the tires switched over to the winter ones. The hubby needs his car to drive his father to a medical appointment in Oshawa. There is a stitch-in at the library. Looks like I’m walking. 😊

With four poetry forms ready to go, I don’t feel the need to knock myself out writing poetry this week. Maybe I’ll start working on the hard one. After all, I’ll have four weeks before it’s needed.

I’ll finally be in a place to post an excerpt from this year’s NaNo for Fiction Friday this week. Hopefully it’ll be a decent one, although I have to say I’m not impressed with what I’m writing so far. Don’t get me wrong, with a little planning I think this story could be a winner, I just don’t have time for planning right now.

Like I said above, I’d like to get that brown, embroidered bag finished in time to take to the retreat with me, but I’ve been putting it off for twenty years now. Do I really think I’ll do it now? *shrug* Who knows? Stranger things have happened.

Friday I’ll be off to the Nottawasaga Inn (pretty much in the middle of nowhere) with my guild sisters. It should be a fun time. We have to drive right by this big outlet mall on the way, and there are already plans to stop and shop – no rush to get there, right? LOL

Time for some more lists, to keep me organized. And to remind myself of what all I have to do before I leave, and all of the things I want to take with me. You know, like my lap top, so I don’t fall behind on NaNo.

Three days away from home in the middle of NaNo. Good lord, what was I thinking?

It’s A-Comin’!

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

There's an old folk saying that goes: whenever you delete a sentence from your NaNoWriMo novel, a NaNoWriMo angel loses its wings and plummets, screaming, to the ground. Where it will likely require medical attention.
― 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

Yes, that’s right. It’s almost time for NaNoWriMo. Never heard of it? What, seriously? Have you been living under a rock or something? Well let me enlighten you.

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo or NaNo for short) takes place during the month of November. The goal is to write 50,000 words in 30 days – that’s 1667 words per day, for those of you who are mathematically challenged.

In a nutshell, it started in July of 1999 with Chris Baty and consisted of 21 writers. They had so much fun that in 2000 it was moved to the month of November (because it’s such a grey and dismal month and there’s nothing better to do) and they created an official website as well as a few ground rules: you had to use new words only, you couldn’t have a co-author, and your word count had to be verified by the end of the month. They had 140 people sign up – about 30 of them finished.

The next year, to Baty’s astonishment, 5,000 people signed up with 700 finishing, and it’s been growing steadily larger ever since. Last year there were 413,295 participants with 51,670 finishing.

I first attempted NaNo in 2006. I say attempted because I had no clue what I was doing and my story ended at 35,000 words. I missed the next year but in 2008 I completed the challenge, as I did for the next 6 years in a row. I did not participate in 2015, figuring I had enough un-finished books on my hard drive, but I got back in the saddle in 2016 and have been participating ever since. You might find it ironic that my 2017 novel was a sequel to my failed 2006 one.

NaNo is fun, NaNo is frustrating, NaNo is addictive. I totally regret the year I skipped it – I felt itchy the whole month and didn’t really get anything else accomplished. And I don’t know about anyone else, but it’s something that can’t be duplicated at any other time of the year. Under a deadline? Why not try a January NaNo? Nope. Doesn’t work. You have to do it at the same time as the other crazy people around the world.

And what do you get if you finish? Three things: a 50,000(+) word novel, the satisfaction of completing a challenge, and a shiny winner’s certificate that you can download and print off. And maybe you’ll have made a few friends along the way by attending local write-ins.

If you’d like to learn more or sign up, visit their WEBSITE . They’ve redesigned it a few times over the years, and you no longer have to copy/paste your finished novel into their validation thingamajig because the number of participants became too large. Now it’s strictly on the honour system.

And while you’re there, check out all the NaNo stuff you can buy. I have probably 10 tee-shirts from the various years, two hoodies, the NaNo USB bracelet, a NaNo travel cup, and two different sizes of NaNo thermoses (which sadly are no longer available).

This will be my 16th time participating. Normally in late October I go through a whole should I/shouldn’t I phase, but I skipped it this year. I mean, who am I kidding? Doing NaNo is some of the best crazy fun a writer can have.

Do I have an idea yet? Nope. Am I worried? Maybe just a little. After all, NaNo is just a couple of days away. But hey, this won’t be the first time I’ve started with a totally blank slate (and kicked myself for it). And if I write 50,000 words of absolute gibberish, who’s going to know but me?

That’s the beauty of NaNoWriMo.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

WORDAGE REPORT

THE WEEK IN REVIEW
The word for last week is . . . progress! It’s about time, isn’t it?

The weather was more crappy than not – grey and dismal. And the temperature rose enough to make it humid on top of that. Thursday we were shrouded in fog, which enticed me to go down to the waterfront to take pictures. And Friday was so warm that I opened the window in my office. And immediately wished I hadn’t. The groove the window slides up into was covered in lady bugs. I must have removed over a dozen of them (and yes, I took them outside to release them) and I think a couple still escaped into the house.

The first half of the week I was tired and lethargic, but I still managed to get stuff done, and from Thursday on I was smokin’.

There were no more mice spotted, although one night the cats and I heard noises on the outer wall of the living room. It might have been the wind, it might have been birds trying to get seeds/insects caught in the siding, it might have been mice climbing the outer wall and trying to get under the siding. No idea. And frankly it kind of creeps me out to think about it.

And for about three nights in a row the cats heard something high up in the dining room. They both crowded onto the topmost platform of the cat tree and stared holes at the very top of the outer wall, just above the deck door. I’m hoping it was a squirrel digging for nuts, or storing nuts, in the eavestrough. It only happens at night though.

Despite the higher temperatures, it’s really starting to look like fall outside. The leaves on the trees seemed to start changing all at once, and the wind and the rain helped dislodge them. I need to take a walk in the park before it’s too late.

There’s nothing like kicking through the crisp, fallen leaves to put a smile on my face.

NEW WORDS:
2821+381+336+1079=4,617
DOWN: 576 – words

No surprise here, seeing as my posts were back to normal length.

For the first time in a long time, I can honestly say I had no late nights getting blog posts done. In fact, most of them were done before dinner. If that’s not progress I don’t know what is. :-)

Aside from getting all of my blog posts done, with ease I might add, I also got the rest of my notes transcribed from Writersfest, such as they are. There weren’t as many as I thought there were, so I also wrote a wrap-up post for Writersfest.

I’d been doing so well, all week long, that Thursday night I just kind of relaxed, forgetting completely about Fiction Friday. I had already decided to post an excerpt from my very first NaNo.

Goals For Next Week:
Keep up the good work with the blogs; settle on an idea for NaNoWriMo

POETRY:
Finally! A form that was a little more challenging. It was kind of accidental, too. I just got so into the form that I automatically wrote the example for it.

There was a poetry gathering last week, but I had a migraine and didn’t go. The poemwork was to write a gothic poem, which is a kind of fun assignment for this time of year. We’re back in the church for our gatherings, so it’s kind of ironic that the weather was unseasonably warm.

I also finished one form, ready for posting, and I have three forms that just need an example. Also, I have the research done on three more. So I’m not as far ahead as I was hoping to be at this point, but I’m getting there.

Goal For Next Week:
Keep working on the new forms; get some examples written.

CRAFTING:
Tuesday was my regular guild meeting, where those of us who were doing the woven fabric baskets were supposed to finish them. Yes, I said supposed to. I had done my stitching homework, so my basket was as far along as the others. The actual weaving wasn’t too bad, but keeping it together was. We didn’t have nearly enough straight pins, so I’ll be finishing my basket at home.

I didn’t have much time for stitching outside of the guild meeting, but I did make some progress on my zentangle sampler. I’ve got another square almost finished, and I know what I want to do for the fourth one, but I seriously doubt I’ll have it finished in time to turn it into a tote bag for the retreat.

Speaking of the retreat, I’m going to need to start thinking about what I’m taking with me. Maybe the zentangle, maybe the kit, maybe something else altogether. Most of the participants are from the Toronto guild, and I don’t want to look like a dork in front of them.

Goal For Next Week:
Finish my basket, work on zentangle.

WHAT I’M READING:
I finished Spells For Lost Things, by Jenna Evans Welch, and really enjoyed it. Now I’m reading The Invisible Hour by Alice Hoffman.

On the Kindle I’ve started Pawsitively Poisonous, by Melissa Erin Jackson. To be honest, I didn’t do as much reading last week as I’ve been doing.

Goal For Next Week:
Keep up the moderate reading habits; update my Goodreads.

THE WEEK AHEAD:

Despite the crappy weather, that new leaf of mine might have gotten a little bigger. It may even have a new shoot or two trying to sprout. Hopefully I can keep nurturing it this week.

Well, despite this being fall now, that new leaf of mine is beginning to grow. I spent a lot of quality time in my office. A bit of goofing off time too, but mostly productive time. And the funny thing is, I kind of enjoyed it. I want to keep up the good work in the week ahead.

Tuesday is the supplement meeting of the stitchers at the library. I don’t know about anyone else, but I fully intend to show up in costume. It is Halloween you know. I’m even going to make myself a wig of green hair and I got some cheap red shoes to supplement my witch’s outfit.

There are three poetry forms that need their information distilled down, and three that need examples. Let’s see how far I can get with them.

I’ll be using another excerpt for Fiction Friday this week, I won’t be far enough into NaNo to post something fresh. That is, supposing I’m able to settle on an idea and actually start NaNo. It would be so much easier if I could come up with an idea in say, September, so I’d have time to research it. But at this point I’ll be happy just to have an idea by Wednesday.

Well, I didn’t get any extra sewing done, nor did I start any knitting or crocheting. No Christmas crafts either. When I wasn’t struggling, then last week was all about the writing. Which is a good thing, going into NaNo.

It’s unlikely I’ll be squeezing a lot of craft work in during NaNo season, but you never know. I guess it depends on how fast I can write.

I made a couple of lists last week, and they really helped, even if I didn’t get everything done on them. It was actually thanks to those lists that I got my Fiction Friday up on time. As I was sitting there, waiting for the grocery stores to open, I glanced at the list from the day before to see what I’d missed, and there it was – "find excerpt for blog post". I was late to start my grocery shopping, but I got the post up on time.

So, lists for sure this week. They help keep me focused and they give me some structure to my day. And lord knows, I can use some structure.

Poetry Writing 101 – Writersfest Part II

I need about one hundred fifty drafts of a poem to get it right, and fifty more to make it sound spontaneous.
― James Dickey

What makes you a poet is a gift for language, an ability to see into the heart of things, and an ability to deal with important unconscious material. When all these things come together, you’re a poet. But there isn’t one little gimmick that makes you a poet. There isn’t any formula for it.
— Erica Jong

A poet’s work … to name the unnameable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world, and stop it from going to sleep.
— Salman Rushdie

The second workshop I attended at Writersfest was Poetry Writing 101, facilitated by Sarah Tsiang.

Get ready to get your creative juices flowing in this welcoming introduction to writing in verse. Join award-winning poet Sarah Tsiang through a series of writing exercises designed to help you find your spark. Through explorations of imagery, language, structure and flow, you’ll play with ways to make writing that feels authentically you.

We began by playing with opposites. If we take a quote from Emily Dickenson, “My life had stood a loaded gun” and make it opposite, we might get: Your death will sit some empty – and here’s where she turned to the participants and asked for suggestions for the opposite of gun. We gave her: flower, dove, hug, marshmallow, peace, pen, suture, birth, whisper, hammer, forceps, uterus, welcome, feather, love, embrace.

We can all be trying to say the same thing, but it all comes down to distilling it down to the right words, making sure you don’t have a wasted word. Density is made through grounding writing in the senses. The specific will lead you to the universal.

For the next exercise we were divided into groups. Half of the groups were asked to provide five interesting nouns, the other half were asked to provide five interesting adjectives. Then we were asked (as individuals) to pick a random noun and adjective and use them in a sentence:

The wildflowers clung with serpentine tenacity to the fence.
The reeds were a verdant shade of green.
The windmill was a whimsical reminder of the life of Don Quixote.

Next we were given a hand-out. There were five poems on it and we were aske to write the opposite of whichever poem we picked.

The poem I picked was Maya Angelou’s:

Awaking in New York

Curtains forcing their will
against the wind,
children sleep,
exchanging dreams with
seraphim. The city
drags itself awake on
subway straps; and
I, an alarm, awake as a
rumor of war
lie stretching into dawn
unasked and unheeded.

My version, turning it into the opposite:

Falling Asleep in Old York

Openness volunteering our won’t
for the calm,
adults awake,
hoarding reality without
demons. The country
pushes you asleep under
uppers unrestrained; and
you, a calm, sleep as a
fact of peace
stands compacting out of dusk
asked and heeded.

The most important thing about poetry is ambivalence – trying to understand things on a different level.

For our next exercise we were asked to think of two important relationships in our lives. We were to describe all of the emotions and feelings associated with them. Then we were to think of an incident, image, or situation that holds two of these emotions. Next we were asked to write a short piece about one of these relationships and then turn it into a poem.

The relationship I chose to write about was with my father.

When I was twenty, my father was diagnosed with colon cancer. Back then there weren’t the advances there are today for early detection, so it was quite advanced when it was discovered. Our relationship was just getting back on track from a past rockiness, but when he needed to go to Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto for treatment, my new husband and I took the day off work to take him up there. Perhaps I was very naïve, but I did not fear losing him at that time. But as we left him in the waiting room, I looked back and saw him sitting there looking alone and afraid. I will always regret not going back and sitting with him.

Love and Regret

The sun should not be shining today
It is too happy for a day of saying goodbye
There’s a hole in my heart where you once were
No matter how many disagreements we had
Underneath it all was the ever present love
Now you are gone, ripped away from me
No more arguing, no more recriminations
I left you sitting in that waiting room
Looking lost and scared, hands clasped in your lap
I was selfish, and left you alone
And now I stand watching as they lower your coffin
Filled with regret for not turning back to sit with you
And telling you one last time, I love you.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

WORDAGE REPORT

THE WEEK IN REVIEW
The word for last week is . . . frustration.

Apparently I’m stuck in a traffic jam on that road of good intentions that leads to you-know-where.

You’d think, what with getting our Thanksgiving dinner out of the way on Sunday that I’d have the rest of the week to do all that stuff I said I was going to do in last week’s blog post, but it didn’t quite work out that way.

I spent the better part of Monday re-arranging the kitchen cupboards to make room for the stuff we kept on top of the fridge, then cleaned out the fridge freezer in preparation for the new fridge that was being delivered on Tuesday.

Tuesday morning I had a stitchery meeting, which worked out okay because the fridge was being delivered in the early afternoon and our meetings only go until noon. We were supposed to start a woven fabric basket at the meeting, which did not go as planned. Then I get home and they delivered our fridge early, with no warning. They were supposed to call ahead!

We got the old fridge cleared out as quickly as we could, no finesse about it, and the delivery guys took it away. Hubby had to cut away at part of the alcove that was built around it because the plug from the new fridge was in a different spot than the one in the old one and the plug wouldn’t reach the outlet otherwise.

New fridge gets plugged in, and pushed back – fits perfectly. Delivery guys leave. I go to start filling it and discover a new problem. My beautiful new fridge has French doors, and the left side won’t open because it’s right up against the wall. *sigh*

More farcical angst trying to get a hold of the furniture place, and then we have to go over and pick out a new new fridge and arrange for them to pick up the old new one. Fortunately they were able to give us a loaner.

My week did not improve after that, but at least I got all my blog posts up.

NEW WORDS:
2847+615+295+986=4,753
UP: 54 – words

Pretty consistent, wasn’t I? And while I may not have got any extra writing in, at least I didn’t have to burn the midnight oil getting my blog posts done.

One more installment and Winter’s Child is done. It would have been better if I could have dragged it out until November, then I could just post excerpts from my WIP for my Fiction Fridays, but there really isn’t any more story to tell.

I might give serializing stories a rest for a while, maybe until the new year. I was thinking about getting back into some timed writing using a one word prompt every day, and then picking the best exercise piece and turning it into a flash story for Fridays, we’ll have to wait and see how I feel after NaNo.

Meanwhile, for the last Friday in October I’ll probably post an excerpt from my first NaNo. I might post one from my second one on the first Friday in November, just because I won’t be very far along yet with my new NaNo

Goals For Next Week:
Keep up the good work with the blogs; find an idea for NaNoWriMo

EDITING:
1.5 Hours

Yeah, not a lot, but it’s better than nothing, right? I may have been a little distracted last week. Aside from all the crap going on, the holiday kind of threw me off. Plus, as I knew would happen eventually, the weather turned on me. I enjoy the cool evenings, but the dark is getting really dark, especially when it’s overcast.

Goal For Next Week:
Try and get into a routine with the editing.

POETRY:
I had the blog post part of a more complicated form done, but the example was tripping me up. I was running out of time so I switched to a far less complicated form and actually, I kind of liked it.

I’m sure it’ll come as no surprise that I did not make any progress printing out poems for indexing. One of these days . . . I swear!

Goal For Next Week:
Find a new form to share; work on the extra forms. Print poems to update big book o’ poems.

CRAFTING:
One of the ladies in my stitchery group volunteered to show us how to make a woven, fabric basket. There were only a handful of us who took her up on the offer. Well, we were sent the instructions and apparently I only skimmed over them or something, because I came with uncut material and the others had theirs cut into strips and some even had them pressed. *sigh*

So, by the end of the meeting, while others had their first row of strips ready to be sewn on the base of the baskets, I had the five long strips pressed, stuffed, and sewn, and fourteen others that are pressed. So I have stitchery homework, due in two weeks time.

But believe it or not, I did get some work done on my stitchery kit. I pulled it out on Wednesday night and worked on it during Masked Singer. :-D

Goal For Next Week:
Work on my zentangle; work on the kit I started; do my stitchery homework.

WHAT I’M READING:
I’m gonna be honest here. I was only a little way into Never, Never, by Colleen Hoover and Tarryn Fisher and I read several unfavorable reviews about it and paused, not knowing if I wanted to keep going. I liked what I read so far, so I finally sucked it up and kept going. I’m glad I did, because I really enjoyed it.

I kept going on the box set on the Kindle and read High Noon, by S.E. Biblow. I liked this one much better than the last one – it was a fun little mystery. Next up on the Kindle is Mystic Pieces, by Ada Bell.

Goal For Next Week:
Find a new tree book to read; continue with the box set on the Kindle.

THE WEEK AHEAD:

That new leaf isn’t exactly thriving, but neither is it dying. I’d say it’s more like it’s in a dormant stage. Hopefully the week ahead will see it starting to grow again.

This week will be a little busier than last week, but at least it’s expected busyness, not like the fiasco with the fridge. And I also had an unexpected coffee date on Friday, and while taking a walk along the waterfront was nice, it turned into three hours, which was a little long for coffee.

Tuesday I’ll be joining the stitchery guild for a one day, all day, retreat at a local spa. This is the first time we’ve held a retreat and a surprising number signed up. We get to stitch all day at a local spa, and in the afternoon we’ll be treated to high tea.

One more installment for Winter’s Child, and it’s done. It’s always a little sad when a story ends, and I think I’m going to take a break from serials for a while.

I really need to come up with an idea for NaNoWriMo. Time to break out the old idea file – the paper files that is. I keep remembering that An Elemental Wind started out as a rejected idea. How many other ideas might I have that could work for NaNo? Time to find out.

Even if I’m able to come up with an office routine that includes editing, I’ve only got a couple of weeks until NaNo, and I’m wondering if I’ll be able to stick to it. On the other hand, who knows how much I’ll be able to accomplish in that two and a half weeks, so I should at least give it a try, right?

Ideally, I’d also like to have a couple of poetry posts done before NaNo, just to take some of the pressure off, but that means picking out some more forms. I may have to resort to forms I’ve already done. In any case, I’d like to do at least two forms this week – one for the blog and one for reserve.

I may need to go back to knitting or crocheting if I’m going to do crafts at night. The lighting really sucks in this house, and you need good light to stitch. So I think if I’m going to do any stitching it’ll have to be during the day. But that’s okay. I wouldn’t mind knitting myself a sweater or two, and there’s this afghan I’d like to do for a present . . . Of course that’ll be a moot point if I can’t get the writing taken care of during the day. And again, whatever routine I come up with is probably not going to last more than two weeks.

I did a moderate amount of reading last week and now I need to pick a new tree book. I don’t know what I’m in the mood to read next – maybe I’ll just close my eyes and point to my to-be-read bookcase.

I’m thinking the best way to overcome this non-productive mood I’ve been in lately is to keep busy. Just get up and do things without thinking about them. I need to go back to my lists too, to give my day some structure.

It’s worth a try.

Trending

There's a rebel lying deep in my soul. Anytime anybody tells me the trend is such and such, I go the opposite direction. I hate the idea of trends. I hate imitation; I have a reverence for individuality.
― Clint Eastwood

Just because a series is trending, it doesn't mean you automatically have to tune into it. Not everything broadcasted is healthy for the brain.
― Torron-Lee Dewar

Regardless of the popular literary trend of the times, write the thing which lies close to your heart.
― Bess Streeter Aldrich

I’m a sucker for trends. I don’t have much in the way of agency. I always want to try whatever’s popular.
― Izumi Suzuki

You know, when I came up with the idea of writing to the trends for this blog post, I figured it would be pretty easy. I should have known better when it was so hard to come up with quotes about trends in fiction. Sometimes Google can be your friend, other times Google can withhold its information until you word it just right. Hey! Maybe that’s an idea for another post. LOL

Let me ask you a question? Do you write whatever feels right to you, or do you follow the current trend?

Remember when Fifty Shades of Grey came out? Suddenly we’re seeing a glut of kinky billionaires who may or may not be redeemed at the end of the book. And Outlander’s popularity spurred a plethora of time travel romance stories set in Scotland.

Following the current trends may seem like a good way to break into a specific market, but do you really want to jump on an already crowded bandwagon? Trends will come and go. It’s probable that by the time your finish your novel, the trend will have already changed, especially if you’re trying to publish traditionally.

When you write your story, following a current trend, you’re limiting your creativity and imagination. You can’t let the story take you where it will because you need to stick to the scope of the trend. The stories you create are going to be similar to every other story written on the same subject. They’re no longer unique, no matter how much you dress them up.

Another thing you might keep in mind before following a trend is that if everyone is writing the same kind of novel, then the market will be flooded with similar novels. It’s going to make it that much harder to sell your own story.

Don’t confuse genre with trend. Science fiction is a genre, but climate based fiction with the doomsday clock ticking away is a trend. Romance is a genre, but bad boy motorcycle club based romance is a trend. Within each genre there are many, many choices. Don’t take your cue from the hot new trend of the moment.

Instead of focusing on what everyone else is writing, write the best version of your own story. By all means, keep the current market in mind, but make sure you’re following your own passion, not someone else’s. Who knows, maybe you’ll be setting the next new trend.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

WORDAGE REPORT

THE WEEK IN REVIEW
Last week’s word was definitely frustration.

Once again the week started out fine. I was starting out my day in my office, actually kind of getting into the groove of things, then it all seemed to fall apart. My buddy Jamie finds that Tuesdays are cursed, but my curse, apparently, is Wednesdays. No matter how well my week starts out lately, something always happens to upset the applecart on Wednesdays.

And no, it’s not because I’ve been babysitting my granddaughter on Wednesdays. Although it would be nice to have something other than myself to blame for it, this trend was happening well before school let out for the summer.

Sometimes it’s just Wednesday that’s the trouble, sometimes Wednesday is the precursor to the rest of the week sliding down hill, as it was last week. And the worst part is, not all the lists or organization or planning in the world can stop it.

All you can do is hit the reset button and hope that this will be the week you can make it through Wednesday. It won’t be the coming week though, because the week ahead has a butt load of stuff going on. But one of these weeks.

NEW WORDS:
1849+885+339+731=3,804
DOWN 363 – words from last week

I’m still getting my posts done earlier, well, Monday and Wednesday’s post anyway, but they just weren’t as long as the ones last week. It’ll be nice when I can finally add in some “extra words” but I’m thinking that won’t be for a while yet. I’ve been updating my journal on a regular basis and keeping up with my emails, but those words don’t really count.

The installments for Winter’s Child continue to be a bit problematic. It’s just that I’m finding it hard to write a winter-based story when we’ve been experiencing record breaking temperatures. Of course the heat is one of the reasons I spent more time in my office last week – it’s too hot to work with my laptop on my lap, even with the buffer of a lap desk.

Goals For Next Week:
Get my blog posts written (with everything else going on, it’s the best I can hope for).

EDITING:
0 hours

Editing? What’s that? Oh . . . That’s that thing that other writers do. :-)

I actually do want to start editing Elemental Spirit, enough so that even though I know it’s in terrible shape, I’m seriously considering printing out a working copy. Maybe I’ll be more inspired if I can actually see it.

Plus, it’s something I can work on when I’m away from the computer, like when the granddaughter is here. And I can have fun marking it up with some of my pretty pens.

Goal For Next Week:
Print out Elemental Spirit; start marking it up.

POETRY:
I’m glad I did my poemwork poem as last week’s form, because this week’s form, the Acronet, was a lot harder than I thought it would be. I always figure any non-rhyming poem is easier, but not when it has a strict syllable count. I found the fewer the syllables, the harder it was to write.

And I’ll let you in on a little secret. I think I spent more time on the Acronet than I have on any other poem I’ve written. But it turned out in the end, and that’s what matters.

There was a poetry gathering on Wednesday, down at the park, our summer meeting place. It was so humid I found it hard to breathe. Every part of me was damp when I got back home, even the pages I was reading from. And it was a little noisy, what with the crowds of people on the nearby beach and several games of volleyball going on. Is it really necessary to have boom boxes blasting while you play volleyball? So, the park is not really my first choice for a group meeting.

The town is looking for a new poet laureate, and the daughter suggested I run for the position. Unfortunately, I don’t qualify because I have yet to publish a volume of poetry. Guess that’s another incentive to start thinking seriously about it.

Goal For Next Week:
Get a new form ready to share.

CRAFTING:
No stitch-in last week. I have to admit, I kind of missed it. But I did get that fold-out wooden sewing chest cleaned out, and hopefully the hubby will be able to repair it so I can put stuff in it again. And I got the two sundresses altered, which was one of my goals for the week.

I was not, unfortunately, able to alter the new bathing suit I bought so it would fit. I think to do so I’ll have to take it completely apart and I need to figure out if it’s worth the trouble. For sure I’m in the pool more this summer, and it would be nice to have a second suit to wear.

I’ve been making steady progress on the kit I started – I’ll don’t know what I’ll do with it when it’s done, probably offer it up for sale at our Christmas craft sale.

No progress on the zentangle sampler, but I did go to the Royal School of Needlework website and downloaded a bunch of instructions for some interesting stitches to use in it. I was thinking a few of the squares I could divide into four sections, and fill them with different filling stitches.

Goal For Next Week:
Continue on my samplers; figure out what to do about my bathing suit.

WHAT I’M READING:
I finished The Boy in the Rain, by Stephanie Cowell. And I’ve just started Stories With Bite, a collection of vampire stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

On the Kindle, I finished Stanton’s Sins, part of the Demon Squad MC Club series by Monique Moreau, and I’ve just started Puck’s Property, by the same author.

Goal For Next Week:
Keep up the good reading habits.

THE WEEK AHEAD:

I don’t know what to tell you about the week ahead. The son-in-law’s schedule changed so he’ll be working straight days next week, which means I’ll be babysitting straight days. I see much crafting and much pool time in my future. LOL

But this also means I won’t be wasting my evenings futzing around on the laptop, I’ll need to get my writing done after supper.

This is not going to stop me from printing out a copy of Elemental Spirit so I can start marking it up. Normally, this comes later in the editing process, but I really think this would help me get started on it.

I’d like to get started on the installment for Winter’s Child earlier in the week. The original short story went rather quickly, so I’ve been trying to slow the action down by adding more detail. But on the other hand, I don’t want it to drag things out and make it boring. If I have the time, I think it might be a good idea to create some kind of an outline, just to keep the pacing even.

My reading last week seemed to come in spurts. Feast or famine, don’t you know. This week I’d like to keep it to a steady pace, which is easy enough to do on the Kindle if I only read while I ride the exercise bike. I’m having a bit of a hard time getting into the vampire anthology, but I’ve never been a big fan of Doyle. I’ll stick with it though. I have a bad habit of buying books and then just sticking them on the shelf and I’m trying to overcome this. I have a stack of four books I bought recently, sitting beside my chair in the living room, and this book was one of them.

Once again my attempts at getting back on track were foiled. It’s like a car that you’re having trouble starting. It sputters, almost catches, and after several attempts it either starts . . . or it doesn’t. It’s up to you whether you persist, or you give up.

Despite the busy-ness of the week ahead, I’m going to persist.

Editing Your Own Poetry and Writersfest Wrap-up

I need about one hundred fifty drafts of a poem to get it right, and fifty more to make it sound spontaneous.
― James Dickey

Writing poetry is a passion, ignited by thoughts, fueled by ink. A way to travel through another mind, where souvenirs of tears are tucked away inside your soul. Or leave you with smiles for miles, depending on which route you go.
― Renee Dixon

...when a good poet is confronted with difficult facts that he knows to be true but also are inimical to poetry, he has no choice but to flee to the margins; it was...this very retreat that allowed him to hear the hidden music that is the source of all art.
― Orhan Pamuk, Snow

The final workshop I attended at Writersfest, was Editing Your Own Poetry, presented by Otoniya J. Okot Bitek. There was actually a workshop that came after it, but I kind of skipped that one.

Despite the name of this workshop, it never occurred to me to bring a poem with me to edit. My bad! But even if I had, because I work so heavily with forms and the form would have been ruined if I’d followed her suggestions. To be fair, the course description said to “bring your inspired ideas, your phrases, single words, manifestos, dreams and together we will sculpt out a space from which you can learn to edit your own poem.” It did not say to bring a finished poem.

Mostly what we were given was a series of questions about our poems:
Why this form?
In what other forms can this poem appear?
Try changing it to a haiku, limerick, lyric, sonnet – what happens?
What is your poem about?
What else could it be about?
One word – what is your poem about?

Why does this poem need/want to be in the world? What does it do? The space between these two questions is where you edit.

What surprises you about this poem?
Where might the surprise be hiding?
Where’s the volta (the turn of thought or dramatic shift)?
What do you like about this poem?
What does this teach you about your own style?
In what tradition do you write?
How do you mark yours in that tradition?

And unfortunately, that was pretty much it for the notes I took. I did, however, come away with a poem:

Observations From the Fifth Floor

White horses chase
small shard of ice –
the flag snaps to attention –
solid water separates in the harbour
the breath of the current
inhaling the sheets of ice together
and exhaling them apart.
I watch it all safely
from behind the glass.

And thus ends my reports on the Kingston Writersfest Retreat. I was only disappointed in two of the classes, which is not bad, percentage wise. I learned a lot, and more importantly I learned different things than I did at the last one. And I made a few friends along the way.

I took way too much stuff with me, but then you never really know what to take, do you? The weather was cold and rainy, so I stuck pretty much to the hotel and I learned the benefit of staying in the same hotel as where the event was being held. I believe the next one is being held at the Holiday Inn, and you can be sure I’ll be making my hotel reservation in time to stay there.

And yes, I will definitely be going to the next one, which I believe is being held at the end of September. It’s good to get together with other creative people. The workshops offer a wealth of information. And not having to cook or clean for several days isn’t bad either. ;-)

So now, all that’s left is waiting patiently for the tickets to go on sale for the next one.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

WORDAGE REPORT

THE WEEK IN REVIEW
Last week was . . . interesting. I actually feel like I’m making progress. There was a nice blend of stitchery, reading, and writing, and my best day was Wednesday, my day off.

I was still feeling rather blah, and I was tired of struggling, so I decided to take Wednesday off. I did not go to the gym, and I did not do anything I felt I had to do or needed to do, I just did whatever I felt like doing. And because I gave myself permission to do so, I felt absolutely no guilt.

It was great – I highly recommend it. It’s not something you want to do too often, mind you, or it loses its impact, but every once in awhile I think it’s good for your mental health. You should try it some time!

So what did I do? I did my morning pages, because it’s becoming a habit. I read – not in one big block of time, but at several points between doing other things. I tried a meditation free-writing, like they had us doing to start each session in the retreat I went to a couple of years ago and came away with an interesting beginning to . . . something.

I had a couple of unintentional naps with the kitties and during one of them I was kind of pinned in place, unable to move enough to reach my lap top or even a book. I didn’t really feel like napping myself so I gave my imagination free reign. Next thing you know, I’m trying to ease myself over enough to grab a notebook (without disturbing the cat) so I could write down a two-page summation of a new story idea. So my do-nothing day was probably the best day of the week.

I had to invest in a new lap desk. Dinsdale likes to curl up under it when I’m reclined in my chair with it across my lap. I guess he was feeling a little feisty one day, so he rolled over onto his back and started attacking the padding. Next thing I know he’s pulled it away from the desk part and started ripping into the padding itself. *sigh*

My new lap desk is wider, and it has two folding legs (like one of those trays you can get for breakfast in bed). But it does not have padding, and I only have to use the legs if I want to, which raises the whole thing up higher. I’m sure I’ll get used to it in time.

NEW WORDS:
2779+599+334+737=4,449
UP 957 – words from last week

Up quite a bit from last week, aren’t I? And that doesn’t even include my morning pages, which I’ve been doing faithfully, the two-page idea summation, nor the results of my creative meditation.

I think I need to practice getting back into the rhythm of using the Neo for distraction-free writing. I did start my installment of the Pond on it, but I didn’t get very far and ended up uploading it to the lap top to finish.

The father-in-law came across something rather interesting that he passed on to me. It’s an ancient word processor. I haven’t checked to see if it works yet, but it has a slot for a floppy disk and it comes with its own printer – pretty sure it’s a dot matrix. Even if it works, I’m not sure how much use it’ll be, but I’m sure I’ll have fun checking it out.

Goals For Next Week:
Get all my blog posts done and maybe a few extra words besides.

EDITING:
0 hours
Here’s the thing.

Okay, There’s not really a thing, it’s just me not doing it..

I think Elemental Spirit is like exercising first thing in the morning. I need to stop thinking about it and just do it. The real stickler is the prophecy. If I can just get that worked out then the rest should fall into place. But every time I try, my imagination seems to come up against a brick wall.

And yes, I did put it on my list.

Goal For Next Week:
Figure out the prophecy; get editing Elemental Spirit.

POETRY:
Last week I tackled another Irish form, and lo and behold it didn’t kill me. LOL I guess I just have to be in the right mind set to work on the Irish forms, sometimes they seem harder than others.

I had ideas for a couple of other poems, but I haven’t really done anything with them yet. This is part of my problem – a line or two gets stuck in my head, so I write it down to un-stick it, and then I promptly forget about it until I’m leafing through my writing journal looking for something else and stumble across it again.

Goal For Next Week:
Find another new poetry form to share. Expand on the other poems I started.

CRAFTING:
The work is going steadily on my zentangle sampler. I’m just about finished the first square. Now, when we did zentangle with pens, we started out with a box inside a slightly larger box. I stitched the outline of the outer box with my first square, but then I just basted where I wanted the inner box to be.

Now I’m thinking I should have defined the outline better. As in, I should have drawn the second box in and then stitched it was well, perhaps with a different outline stitch. I can still stitch the inner box, of course, but it’s not going to look nearly as good.

And I have good news! I was over at the father-in-law’s yesterday, helping him clean out the room where my baker’s rack is, and the baker’s rack itself. It’s all ready to go, we just have to wait for the guy with the truck and several strong men to help him carry it. That sucker is heavy!

As well as the word processor and a car load of donations, I came away with my mother-in-law’s sewing box, one of those big wooden ones that unfolds into three levels. I’m not sure if I’m going to keep it, or just repair it and clean it up and then donate it.

I also ended up with a big box of art supplies – paints, brushes, books. There was a wooden paint box that just needs to be cleaned up a bit. I’ll have to go through it all to determine what can be saved and what should just be chucked.

Goal For Next Week:
Keep working on my sampler; sort through the art supplies I brought home.

WHAT I’M READING:
I finished The Book of Magic, by Alice Hoffman, the final book in the Practical Magic series. And I’ve started reading The Little Flower Shop, by Lori Foster.

I started riding the bike again, so I dug out my Kindle. To my surprise it still had a charge, so I also read A Little Harmless Sex by Melissa Schroeder last week. And . . . when I added it to my Goodreads list I discovered I already read it – 10 years ago.

This is the one thing I don’t like about my Paperwhite – my old Kindle let me organize my books or delete them right on the device. This new one, I can’t even figure out how to update my library, let alone organize it. And the books all stay in some kind of cloud, they’re not stored on my device.

Goal For Next Week:
Keep reading.

THE WEEK AHEAD:

My lists kind of petered out towards the end of the week, so I need to make a concentrated effort to keep them up. They really do work, which is why the first half of my week was more productive than the second half.

I still want to keep up my morning pages, even though they’re still reading like an extended, whinier journal. Maybe it has something to do with writing them first thing in the morning before my brain is awake. It’s too bad I couldn’t write them while I’m still in bed and maybe try and record my dreams, not that I’m remembering them much.

This week is going to be busier – three medical appointments, plus a poetry gathering – but I think with the help of my lists I can stay on top of things. I’m set to finish the Pond this week, the final installment should be a bit of a surprise. I can’t believe no one figured out what Izolda’s spell (after Dmitri died) was all about.

The track still getting closer, one of these days . . .

Step Aside, Inner Critic

Turn down the volume of your negative inner voice and create a nurturing inner voice to take it’s place. When you make a mistake, forgive yourself, learn from it, and move on instead of obsessing about it. Equally important, don’t allow anyone else to dwell on your mistakes or shortcomings or to expect perfection from you.
― Beverly Engel

Your inner critic is simply a part of you that needs more self-love.
― Amy Leigh Mercree

When we direct a lot of hostile energy toward the inner critic, we enter into a losing battle.
― Sharon Salzberg

One of the nice things about going away for a retreat is that I don’t have to wrack my brain trying to figure out what to write here for a few weeks. Unfortunately though, some of the workshops I wasn’t able to take a lot of notes, so I won’t be able to share all of them, and as I’m finding out today, some of my notes are . . . well, let’s just say my note-taking leaves much to be desired.

As I mentioned last week, I missed the first workshop on memoir writing, so the first one I actually got to was called, Step Aside, Inner Critic, presented by Adrian Michael Kelly.

He began by talking about resistance. Resistance never stops. When you sit down to write, it will change you. It’s an engine of destruction – implacable, intractable, indefatigable. You need to reduce it to a single cell and destroy it.

This resistance attacks by flooding your inner world with feelings of failure, negativity, and self-doubt. If you don’t fight back, resistance creates a vision of a bleak future stripped of all possibility. On bad days it does feel like a battle. If you’re saying yes to the writing life, you’re saying yes to resistance.

At its best, writing will bewilder you. It’s easier to accomplish it with a better mood. Practice self-care. Upper most in accomplishing this is to maintain a regular sleep schedule. Lack of sleep will reduce your energy levels.

Befriend your unconscious. Train your body and your mind to work together. A healthier life style leads to better, and more productive, writing. Exercise before sitting down to write, it will energize you. Do the most strenuous exercise you can.

Adopt a healthy eating plan. Healthy eating will compliment your sleep and exercise and maintain your vitality. Avoid alcohol or other chemical substances while writing, an altered mental state is not beneficial to the writer.

Regular meditation is also beneficial. It will center you and make you calmer. It enables you to face difficult situations easier. If your thoughts tend to run rampant, meditation, practiced on a daily basis can help calm your mind. It also helps bring awareness of your body.

We can’t think our way around resistance, we have to work at it.

Recommended reading: The War of Art by Stephen Pressfield, and The Tools by Dr. Philip Stutz

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

WORDAGE REPORT

THE WEEK IN REVIEW
Sadly, I do not have all that much to review for the past week. I was still feeling a little under the weather from whatever bug I had while I was at the retreat, and when I saw my doctor early in the week she put me on a new medication (for an ongoing problem) that really knocked me on my ass.

I don’t know if it just exacerbated the stomach bug I already had, or if the side effects were just really bad on their own, but I spent the bulk of my week headachy, nauseated, and super tired, among other things.

Anyway, I ultimately decided to go off of it temporarily to let my body get back to normal. Then I’m going to seriously consider the benefits versus the drawbacks of this medication. I was assured that the side effects would only last four weeks, tops, but I’ve heard that before with other drugs that didn’t work for me. And given the severity of my reaction to it after just a few days . . .

NEW WORDS:
1506+638+340+734=3,218
UP – 20 words from last week

Let’s just say the spirit was willing but the body was really tired and sick last week, shall we? I had big plans, and not a whole lot going on for the week, but the stupid side effects took care of that for me.

While I didn’t get all my blogs up on time, I at least got them up, which is saying something. I even got my serial installment done. Of course I’d like to go back and rewrite it, but it is what it is, and the story is just a draft version. It’s starting to wind down, I think, which is a good thing.

Goals For Next Week:
Get some words written besides my blog posts.

EDITING:
0 hours
It’s really hard to think about editing when you’re feeling sick and tired.

Goal For Next Week:
Start work on An Elemental Spirit.

TECH & TRAINING:
Nothing to see here, folks. Move along. I bought myself a laminator, but I haven’t tried it out yet. That’s as good as it got.

Goal For Next Week:
Learn something new. Figure out Dropbox.

POETRY WEDNESDAY:
Poetry has once again saved me from being a compete and utter fraud as a writer. I shared the Echo verse as my form for the week. It’s different, but I don’t see me writing an abundance of them. And I wrote a poem about superstition for the poetry group. It turned out okay, but it wasn’t the poem I wanted it to be. *shrugs* It happens sometimes.

Goal For Next Week:
Find another new poetry form to share.

CRAFTING:
*Hangs head in shame* You’d think with all that time I spent feeling crappy where I sat literally doing nothing, I could have been working on the afghan, but I didn’t. A few of the ladies from the stitchery group have been meeting at the library on alternate weeks to our regular meeting, and I did drop in for a bit, but we were so busy chatting I didn’t even pull my afghan out of its bag.

Goal For Next Week:
Push to get the afghan done so I’m free to work on other stuff with a clear conscience.

WHAT I’M READING:
I did a little better, reading wise. I finished Hex Appeal, by Kate Johnson, and also The Witching Well, by Shelley Dorey. It’s the first of a trilogy, and I’ve started book 2, Spellbound. I’ve also started reading The Knockoff Eclipse by Melissa Bull, which was a book included in my goody bag from the retreat.

Goal For Next Week:
Keep up the slow and steady ready pace.

THE WEEK AHEAD:

I’m really hesitant to make too many plans for this week, just in case I go back on that medication and it knocks me on my butt again. On the other hand, I don’t want another week to go by where I don’t get anything done.

I actually did find a few extra minutes before going to the gym one morning to get my morning pages done, but thanks to feeling so tired and crappy, I only made it to the gym twice last week. Of course I suppose I could have done them on the days I didn’t go, but I never thought of it.

I would definitely like to make a bigger effort to start working in my office this week, and getting my writing done during the day so I can be working on the afghan during the evenings. I also want to learn how to use my laminator. This should be interesting, with my two very nosy sidekicks around.

And I really need to start typing out the notes I took while at the retreat. There are a couple of stories I have the bare bones for that I’d like to pursue as well.

Looks like I’ve got lots to do, now all I need is to find the get-up-and-go to do it.

Tug of War

That’s creativity in a nutshell. A messy tug-of-war with imagination to erase that feeling that nothing really matters anyway.
— Zoe Whittall

From my experience, the best advisors help in three ways: encourage you to look at the problem or opportunity from multiple angles; help you balance the tug of the short-term with important long-term priorities; and ask the tough questions you need to know to reach the best solution.
— Margo Georgiadis

Is there a word for the moment you win tug-of-war? When the weight gives, and all that extra rope comes hurtling towards you, how even though you've won, you still end up with muddy knees and burns on your hands? Is there a word for that? I wish there was.
— Sarah Kay

As you know, or should by now if you’re a regular reader of this blog, I’ve been struggling for a long time trying to juggle all of the things I’ve got going on in my life. And what I’ve finally realized is this. It comes down to two sides of my creative nature – the writer’s side, and the crafter’s side.

You’d think it would have been a little more obvious to me by now, but it wasn’t. See, the thing is, most people I know focus on one or the other. If they’re writers, they’re able to focus on their writing. While the crafters seem to spend all their free time crafting.

With me I feel a conflict. I’ve always been a crafter, although my crafting never consumed me. And I’ve always been a writer, but never to the exclusion of all else. Well, except during Nano. ;-) But lately, I’m feeling an internal tug-of-war between my crafting and my writing. How did this happen?

Some time during the last couple of years I started to become more active in my stitchery. Though I’ve always been a crafter, it’s something that’s always been sporadic. I’d be really enthusiastic in my crafts, and then my interest would wane for big blocks of time. But since joining the stitchery guild I’ve taken my crafting more seriously, just like I take my writing seriously.

Which leads me to my tug of war. When I’m working on a craft, I feel guilty because it’s time I could be using for writing. And when I’m working on my writing, I feel the urge to work on a craft. And I feel guilty for spending too much time on one or the other.

I have a whole list of writing projects I want to finish, with more waiting to be started. And I have a bunch of stitchery projects in various stages of being done, with plans to do more. I’d really like to get into fabric art. I’d really like to start a multi-volume science fiction series. Tug, tug, tug.

I don’t think the crafting is going to go away anytime soon, so I’m going to have to learn to reconcile the crafting with the writing or I’m going to drive myself crazy. So last week I made myself a list of all the things I wanted to get done, and then picked out the few things I needed to get done that week and prioritized them. It seemed to work out quite well.

Well, it did until I made writing a letter to my sister a priority. I haven’t written her since June (yes, I’m a bad sister) so it was long overdue. Fortunately, I keep a journal and I could refer to it to keep me on track. Unfortunately, it was more time consuming than I counted on, and the whole time I’m thinking I should be working on a Christmas craft for the upcoming Christmas sale, or I should be working on the next installment of the serial story. And I’m not finished yet.

But a new week is upon us, and that means a new list to prioritize. We’ll have to wait and see if it’s still working.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

WORDAGE REPORT

The good news is I brought the total words up again, the bad news is that it wasn’t extra words, just longer blog posts. *sigh*

I started out the week with the assumption I’d get a couple of installments on the serial story done early, and maybe my poetry post done ahead of time, but this didn’t happen. And why didn’t it happen (you ask)? Because I got sucked into the hidden objects gaming universe.

Hidden object games are so much worse than solitaire or word games because they’re always changing, so you don’t get bored quite as easily. Oh, you can tell yourself, “just one more round,” but next thing you know it’s time to make supper.

The list I made and prioritized as to what needed to be done helped, but I still have to stay away from the games to do it.

NEW WORDS:
Blog Posts – 1,911+574+323+695=3,503
Poetry – 88 words (included in blog post) + 171 word poem for CPW
Total – 3,503+171=3,674

Goals For Next Week:
Try to keep up with my writing while I’m away.

EDITING:
31 pages
Be still my heart, there’s light at the end of that very long, dark tunnel. I have a handful of scenes I marked for rewriting, but for all intents and purposes, the edits on Magical Mayhem are done! That’s not to say the book is done, however. I still have the final polish, and the cover, blurb, and tag line. But still . . . woot!
Get the cover, blurb, and tag line figured out.

MARKETING:
No Marketing. Not even an attempt at marketing. Too much other stuff on the go.

Goal For Next Week:
Submit two flash stories and one poem.

TECH & TRAINING:
Nothing that relates to writing, but with the help of YouTube I did learn how to use the rolled hem presser foot on my sewing machine. Oh, man, does it ever make hemming a breeze! I only wish I’d known about these presser feet years ago. And I also consulted the book that came with the sewing machine and re-learned how to do button holes properly.

Goal For Next Week:
Check out the features of Dropbox.

POETRY WEDNESDAY:
I really struggled with my example for the Virelai poetry form. But I got it done, and posted on time. And then I was going through my files I found I’d done a Virelai many years ago and the example I created back then was a tad better. Oh, well, it happens.

After spending so much time and effort, sweat and toil, on the Virelai, it was a pleasure to work on the poemwork assigned for this month’s poetry gathering. I could write whatever I wanted, as long as I stayed on topic. So I did.

As far as an anthology goes . . . I figure I’ll stick to traditional poems, that is, poems whose forms you can look up online. If that goes well, maybe I’ll do one with non-traditional forms next.

Goal For Next Week:
Find an easier form to share.

CRAFTING:
Well. The crafting didn’t go at all as planned last week. I really expected to get more done. No work on the pillow case. No work on the cancer blanket. No work on the Christmas crafts, although the granddaughter is coming over this afternoon to do some with me.

But I did get the alterations done to the sleeveless blouse and got the hand sewing done on it, and then I got the button holes and buttons put on it. I also put a new casing on the skirt and finished it up. My outfit is done!

Honestly, I have never taken so long on a single outfit in my life. Of course, I was doing a lot of other things at the same time – normally I’d take an entire day or two and just work at something until it was done – but still . . .

I also hemmed a pair of track pants for my mother-in-law and used my new rolled hem presser foot to hem some pajama pants for my father-in-law. Man, that thing is handy! And so easy to use, I wish I’d known about them years ago.

Goal For Next Week:
Work on Christmas crafts. Work on the cancer afghan. Work on pansy pillowcases.

WHAT I’M READING:
Honestly, I didn’t do much reading last week. I only read a couple of chapters of The Book Haters Book Club by Gretchen Anthony before I got distracted away from it. And then I read a few chapters of Hook, Line, and Sinker, by Tessa Bailey before realizing that although I liked what I read so far, it wasn’t what I wanted to read. So then I started reading Unnatural Creatures, which is an anthology of stories chosen by Neil Gaiman.

Goal For Next Week:
Suck it up and update my Goodreads account!

GOAL REVIEW:

My total word count was back up from last week’s, but the only real gain was the extra poem I wrote, and I wouldn’t have done that if I hadn’t had a poetry gathering to go to. I was late with this post last week, but all the others were up on time. I didn’t get as early a start on my serial installment as I would have liked, but I also didn’t have to stay up late to get it done so I’ll take that as a win.

After I got sucked into a third hidden objects game and wasted an entire day on them, I realized something drastic needed to be done. So I deleted the shortcuts off my desktop, uninstalled them from my programs, and even deleted the installation files from my downloads.

I really need to at least start a list of the books I’ve read, and then start updating my Goodreads account say, five books at a time. I’ve fallen so behind on keeping it up to date it isn’t even funny.

I got more stuff done after getting rid of the games – got my skirt and blouse finished, did the hemming that’s been hanging over my head, and finally got to put my sewing stuff away, at least for a while. But I made no progress on my Christmas crafts and I have another stitchery meeting this week. I’m hoping that with my granddaughter’s help today I’ll have at least a little something to show for my time.

So another up and down week for me, but the week ahead is going to be more writerly focused because it’s off to Writersfest 2022 – four days of lectures, seminars, and classes in beautiful Kingston, starting on Thursday.

Happy writing.

The End and . . . The Other End

There is no real ending. It's just the place where you stop the story.
— Frank Herbert

Ends are not bad things, they just mean that something else is about to begin. And there are many things that don't really end, anyway, they just begin again in a new way. Ends are not bad and many ends aren't really an ending; some things are never-ending.
— C. JoyBell C.

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

I’m almost halfway through the latest rounds of edits on Magickal Mayhem, which means the end is nigh. One day (sooner rather than later, I hope) I’ll be able to close the file and count it as done.

Meanwhile, I posted the final installment of my on-line serial, The Cave, on Friday. Did you read it? What did you think? Were you satisfied or disappointed? I’ll tell you honestly, it was always going to end that way. I figured out the ending about halfway through, I just wasn’t sure how I was going to get there.

Right now it’s sitting at about 15,000 words, which is a good size for a novelette. If I can write three more about the same length, I can release them as an anthology. But in the meantime, The Cave needs a lot of work. LOL

If the beginning of a story is meant to draw the reader in, then the ending needs to leave the reader satisfied with what happened to the characters. The easiest way to do this (for me at least) is to know how the story is going to end before you start, that way you can leave clues as you go along.

Flash fiction aside, I try not to start a story unless I know how it’s going to end. I don’t need to know all the stuff in between, you have to have some fun with the journey, but I need to have a destination in mind. I have written strong beginnings in the past, but they fizzled out pretty quickly when I had no idea where they were going.

With The Cave, I didn’t even realize it was going to be a lengthy story and I cannot tell you the number of convoluted ideas I had for finishing it. It wasn’t until I settled on the idea that it was a fight between good and evil (an age old theme), that things fell into place. I knew the murals would be key, but I was also constrained by what I’d already written. So it wasn’t until I was working on the ending that I figured out the importance of the spirals.

Knowing your ending ahead of time allows you to build tension throughout the story, letting you throw in a plot twist or two. This is something I can work on during the rewrites. Although I think Eve pushing Sara off of the cliff was a nice plot twist. :-)

You can try different endings to see which one works the best. You can leave room for interpretation. Eve could just as easily beaten Sara and placed the keystone first, although I think if I was going that way I would have made the evil spirit more of a presence like I did the guardians.

You can have a happy ending, a sad ending, an ending with a twist, or one that’s open to interpretation. But whatever else, the ending needs to make sense, and it should resolve the storyline, unless you’re deliberately going for a cliff hanger to entice readers to buy the next book.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

WORDAGE REPORT

It was a busy week last week, and mostly busy with things other than writing. It was a holiday Monday and I spent it getting my gardens in (it being too rainy on the weekend to do so). The rest of the week was filled with group meetings and extended visits and a very messed up Friday.

I skipped Monday’s post because I just didn’t have anything to say. The rest of the posts were up, and on time, but it was a near thing with the final installment of my serial story. And now I have to come up with an idea for next Friday

NEW WORDS:
Blog Posts –
1,329+208+1,493=3,030
Poetry – 470 (not including post)
Other words – 434 (to finish serial story)

Total words: 3,934

Three-minute words –
112+113+94+121+138+115+117= 810

Goals For Next Week:
Write something other than my three-minute words and blog posts. Decide what I’m going to do for Fiction Fridays now that the serial is done.

EDITING:
49 pages
The further into the edits I get, the more work I realize this book needs. And also, that I’ve been working on flash fiction too long. *sigh* In other words, I’m kind of rushing this round and once I’m done I still have a lot of work to do. But the good news is, every time I go through it, it gets easier.

Goal For Next Week:
Keep up the good work on Magickal Mayhem.

MARKETING MONDAY:
I didn’t forget and I did want to, I even know which pieces I’m going to start with. I just wasn’t able to squeeze out the time for it. Did I mention what a busy week it was?

Goal For Next Week:
Submit two flash stories and one poem.

TECHNO TUESDAY:
Tuesday was one of the two busiest days for me last week. Even had I the urge to do something technical, I just didn’t have the time. I did learn something though, I learned there’s only so many hours in a day you have to sleep sometime.

Goal For Next Week:
Do something else technical or educational (like access one of my tutorials).

POETRY WEDNESDAY:
I had a meeting of the CPW (Cobourg Poetry Workshop), and I thought it would be fun to finally do all of the prompts we’re given on a monthly basis. So that meant I wrote five poems. Plus someone shared a form back on Pi Day (March 14) and it was so much fun I did six of them.

Goal For Next Week:
Share a new poetry form and new poem.

CRAFTING:
I started a new cross stich for a needle book during a meeting of my stitchery guild. Considering the amount of time I’ve spent on it, I didn’t get very far. But that was about the only time I had to spend on crafts during the week. Unless you count hemming another pair of pants for my father-in-law.

Goal For Next Week:
Work on cross stitch. Finish sansevieria.

WHAT I’M READING:
You know I had a busy week when I didn’t even have time to read. I finished The Bookshop of Second Chances, by Jackie Fraser, and I’m on the last of four stories in an anthology called Night Shift.

No reading on the Paperwhite.

Goal For Next Week:
Keep up the good work with the variety of books I’m reading. Stop ignoring the Paperwhite.

GOAL REVIEW:
Missed my Monday post, but the others were up, and all on time. I wrote some extra poetry, which was kind of nice, and I had to add some extra words to finish up the serial story. I suppose I could have just saved them to do one more installment, but I really wanted it wrapped up with Part 20.

I did not get anything sent out for publication, nor did I do anything technical on Tuesday.

I just didn’t have time to spend on crafts last week, and with all the crafts I already have on the go, of course I started something new. And just to add to the fun, I received a felting book I don’t remember ordering. Hopefully, that will be the last of the craft supplies for awhile.

So . . . once again last week was kind of three steps forward, two steps back. But I’m still moving in the right direction and next week should be even better. *knock on wood*

Happy writing.

Entitled

I think Hemingway's [book] titles should be awarded first prize in any contest. Each of them is a poem, and their mysterious power over readers contributes to Hemingway's success. His titles have a life of their own, and they have enriched the American vocabulary.
— Sylvia Beach

Sentimental titles are the last bastion of scoundrels, and can add significant barf to an already barfy work.
— Robert Genn

A good title holds magic, some cognitive dissonance, a little grit between the teeth, but above all it is the jumping-off place into wonder.
— Barbara Kingsolver

Those who don’t write may find this hard to believe, but coming up with a title for a story/book is one of the hardest parts of the whole thing. A title needs to hook your reader, draw him in. It needs to generate interest without giving away too much of the plot. And most of all, it needs to be memorable

Would Gone With The Wind, by Margaret Mitchell been as much of a success under its original title of Tomorrow Is Another Day? Would War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy, have become a classic had it been called All’s Well That Ends Well, as it almost was?

One of the names considered for The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, was Among Ash-Heaps and Millionaires. Bram Stoker, at one time, had thought to call his novel, Dracula, The Dead Un-Dead. John Steinbeck was originally going to call his classic Of Mice and Men simply Something That Happened. And The Sound and the Fury, by William Faulkner, was almost called Twilight.

The book I’m currently working on, Magickal Mayhem, started out as Wandering Wizards, then became Blood Ties, before settling in as Magickal Mayhem. And even now, I’m kind of waffling on whether it should be that, or Magick and Mayhem. I guess I won’t really know until I start on the book cover design. And at the rate I’m doing the final edits, that’s going to be a while.

A good book title needs to be unique. It creates the first impression a potential reader has for a book. It sets the tone and hints at the genre, and most of all, draws the reader in.

A few things to keep in mind when trying to come up with a book/story title:
1. Make it memorable.
2. Make sure it’s appropriate for the genre.
3. Make sure it stirs the reader’s interest.
4. Use a subtitle for clarification.
5. Run it by a few friends/colleagues for feedback.
6. If it’s easy to pronounce, it’ll be easy to remember.
7. Try and make sure it won’t be confused with another book.

I say try with that last one because with the plethora of self publishing going on, sometimes it’s really hard to come up with something that hasn’t been already used. But even back when most publishing was done traditionally, there were still books published with the same title, but different authors. One that springs to mind is the science fiction book, Millennium. I read this book by Ben Bova in 1976, and then I read it by John Varley in 1983 – both excellent books by well known science fiction authors, both very different stories.

But as Shakespeare once said, “A rose by any other name . . .”

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

WORDAGE REPORT

I had another one of those weeks where I honestly don’t know what I did with my time. It’s kind of disconcerting to look back on the week and not know where it went. The blog posts were fairly easy, but I did not write any extra poetry, or anything beyond my three-minute words. Not a very writerly week, to be sure

NEW WORDS:
Blog Posts – 1,350+759+629+892=3,630

Poetry
80+48=128

Total words: 3,758 words

Three minute words – 87+95+96+105+102+106+119=710

Goals For Next Week:
Write a poem, write a story, get something done other than my three minute words and blog posts. Maybe even keep better track of what I’m doing.

EDITING:
I’m well over the halfway point in Beet Down by Jamie DeBree. I was hoping to finish it over the weekend, but I spent yesterday in Toronto with the daughter, which was a lot of fun but didn’t get any editing done.

Goal For Next Week:
Finish editing Beet Down, and get back to Magickal Mayhem.

MARKETING MONDAY:
I didn’t forget about Marketing Monday, exactly, but it was the one day of the week I remember being busy. I had an appointment in the morning, and the pleasure of the grand daughter’s company in the afternoon.

Goal For Next Week:
Submit two flash stories and one poem.

TECHNO TUESDAY:
I don’t even have a zoom meeting as an excuse for blowing off Techno Tuesday last week.

Goal For Next Week:
Do something technical.

POETRY WEDNESDAY:
I only managed to write two of the three poems I had left over from the PAD challenge, and that was pretty much it for poetry last week. But I like the idea of doing a weekly poetry form, so that’s what I’m going to do. Starting with this week, I’m going to offer a new poetry form.

Goal For Next Week:
Share a new poetry form and new poem.

CRAFTING:
I failed to start a new craft. But I have an excuse. I was considering which transfers to use on this unbleached cotton tote bag I have, but before I start that project I thought I’d whip up another cross-stitched name tag for my in-person stitchery meeting (which will be this Tuesday). The red thread on black aida cloth is okay, but it’s a little plain and I didn’t leave much room to embellish it. Plus, everybody else has white name tags (with colourful embellishments).

I thought it might be nice to have my full name, which meant I’d have to use smaller lettering. Unlike with embroidery, you can’t just shrink down cross stitch pattern because it’s on a grid. I wasted two evenings scouring the internet for a pattern to use, then finally gave up and ordered a couple of books from Amazon. They came Friday, but then I had to pick from over 100 alphabets, which also was rather time consuming. Hopefully I’ll get to it later today.

Goal For Next Week:
Cross stitch new name tag. Start embroidery on tote bag.

WHAT I’M READING:
Last week I finished Born in Shame, and then read The Dark Witch, and Shadow Spell, and I’m just about finished Blood Magick by Nora Roberts. After that I’d like to give Nora a rest for a while, but no promises.

Goal For Next Week:
Find something other than Nora Roberts to read.

GOAL REVIEW:
Once again my only claim to fame is that I got all my blog posts up, even if they weren’t all on time. I also got my three-minute words done, but I admit it’s not some of my best writing.

While I did write two of the three poems I had leftover from the PAD challenge, that was pretty much it. Just to keep an oar in the water, I’m going to go ahead and commit to a poetry post every Wednesday. Or maybe that means I should be committed. ;-)

Have not yet started any of those tutorials I paid for. And I didn’t even get any crafting done

Not a great week overall, but hopefully this week will be better.

Happy writing.