Words on Wednesday

1. I haven’t gotten much writing done the last couple of days. Mostly due to sickness. I caught a cold or some such virus from my adorable niece on Saturday. My brother and sister-in-law warned me their baby was sick, but I just couldn’t resist holding and cuddling and playing with her. And now I’m paying for it. But it was worth it. I don’t get to see them often and most of the time when I do she doesn’t want anything to do with me (cause I’m not around enough for her to know me). But this time she let me hold her and play with her and she held onto my fingers with her chubby little hands and let me “walk” her around the room. *sigh* good times.

2. Monday I spent cleaning out the storage facility we rent. We’ve been throwing stuff in there for years and it needed “organized” so we can throw more stuff in there. And it’s important to me that it gets done because it means I’ll have a writing space free of clutter (so I can concentrate better) and hopefully have fewer interruptions. More on that project to come.

3. I’ve been working on a new MG novel. I know, I know, I shouldn’t jump from one project to another, but this new idea is awesome (at least I think so), and I couldn’t wait to get started on it. The revisions I was working on will wait.

4. The best thing about this new project is I learned a new way to write from the awesomeness that is WriteOnCon! On Wednesday, the amazing Kimberley Griffiths-Little did a vlog about her 3x5 plotting method. I’d heard of it before, but didn’t fully comprehend it until I watched her vlog. And what a difference it has made! It took me a little less than two days to completely plot out my new novel on the 3x5 index cards. I have a stack of abut 41 scenes to write up, and it’s so much easier to work from the 3x5 cards than it is to flip through pages of notes in my spiral notebook (my old method of plotting) trying to find what scene/idea/bit of dialogue I want. Here’s a link to the vlog Kimberley did at the conference. And I’ll try to embed it below (if I can get it to work).

How do you plot your novels/stories?

Hope everyone is enjoying their Wednesday!

 

Write on.

Words on Wednesday

First of all, I’m LOVING WriteOnCon this year! The theme is Back to Basics, and I’ve learned more than I thought I would. I’m not saying I think I know it all or anything, but I thought I knew pretty much everything there was to know about the basics at least. I. Was. Wrong.

Seriously, there’s always more to learn because everyone approaches writing differently. There are some amazing suggestions on the site. Check it out if you have time (last session of the Con is tonight, but the stuff will still be there for you to enjoy at your leisure).

One thing I saw at the conference and wanted to share (I got permission) is this fun trailer for The Seven Tales of Trinket by Shelley Moore Thomas (she’s such fun to watch and you should watch her presentation on Do It Yourself promotion from Tuesday’s session of WriteOnCon).

I’ll be sad to see the conference end tonight, but my family will be glad I’m no longer glued to the computer.

How has your Wednesday been?

Write on!

Words on Wednesday

It’s K’s 11th birthday today. She got her presents yesterday since they came in the mail and she just couldn’t wait until today—she wanted to play with them and knew she’d have to go to school this morning and not have time. She wanted Perfect Petzzz; a Chihuahua and Porch Cat with Kittens. They are truly adorable and since they don’t need food or water—only the occasional “D” sized battery, they’re most welcome to stay. Unfortunately, the Chihuahua is having a bit of trouble “breathing” so I contacted the seller to see what we can do about it. I replaced the pooch’s battery, but it still isn’t working.

Here’s a link to the website for those not familiar with Perfect Petzzz (I wasn’t). If you don’t want to click over, these are basically molded animals with synthetic fur that have a motor mechanism inside that makes them “breathe”—the fur moves up and down near the back legs like real dogs and cats do when they’re sleeping. They are in fixed positions so there’s no moving them around, but at first glance, they do look real. K fooled E (who’s 19  now) for a little bit. He thought we’d gotten some cats and new dog.

Anyway, K is upset that the Chihuahua isn’t working, but she thought it just needed a new battery. She’ll find out when she comes home that the batteries I got this morning didn’t do the trick. *sigh* Hopefully it won’t upset her too much and “ruin” her birthday. She is my drama queen, after all, and this might be cause for a scene.

I managed to get quite a bit of writing done yesterday. This is awesome since I’m going to be crazy today with getting cupcakes to K’s class this afternoon and trying to get her cake and stuff done for after school today. Not sure I’ll get much writing done today. Tomorrow I should have the first part of the morning to write and then after I grade the spelling tests at K’s class I might get in another hour or so of writing before the kids get home. All in all, things aren’t going as well as I’d hoped on the daily writing front. Hopefully things will slow down next week.

Oh wait, next week is crazy too—it’s WriteOnCon!! I’m so excited about this (if you can’t tell by the exclamation points)!! I’ve loved being able to attend this conference each year. Being a poor writer with not much money to spare for conferences and the like, it’s great to be able to attend this online conference each year for FREE!! Yes, for FREE!! It still amazes me. There are always wonderful agents, editors, and authors at WriteOnCon, and there’s always more to be learned. This year, my very awesome, amazing friend Kimberley Griffiths Little will be one of the authors on faculty. The WriteOnCon theme this year is Back to Basics (and who doesn’t need to get back to basics now and then) and Kimberley will be demonstrating her 3x5 card plotting method. YAY!!

What are you doing on this lovely Wednesday? Are you planning to attend WriteOnCon next week?

Hope you all have a great Wednesday!

Write on!

What day is it?

So last week flew by so fast I almost missed it! Here we are already on Tuesday of this week and I feel like I’ve accomplished a grand total of nothing. In reality, I’ve been busy, just not writing.

Mostly I’ve been catching up after last week’s insanity. K had some trouble last week with possible seizures and was home for a few days. On Friday, I traveled to visit a friend who came from TX (she was visiting her mother in another town in AZ—thus the travel on my part to see her). It was great to see her and catch up and do a bit of shopping around the quaint little town of Cottonwood, AZ.

On Saturday we had the huge birthday bash for my four kids. Yes, one big birthday party for ALL of them. Their birthdays are in June, July, August, and July and are only a few weeks apart. Instead of having a birthday party for each one individually, I find it easier to have one big party for all of them. This year we decided to rent the local movie theater and watch Ice Age 4. Unfortunately, the theater called on Monday to tell me the movie was leaving on Wednesday and wouldn’t be available for the party on Saturday. So we did some scrambling to see if we could get everyone to come on Wednesday instead.

That wasn’t happening. We then decided to hold the party at one of the local pizza joints. They were gracious and wonderful and we were all set . . . until I contacted the movie theater to tell them we’d made other plans and they told me there had been a change and the movie WOULD be there for us to watch on Saturday. *sigh* Commence many family conferences and phone calls to family and friends—Anyway, we decided to stick with the pizza joint and had a marvelous party with about 60 or so people (family and the kids friends). It was fun, but exhausting. The friend who was visiting from TX wasn’t able to make the party, but she did stop by later that night to visit. *love her*

That was my hectic week . . .

This week hasn’t started out great either. Yesterday the kids stayed home due to various complaints of not feeling well. I’d hoped to dive into a new week of writing, but that didn’t happen. I did try, but the constant knocking on the door (I tried locking it after the first thousand interruptions) wasn’t conducive to getting much done. After about two hours, I gave up and opened the door. The kids came in and we sat on the bed. They played their iPods and I played my iPad. We all played the same game.

It’s a new time waster app we discovered on Saturday (thanks to one of E’s friends at the birthday party). It’s “Let’s Create: Pottery.” I know they have this game for other platforms (like 3DS and I think Wii), but this was the first time I’d ever heard of it. What a blast we’ve been having! It’s especially fun for me since I’ve been missing my real life pottery class. Let me tell you, it’s so much easier to make the pottery in the app than it is in the real world! And, since it’s all in the app, there’s no boxes of pottery to fill up my house. Though I’ve wished I could have a few of them in real life since I’ve liked some of the things I’ve made in the app.

Anyway, the kids are all off to school today and I’m planning to get some writing done right after I post this—and finish my breakfast. Speaking of food—I decided a couple of weeks ago to try to eat healthier in hopes of losing some weight (I need to lose about 25 pounds). I looked into a few “diet” programs, but they’re super expensive—well, for our budget. So instead, I’ve been doing my own thing. For starters, I’ve started eating.

Yeah, that may sound strange or even bad to some of you, but the truth is, I hardly ever eat breakfast and rarely eat lunch. I’m too busy writing or going to school or doing homework or the like. Not healthy habits! If I did eat anything, it was junk food as I sat at my computer (York peppermint patties—though I rationalize that it’s dark chocolate so it’s not “bad” for me—lol). So now I have a breakfast shake each morning and some sort of breakfast bar. I was eating either a granola bar or a Nutrigrain (strawberry) bar. Yesterday I discovered some new “healthier” options. They’re Kind bars.

This morning I’m eating a Kind Fruit & Nut bar of the Almond and Coconut variety. They’re all natural, gluten free (not that I have a problem with gluten) and don’t have any artificial garbage in them. The ingredients for the almond and coconut bars: Almonds, dried coconut, honey, non GMO glucose (whatever that is) puffed rice, chicory fiber, soy lecithin. I was worried they’d taste gross, but I was wrong. I haven’t tried any of the other Kind bars yet (though I purchased a Peanut Butter Dark Chocolate + Protein—which I’ll try as my snack later today), but the almond and coconut is delicious!!

Last week, I lost three pounds—but I think I gained it back after the pizza party and cake and all that on Saturday. I haven’t been brave enough to step on the scale yet. In addition to eating and eating a bit healthier (with the exception of Saturday), I’m walking during the day (instead of driving to get the mail I walk the block to the mail box and back—I also walk to meet the kids at the bus stop in the afternoons and walk home with them which is about a block away).

Even though it’s only been a couple of weeks, I’m feeling better (and have lost weight). And apparently this “diet” is doing something for my hair because last week I got so many compliments on my hair that it isn’t even funny. In fact, it’s kind of weird.

Anyway, tomorrow is K’s birthday so I’ll have to take some time out from writing to take cupcakes to her class (at 12:20) and on Thursday I have to go in at about 12:45 to grade spelling tests. This will be a weekly thing. I know, I know, I was trying to avoid volunteering this year, but how could I say no to something so simple? It will only take about an hour out of my day (have to grade two classrooms worth since K’s teacher teaches spelling/reading to another class—that teacher teaches K’s class math in trade).

So, how is your week shaping up? Are you planning to get a bunch of writing/stuff done or is your week like my last week and you’ll be so busy you won’t have time to think?

Write On!