Sunday, December 18, 2016

am i doing too much?

This past week was a blur. With so much I have to do, instead of chipping away at it, I spent too much time watching TV, napping and basically wandering around my house in a daze. I know that it’s mostly from stress, but I really am exhausted and ache from my head to my toes. Making it hard to get motivated. Somehow I will get things done – I only have eight more Christmas cards to address. Let’s see, already mailed 46 or 48 of them. I have the last batch of Christmas cookies baked. I have half of the cut-outs decorated, so am not going to worry about when I finish the rest of them. Almost all of the presents are purchased, now I just need to wrap them. Oh, and we did get the tree decorated yesterday.

Every year, I ask myself why we put ourselves through all of this. Part of it is my husband. When I try to convince him each year that we need to cut back, he proclaims, “Christmas is my holiday and you’re not going to take that away from me.” To which I want to say, “Have at ‘er. Just coz you want to go nuts, doesn’t mean I have to.” Instead, this one time a year, I am the supportive wife and let him have his way. 

So what about my goals?

1)        Finish writing my current novel, “The Big House”.  I only wrote one chapter, 1,379 words this week. A far cry from the average I need to finish my rough draft by the end of the year.
2)        Ready “Where the Sky Meets the Sand” for publication. I still haven’t received the first round of edits from my publisher. I emailed them on Wednesday, I think, and heard back that I should get those edits by the end of the week, which didn’t happen. I’m trying not to stress about it. I have enough other things to do anyway. Wouldn’t it be better to wait until the relaxed days following January 1 to start re-reading the manuscript? But I am anxious to get the book ready for publication. My publisher originally set a release date for some time in April. And I suppose, since I am going to be in Africa the first two weeks of April, we might as well wait to release it towards the end of the month. I still just want it back in my hands. It also makes me nervous that my publisher hasn’t kept up their end of the deal on this. I know it is minor, but is it a warning sign?
3)        Continue posting to my other blog, “The Dino Chronicles” three times a week.  It helps that I set myself up with the topics for all the posts for the month.   
4)        Finalize the next trip for my daughter’s nonprofit, Tumaini Volunteers.  As much as we need to do on this, we haven’t worked on it this week. Life has just gotten in the way. Weather hasn’t helped. This Friday, no matter what, my daughter and I are going to work on things. I’m also meeting with our treasurer as she has not been able to balance the November income and expense report. And somehow she thinks it’s my fault. I don’t know why she blames me, but I need to appease her.
5)        Get my body in shape. Seriously? Do I not realize what this month is all about? There couldn’t be more junk food in my house right now.

Have you achieved all of your goals this Round? This year? And are you just going to sit back and relax for the last two weeks of 2016?   
Last year's cut-outs. I took a picture of this year's, but haven't looked at it yet. 
These cookies look just as good. 

Sunday, December 11, 2016

A Quick Recap

Rumor has it that the end of the year is looming. Did not see that coming. I have Christmas on my radar. But the end of the year? The deadline for a list of goals to be completed? Yikes. Let’s see where I am.

1)        Finish writing my current novel, “The Big House”.  Though I have had the idea for this book in my head for years, and actually the “big house” itself has been in my head since 1974, I only started writing it on August 14 of this year. That was four months ago. In that time, I have written 34,292 words. I’m shooting for 70,000 words total, which would put me at 48% finished. That also puts me at an average of 8,573 words per month. All of which means there is no way I will finish this in the next three weeks. I think I should shoot for 6,000 more words by the end of the year and finish the rough draft by the end of March.
2)        Ready “Where the Sky Meets the Sand” for publication. I was supposed to get the first draft of edits back from my editor on Friday. I did not hear from them, which greatly disappointed me, but I’m not going to freak out. If I don’t get an email by Monday night, I will send them a nudge inquiring as to where things are at. The next three and a half months are going to be nuts enough, if I want to achieve goal #1, as well as see this book released in April.
3)        Continue posting to my other blog,The Dino Chronicles three times a week.  The only goal I have continued to be faithful to and I anticipate that I will remain on track with it.  
4)        Finalize the next trip for my daughter’s nonprofit, Tumaini Volunteers. You think the above goals are enough? So, here I am planning on going back to Kenya the first two weeks of April. What am I thinking?  I am thinking that I miss Africa so much and I need to go back when I have the chance.
In the past week we have:
a.                          Met with two prospective volunteers and gotten their commitment to go with us in the spring. That makes our team me, my daughter and these two, which is a good size.
b.                          We had another craft show yesterday. Didn’t sell a lot of stuff, but talked to a lot of people and gave out our information. In general, when we tell new people about what we do in Africa, we get two reactions – 1] “but there will always be poor people in Africa, we should help the poor in this country first” or 2] “my church does something in Africa, so I donate to them”. Both reactions make me bristle, but I’m not going into it here. I’ve blogged about it enough.
So coming up, we have to:
a.      My daughter and I are meeting on Friday to get re-organized.
b.      I need to post some more items to Etsy, or even just to our Facebook page. Yesterday, as soon as we set up at the sale, we posted a picture to Facebook. We sold two items to people who couldn’t come to the sale but saw things they liked on the picture. I know that doing everything via the Web is the wave of the future – or the wave right now. I still like meeting people in person though (hard to believe since I am a massive introvert).
c.      Make our plane reservations by the first of the year!
5)        Get my body in shape. I’m still working out a few times a week, not as much as I would like, but I am just so busy. My weight is holding its own, so with all the Christmas snacks popping up all over, I’m not going to sweat it.

How about   you? Are you finding yourself so ridiculously busy this time of year that your goals go to the back burner? 
Anything on the table catch your eye? Send me a message and I'll get you more info. 

Sunday, December 4, 2016

over my big scare

After last week’s scare, I only got back to writing on Friday. My son was able to resurrect my laptop and the first thing I did was back everything up. In two places.

Other than that, I don’t know where the week went. With Christmas barreling towards us, I don’t know how much I will work on my goals, but I’m still going to give it a shot. (Green highlight is a goal that is on track, yellow highlight was at least worked on, red letters is a total fail.)

1)        Finish writing my current novel, “The Big House”. I squeezed in 2,158 words. Which brings my word count up to 46% finished. No, I won’t finish it this month, but I’m still proud I made it this far.  
2)        Work on readying “Where the Sky Meets the Sand” for publication. I hope to hear from my editor this week. In the meantime, I did research some book festivals and started composing my application for one.
3)        Continue posting to my other blog, “The Dino Chronicles” three times a week.  On track, three posts last week.
4)        Work on my daughter’s nonprofit, Tumaini Volunteers.  Worked on a few things this week. I listed two items on our Etsy store and posted our information on the Facebook page of the craft show we are at next weekend. I also messaged four of the people who had expressed interest in traveling with us to Kenya in the spring to try to get a commitment out of them. Also spent what seems like a lot of time rehashing things with my daughter. I think she must be bipolar, as much as she waffles on things. Oh, well, we’ll get through. Right now, it still looks like I’ll be returning to Kenya with her in the Spring. Which means I need to come up with the money, in addition to everything else I need to do in the next few months. Oh, well.
6)        Get my body in shape. Not as much as I would like, but I think I exercised four mornings and two evenings. My weight is down a whole pound or so. Oh, boy.

This week, I am going Christmas shopping with Hubby on Monday. Tuesday night I have to help decorate the church for Christmas. And I work on Friday, my usual day off, to make up for being off Monday to go shopping. Saturday I will be at the craft show all day. It could be another unproductive week, but we’ll see what happens.

How have you been doing? Is the upcoming holiday season slowing you down? Or are you committed to achieve all your goals by year’s end?  
From another recent craft sale

Sunday, November 27, 2016

feeling like a beast

I am trying hard not to panic. I’m telling myself to stay calm, it will all work out, this crisis will be averted. My son will show up in his armor and riding his white horse and will bring my laptop back to life. (In reality, my son not only doesn’t have a white horse, he doesn’t have anything on four wheels, much less four legs. He got a ride up to my house for thanksgiving with a friend, so is currently at another friend’s house, so I’m not quite sure how he will come to me anyway.)

So my laptop has been so slow and just quirky. It refuses to recognize the printer, no matter how many times I disconnect and disengage and delete it and then reconnect it. So I haven’t been able to print anything for a month or two. A few weeks ago, when I plugged the external drive in to save my stuff, the laptop now refused to recognize that as well. I plugged the drive into our desktop and it popped right up, so I didn’t get too concerned. At least that was working, right?

My son came over yesterday and got the printer working again and was thinking about what to do with the external drive, when we ran out of time, and we had to leave (that’s a longer story than that, but it doesn’t matter). I didn’t think much of it.

Came home last night and the little box was open on the LT asking something about do I want to restart coz it had updated some files. You know those boxes that always pop up? So, I obliged.

When I turned the thing back on, I got the opening screen and it will not move from there. No amount of hitting any keys on the keyboard or the mouse. Have turned it off and on too many times to count. Have even taken the battery out and back in, I don’t know why, but what could it hurt, right?

Even then, I wasn’t close to panic mode. Whatever. Until I plugged that external drive into the desktop just now and realize that it apparently hasn’t been working for some time. I try to save my stuff (ie, that novel I have been writing fervently on) at least once a week. So I thought, worse case scenario, I lost about two weeks of the novel.

Umm, wrong. Nothing has been saved on the drive for two months! Which was twenty chapters ago!

Ok. In reality it is not that bad. Believe it or not, I also emailed myself a copy of the manuscript on November 6, coz sometimes I do that. Yes, I’ve still lost a huge chunk, about seven chapters, and I don’t know if my mind can retrieve it, but I guess I can power through that much, if my son, the white knight, can’t get to my house and save the day.

So, that would be my update for this week. I got nothing else. Good thing is – I didn’t work on my novel all this past week.


How about you? What crises have you had to face in your current WIP? 
What I am starting to feel like. 

Sunday, November 20, 2016

Busy, but not on my writing

I can’t say that I was a lazy sluggard this week. I certainly was busy, concentrating all of my energy on just one goal, basically. (Green highlight is a goal that is on track, yellow highlight was at least worked on, red letters is a total fail.)

1)        Finish writing my current novel, “The Big House”. I only wrote 2,388 words last week and two chapters, for a total word count of 30,139. A little shy of the number of words I had been putting in the previous weeks. I was swamped all week with other stuff. See below.
2)        Work on readying “Where the Sky Meets the Sand” for publication. Nope.  I haven’t heard any more from the publisher, but they said it would be the first of December before they got the first round of edits to me. Yes, I still have other stuff to do on it – research places willing to host book signings and such – but I have been so wrapped up in the story of my newest novel. I know I need to get my heart back around to “Sky Meets Sand”, but maybe after the end of this month.
3)        Do some editing on my two memoirs, “Pat’s Story” and “Two More Trips To Africa”. Nope. I think I should take this goal off my list, at least for now.   
4)        Continue posting to my other blog, “The Dino Chronicles” three times a week.  On track, three posts last week.
5)        Work on my daughter’s nonprofit, Tumaini Volunteers.  And this is where all my time has been spent in the past week. My daughter Val came up Monday night for overnight as she had to be at the craft sale on Tuesday by 7:30 am. The whole evening we spent working on stuff. Then Tuesday night, after the sale, she stopped at the house for what I thought would be long enough to drop off the merchandise she didn’t sell and give me an update, but instead she stayed for hours. We worked on the website, brainstormed fund-raising, I don’t know what all we did. Then she came back Friday night for overnight, because we had the craft sale Saturday morning here in town. The goal of the next trip to Kenya next spring is to set up rabbit farming at the community where we started chickens this past spring. To get it up and running, they recommend we buy 36 pregnant rabbits, after we have built their hutches of course. Each pregnant doe costs $50. So Val came up with this idea that we should get people to sponsor each rabbit, and for an incentive, we would give them a handcrafted folk-art bunny. So we handstitched five of them Friday night. Sold two on Saturday. And today, as I was just starting to write this post, Val called again, working on updating the website some more and wanting my input. I am so happy that she is this dedicated and so proud of her for having her heart in Kenya. But I just want her to relax and be a 26-year-old newlywed with a full-time job, house that is in the middle of DIY projects and a dog – my grandpuppy, which I expect to be taken care of and spoiled when I am not around. Anyway, we both need sleep. But by the way, we did raise over $400 between the two sales.  

6)        Get my body in shape. Umm? I don’t have a clue, so the answer is probably just no.
7)        Bonus Points – I submitted a poem to a poetry challenge. Boy, and I sure need bonus points this week!

I’m going to admit up front that I probably won’t get a chance to work on any of these goals this coming week. I’m hosting the annual Thanksgiving dinner on Friday and it has gotten completely out of control. In past years, I’ve invited up to 20 people but have been averaging 12 or 13. So I upped the invites to 28, estimating that based on previous years, I would get 16 or 17 people. Well, I was up to 18, when I called the last cousin on my list, who said she and her spouse would love to come and since their daughter and son-in-law from out of town will be in town that weekend, they would love to come too. Really? And as you may or may not be aware, the whole point of Thanksgiving dinner at my house is to fit everyone around one table, just like on TV. I have enough room and enough tables to string together, the funny thing is that I don’t know if I will have enough chairs. I’m still working on that. My hubby is stressing about how we will be able to cook enough turkey, but I am going to leave that problem to him.

I bet you just can’t wait to hear how that all turns out.

How about you? What are your Thanksgiving plans? Do you have any traditions around this holiday? 

Sunday, November 13, 2016

Lots of color and bonus points too!

Due to a death in my boss’s family, I had an extra day off from the day job last week. I’m pretty sad about his loss, but to make up for it, I tried to be ubber-productive.

So was I ubber-productive? (Green highlight is a goal that is on track, yellow highlight was at least worked on, red letters is a total fail.)

1)        Finish writing my current novel, “The Big House”. I wrote a record 5,482 words last week and five chapters.  Which puts me at 21 chapters, 27,698 words and 36% complete. Then yesterday morning, because the Hubby had worked the night-shift so was sleeping in the basement, instead of cleaning house and making noise, I researched background information for the story for nearly four hours.
2)        Work on readying “Where the Sky Meets the Sand” for publication. Nope, nothing that I can think of.  But I think that now is the time to concentrate on other goals anyway, as once the first round of edits gets back to me, I am really not going to be able to work on anything else.
3)        Do some editing on my two memoirs, “Pat’s Story” and “Two More Trips To Africa”. Nothing at all.  
4)        Continue posting to my other blog, “The Dino Chronicles” three times a week.  On track, three posts last week.
5)        Finalize the next trip to Kenya for my daughter’s nonprofit, Tumaini Volunteers.  Somehow last week, I even managed to do a boatload of work on Tumaini. My daughter called one night ready to hang it up, shut down the organization and send all of our funds to the organization we work with in Kenya. She was so frustrated and discouraged. I rallied her and told her that since most new nonprofits fold after five years, we have to make it another two years just so we can say we beat the odds. The next day I ran into a former teacher who asked how we were doing and if we had another trip planned. I’ve talked to him before about it and that day, he was like, send me the information, I’m free and I have the cash. Then yesterday the Hubby talked to a co-worker of his who had expressed interest once before and he also said, I’m sure I can get off from work in the spring, send me the info. We’ve also got three craft shows coming up in the next month, so are getting ready for those. So, yea, but busy.
6)        Get my body in shape. I think I exercised three mornings and two evenings. My weight is holding the same, but all I want to do is eat. Can’t someone give me a pill that just turns me off from food?  
7)        Bonus Points – I updated my author website.

That should be enough, huh? A little bit of everything along with a spattering of nothing.  

How about you? Do you find some weeks you can work on one or two goals, but nothing on the others? Or do you just concentrate on one goal at a time? 
From our last craft sale last summer. If you are anywhere near Central Wisconsin, let me know and I'll tell you where we'll be at coming up. 

Sunday, November 6, 2016

A Mixed Bag

I had a medical assistant meeting for the day job yesterday. Drove over for it Friday night and spent the night with some friends from our medical assistant organization. It’s fun to get together and catch up, but even though lights were out at 9:30 and we only talked for another half hour or so, I didn’t get any sleep. I don’t know why I can’t remember to take sleeping pills with me, coz I know that I never get any sleep in a hotel room. Then I didn’t get home til after ten last night, but because I ate supper late on the way home, I didn’t sleep last night either. Argh. I’m a little shot today, but am going to power through.

So, other than that glitch, how did I fare in the last week? (Green highlight is a goal that is on track, yellow highlight was at least worked on, red letters is a total fail.)

1)        Finish writing my current novel, “The Big House”. I wrote an amazing 4,660 words last week. Is that even possible??? I really did not want to stop, the words kept flowing and the characters kept talking. If it hadn’t been for that meeting yesterday, I’m sure I would have kept going. Somewhere I thought I was shooting for 5,000 words per week and with my word count at 22,031 total, I’m 31% finished. So I am giving this goal a green this week, coz that is pretty darn close.
2)        Work on readying “Where the Sky Meets the Sand” for publication. Nothing really. I had emailed my Pre-Publication form the week before and never heard back, so I did send it again, saying, “in case you didn’t receive this the first time…” They emailed me back that they had gotten it the first time and were just busy. Makes me nervous. To my mind, no matter how busy you are, you acknowledge receiving an email, even if it is a form letter kind of thing. Makes you professional. But maybe that is just my narrow opinion. I’ll be patient and wait to hear from them again I guess. Hopefully sooner than later.
3)        Do some editing on my two memoirs, “Pat’s Story” and “Two More Trips To Africa”. Nothing at all.  
4)        Continue posting to my other blog, “The Dino Chronicles” three times a week.  On track, three posts this week. And even a mid-week post here.
5)        Finalize the next trip to Kenya for my daughter’s nonprofit, Tumaini Volunteers.  Nothing concrete. Talked to some people about it, sold one coupon book. Finalized a craft show my daughter will have to work at by herself on the 15th. So I guess that all adds up to something.
6)        Get my body in shape. Only exercised three mornings and two evenings. My back is still bugging me and the headache I’ve had since the first part of October is still hanging on too. Makes it hard to want to do anything physical, but I know that exercising will relax some of those muscles. Not going to sweat it right now.

So last week was kind of a mixed bag. I guess that’s okay. I’ll take it.

 How about you? Do you fluctuate on what goals you achieve? Or are you steady and making even forward progress? 

(The only picture of a bag that I had on my camera.)

Wednesday, November 2, 2016

Hug a Veteran

I am having a really hard time keeping track of the days lately. Am I just getting old or am I losing it?

Anyway, I know that I posted last time that I wasn’t going to write a mid-week post, unless I had something of merit to say. But don’t get all excited. This post isn’t going to be a Pulitzer Prize winner, but maybe it will plant a seed for one. You never know.

I haven’t said much about my current WIP, the novel which currently has the working title of “The Big House” for lack of something more eloquent. Actually I don’t think I’ve said anything about it.

It is about events that happen in a big house (duh) in 1974 and has various characters who are Native Americans, monks, and Viet Nam War veterans. One of the main characters suffers from PTSD. We hear about that a lot now, but I thought I better look it up and learn more.

Believe it or not, with all the wars that have been fought over the centuries and all the other horrible atrocities mankind has suffered, such as the Holocaust, PTSD was only diagnosed in 1980. Or at least that’s when the American Psychiatric Association first named it as such. I feel I will need to go down that rabbit hole and pay this disorder its dues.

I did write 1,700 words before making this discovery, so I think can afford to take a break to do research. 


Hope you are having a great week. Now go out and hug a Vet. Just don’t sneak up on them.  

Sunday, October 30, 2016

Yup, green

Two quick clarifications first.  
      1)    I don’t celebrate Halloween, just in case anyone out there is wondering.
      2)    I think I am going to cut out the mid-week post. I may have mentioned before that I was leaning that way, but want to say it again. Unless I have some big news that can’t wait, you’ll only be seeing me here on Sundays.

So, how have I fared in the last week? (Green highlight is a goal that is on track, yellow highlight was at least worked on, red letters is a total fail.)

1)        Finish writing my current novel, “The Big House”. I wrote 3,107 words last week, for a total of 17,334 so far since starting this August 21, which is 23% finished.  I had the lofty goal of finishing the rough draft by the end of the year, but since that means I would have to average close to 1,000 words per day – well, hold it. Actually 1,000 words isn’t bad. I only wrote three times in the past week and that came out to be just over 1,000 words at a crack. But, no, am I crazy? I just don’t have the time to write every single day. But okay, I will leave the lofty goal hanging out there and see what happens
2)        Work on readying “Where the Sky Meets the Sand” for publication. On Monday, I received the Pre-Publication form from my publisher’s creative director. That’s the questionnaire asking for all my thoughts on what I think should go on the back cover, my brief bio, my elevator speech, and other stuff like that. I worked on that three nights and emailed it back to them on Friday morning. So I am on track there.  
3)        Do some editing on my two memoirs, “Pat’s Story” and “Two More Trips To Africa”. I read through three or four chapters on the “Two More Trips, so that is on track. 
4)        Continue posting to my other blog, “The Dino Chronicles” three times a week.  On track, three posts this week.
5)        Finalize the next trip to Kenya for my daughter’s nonprofit, Tumaini Volunteers.  Well, I at least talked to my daughter about it. She also got the coupon books to sell for a fundraiser. We stopped at a venue to sign up for their craft fair next month, but only got the number for the contact person. Um, I think that’s it. Can’t say it’s a win, but not a fail either, right?  
6)        Get my body in shape. I think my goal was to exercise four mornings a week and lift weights, run or do aerobics three evenings a week, as well as lose some weight. I actually met all those requirements, even though the weight loss was only a pound this week, but hey, it counts, right?    

A freaking bunch of green, don’t you think? So I think I will try to get the same things done for the coming week. I also need to get better about supporting my other ROW80 bloggers and it's really time I updated my website. We'll see how that goes. 


How about you? Are you maintaining your goals or cutting back? Or doing so well you are adding goals?  
Yup, green. 

Sunday, October 23, 2016

a mostly red week

Once again I didn’t accomplish much this week. I just don’t know where the days go, how seven of them can fly by so quickly with so little getting done.

I usually work until seven on Monday nights at the day job, but this week I was supposed to get done at five. About ten to five, a co-worker made the benign statement, “I don’t want to work until seven.” Without thinking about it, the following words fell out of my mouth, “I can stay til seven for you.” What is wrong with me?? She asked five times in the following ten minutes if I was sure I wanted to stay and I just kept telling her, “get out of here, don’t worry about me, I usually work late on Mondays, so it is no big deal.” Crazy nut that I am.

Ok, so then Tuesday night after work I had my women’s group at church and Wednesday I went out for dinner with two former co-workers. So, yea, it’s easy to see where last week went. Of course I realize how important it is to spend time with people, so I’m not beating myself up over any of this. Oh, and also Hubby and I took my daughter out to eat Friday night coz she had a bad week. So there went another evening.

So here’s the facts. Green highlight is a goal that is on track, yellow highlight was at least worked on, red letters is a total fail.

1)        Finish writing my current novel, “The Big House”. I only wrote 2,313 words last week, for a total of 14,224 so far since starting this August 21. I haven’t had any writer’s block. When I sit down to write, I could just keep going, but I have to get some sleep, the house has to be cleaned, the hubby needs some attention and everything else that is going on in my life. I don’t know how prolific writers have enough time in the day.  
2)        Work on readying “Where the Sky Meets the Sand” for publication. I talked with my publisher on Friday. Their editor is due to have the first round of edits to me by December 9, so I won’t have to work on my share of the revisions until then. In the meantime, the creative director will be contacting me for my ideas on the cover design. So right now I am waiting on that. Also, by the end of the year, I need to find various outlets where I can do book signings or readings. I have some ideas which I need to research.
3)        Do some editing on my two memoirs, “Pat’s Story” and “Two More Trips To Africa”. I’m pretty sure that I didn’t look at either of them last week.  
4)        Continue posting to my other blog, “The Dino Chronicles” three times a week.  On track, three posts this week. Only one on this blog, but I didn’t include this blog on my goals, sooo, I’m calling it a win.   
5)        Finalize the next trip to Kenya for my daughter’s nonprofit, Tumaini Volunteers.  Didn’t work on it.
6)        Get my body in shapeUm, not this time.   

Right now, I have nothing out of the ordinary on my schedule for the coming week, so no excuses, come next Sunday, I will be all green.

How about you? How are you coming along on your goals? Or are outside forces slowing you down? 

Monday, October 17, 2016

Readying for the Frenzy

I’m sorry that I am posting this so late. I was at a writers’ retreat this weekend, and even though I got home from it by mid-afternoon Sunday, I was too scattered to sit at the computer. Instead, I took a nap.

The writers’ retreat went well. Gave me more ideas of things to write about and how to write them. Things like the family story. Somehow I need to fit that in to my schedule, but more and more fictional characters are showing up on my doorstep insisting that I write their stories first. Argh. Not enough hours in the day.

So have I made any progress on my concise list of goals? As usual, green highlights are a win, yellow highlights are worked on and red letters are a fail.  

1)      Finish writing my current novel, “The Big House”. I only wrote 2,080 words on this newest novel last week, and those were all last Sunday afternoon. (I need 5,000 a week for the green.) Revised goal number 2 has taken precedence.
2)      Continue researching publishers for my first novel  Work on readying “Where the Sky Meets the Sand” for publication.. Since I signed a contract last week with Ambassador International to publish my novel, I will be spending long hours working with their editors, design artists, marketing people, etc., for the next six months. This Friday I have a phone conference with the publisher, which should give me a better idea of the time line for this project.   
3)      Do some editing on my two memoirs, “Pat’s Story” and “Two More Trips To Africa”. Edited chapter one of Two Trips. (With this crazy schedule, I’m saying one chapter a week is a win.)
4)      Continue posting to my other blog, “The Dino Chronicles” three times a week. Didn’t get to a post on Sunday for the Chronicles, and the Sunday post here is a day late.  
5)      Finalize the next trip to Kenya for my daughter’s nonprofit, Tumaini Volunteers.  Hmm? I don’t remember working on it at all. Oops.
6)      Get my body in shape. I don’t remember. I think I exercised three mornings, but I think that’s about it. I’ve also been eating like an Ethiopian who has just arrived in this land of plenty. Oink, oink, oink. I really need to get it together.   

Right now my number one priority needs to be working like a slave for the new publisher, meeting their deadlines and driving myself to bring the very best product that I can to virtual book store shelves. I know that somehow in that frenzy I need to take time for myself as well. I’ll find a balance. I’ll be fine.  
Apple something recipe that I baked with Minnesota apples. Only one of the many things I've been pigging out on. 

Wednesday, October 12, 2016

Time for an Announcement

I suppose it is time to make this common knowledge, because after all, it’s irrational to publish a book and not tell the world. I’ve decided to sign with Ambassador International to publish my novel, “Where the Sky Meets the Sand”.

I have prayed on this and slept on this and hunted for signs everywhere telling me this is the thing to do. And even though, in the end, we always need to trust our gut instincts on these kinds of decisions, we also need to gather all the facts we can and lay them all out.

      1)      There are all sorts of places to look for publishers. Random blurbs come up on my Facebook feed claiming things like “5 Top Publishers for New Authors”. I also did Google searches of “Christian publishers”, “Fiction Publishers”, etc. Another avenue I traveled down was just plain looking at who published books which I like. Lastly, there was my “2012 Christian Writer’s Market Guide”.
      2)      At that point it was getting overwhelming, so I narrowed it down to the first three I found which publish women’s contemporary Christian fiction and accept work without going through an agent.
      3)      I studied their websites, looking at not only what types of books they had already published, but also if they had typos. It is shocking to me how many places use “their”, “they’re” and “there” interchangeably. (And remember, I am still an amateur – you can forgive me the occasional misspelled word.) And even though there is a place for bad grammar, is it ever on a publisher’s website?
      4)       Next I studied those books they published. How was their ranking on Amazon? Did they get good reviews? Did the authors have an online presence? I even clicked on the “look inside” icon and read the first few pages of these books. Any typos there? Did the first page get my attention? Is this a book I would want to read? Or recommend?
      5)      I picked out two authors from the publisher which showed the most promise and emailed them asking about their experiences. They both got right back to me, more than happy to answer my questions. Maybe I am still just a small-town girl, but in addition to their positive responses, I appreciate that they did get back to me so quickly and didn’t seem as though I was bothering them in the least.
      6)      Last, and perhaps I should have done this first, I went on the “Editors and Predators” website and clicked on each of the publishers which had caught my eye.  One of the publishers rated a negative review, so I did throw that one out right away. Reviews on the remaining two were a bit ‘meh’, as my son would say. And by the way, Aneko Press, who published my first three books, isn’t even listed on E&P. This website is a valuable tool, but like so many other things out there, it is only one tool in the toolbox. 
       7)      Final thought – what do I want for my book, my baby? It took me nearly six years to get it to this point, how much more of my own sweat equity am I going to put into it? How many people do I want to reach with it? How many people should it reach?   

So after all of that, I submitted it to Ambassador International and they offered me a contract – which meant one more thing to study and analyze and pick apart. And lose sleep over. I sent the publisher my list of questions and they were all answered professionally and reasonably. Oh, and I also online stalked the owner, the chief operating officer, and anyone else who I could find who worked for the publisher. Is that being too creepy? Or just playing it safe?

I’ll keep you posted on this new journey. 

Sunday, October 9, 2016

A mixed bag

This past week has been a mixed bag. Some days I got a lot accomplished, some days I was nothing but a lazy sluggard. I had hoped to get so much more done, but once again I must admit that it is what it is.

Yesterday, Hubby and I went for a ride and I took an unbelievable 107 pictures. Oh, for the days before digital cameras, when I actually took the time to look at things, instead of click, click, click. I’ve shared the very best picture above. You will have to keep checking my other blog, The Dino Chronicles, for more pictures and stories from the day. Right now I am so far behind on posting to that blog, that I have material until Christmas.

But what about my current goals for this blog?

Here they are. My wish is to have all of these things marked in bold green by the end of the year. For now, regular green is what is on track for the next 12 weeks, yellow has been worked on and red is a fail.

1)      Finish writing my current novel, “The Big House”. Crunching the numbers, that means I need to average 5,000 words a week to end at 70,000 words or so. Right now I’ve written 9,400 and 2,900 of those were this week. I think that 5,000 a week is a far stretch for me, but let’s give it some time and see what happens.  
2)      Continue researching publishers for my first novel “Where the Sky Meets the Sand”. This goal has me stymied. The one and only publisher I've submitted it to wants to publish it. I know – super, duper, yippy-yi-ya! It just seemed too easy, you know? When something seems too good to be true, it probably is. They’ve sent me a contract, so I suppose the first thing I need to do is go over that with a fine tooth comb and see what my gut instinct tells me then. Right now, I have a good feeling about them, but there is no reason to make a rash decision. I’m going to try to blog later this week about the process I’ve been going through. Maybe if nothing else, that might help others out there in the same boat.  
3)      Do some editing on my two memoirs, “Pat’s Story” and “Two More Trips To Africa”. Not a thing yet.  
4)      Continue posting to my other blog, “The Dino Chronicles” three times a week. Yes, on track. As a side note, Tuesday’s post has had the second most views of anything I’ve posted to that blog in the six years I’ve been keeping it. Last count 732. The most viewed post, “Are you a seal or a sea lion has had a whopping 5,904. I have no idea why, except I guess that people are interested in sea mammals.
5)      Finalize the next trip to Kenya for my daughter’s nonprofit, Tumaini Volunteers. At our meeting last Sunday afternoon, four prospective volunteers filled out applications to join us on the trip. We will see who follows through and who bails.
6)      Get my body in shape. I would have to say this was a fail this week. I think I exercised three mornings, lifted weights once and took a couple walks. In between, all I did was eat. I did set up a tire obstacle on one of my trails in the woods and naturally the first time I ran it, I fell. That would be the story of my life.

I think what I should do is commit to writing on my newest novel four times a week, do some editing one day a week, continue blogging and stop being a slug. That’s what I’m going to shoot for this week. I think I'm also going to sign up for Pacemaker. That will help track my progress and hopefully help keep me on track. 

Hope to hear from lots of my fellow ROW80’ers on Facebook. I’ll check in with as many of you as I can. 
(Huh. I should write about this - obstacles to our writing, and not just the tires.)

Sunday, October 2, 2016

Shall We Make a Fresh Start?

In June of 2012, I stumbled across the blog Round of Words in 80 Days. It was about the same time as I was trying to decide if I wanted to start a second blog. I’d been posting to The Dino Chronicles since the spring of 2010, but that blog was mostly about my adventures in life, both the past and present. I thought I should write a blog just about my adventures in writing. And so I started this one.

Since that time, I’ve been trying to write here on Sundays and Wednesdays, sharing my writing goals and the successes I have had with them. I’ve posted that progress to the ROW80 Linky-thing. Starting today, I believe officially, Kait Nolan, the founder of ROW80 has changed the guidelines and we will be posting our blogs (or other writerly items) to the ROW80 Facebook page instead of to the Linky-thing on her blog.

In light of that, I’m changing the way I post to this blog as well. I am going to continue (to the best of my ability) to post my goals and progress on Sundays. On Wednesdays (or maybe Tuesdays or even Thursdays), if I have the muse, I will post helpful hints for writers and readers, such as writing tips (as if I were the pro on that!) or book reviews. Anything I find or am inspired to write about writing.

All that being said, what are my current goals?

From now until the end of the year, I hope to:
1)      Finish writing my current novel, “The Big House” (working title only, I’m sure that will change as soon as a better title strikes me).
2)      Continue researching publishers for my first novel “Where the Sky Meets the Sand”. I submitted it to one publisher earlier this week (super-yeah!), but I shouldn’t put all my eggs in that basket. If (and when!) I get a rejection, I want to have another home waiting in the wings.
3)      Do some editing on my two memoirs. Neither one has so much as a working title (loser!), so let’s just name them: “Pat’s Story” (that’s benign enough, the story of my sister’s battle with cancer) and “Two More Trips To Africa” (about my second and third trips to Kenya).
4)      Continue posting to my other blog, The Dino Chronicles three times a week.
5)      Finalize the next trip to Kenya for my daughter’s nonprofit, Tumaini Volunteers. It’s still up in the air if I will be going back in the spring as the team leader, or if my daughter is. That has to be decided by the end of the year.
6)      Get my body in shape. I had my yearly physical on Friday and even though my provider didn’t give me a you-rah-rah peptalk, I have some options. As much as I hate taking drugs, I’m going to be faithful with the ibuprofen twice a day for two weeks to see if that settles down the inflammation in most of my joints. I’m also seeing an orthopedist for my Achilles heel tendinitis. I’ll be sure to let you know what he thinks. I’m also seeing the chiropractor for my back. See what a wreck I am!!!!

Wow, I really think that is enough, don’t you? I am off from the day job this week, and of course am already booked up. But I will try to work on some of this stuff, as well as decide on what I should really try to tackle each week.

Hope to hear from lots of my fellow ROW80’ers on Facebook. I’ll check in with as many of you as I can.