Sure messed up these goals

 The past week, I accomplished a different, yet equally impressive set of goals. It was all about the home-front. I cleaned up not one, but two of the rooms in my house which were complete disasters. I even invited not one, but two people to come stay with me in my new haven. Now, I’m waiting for the night that my hubby’s snoring keeps me awake so I have an excuse to sleep in the new bed. 

This room has had more transformations over the years than Dolly Parton has had facelifts.

Here’s what I did get done last week. Green highlights mean I fully achieved what I set out to do, yellow highlights mean I at least attempted it, red letters mean any attempts were a failure.  

1)    Promote the new book, “Where the Sky Meets the Sand” five times.

a.     Umm, not so much. I found that my publisher is offering the e-version for 99 cents, so I have promoted that on my social media, but that’s really about all. (Not really enough to give myself the full yellow.)

2) Write 3,000 words on the new WIP, “Now For Something Totally Different”.  1,441 words, not even half. Again, does that really rate a yellow?

3) Post three times to my other blog, The Dino Chronicles. Yep, just barely, but I did it.

4) Read five other blogs and comment on three of them. Read six and commented on three.  

5) Non-writing things to do:

a. Scan a dozen of my mom’s old pictures into the computer. Scanned 24 of them.  

b. Pick up the spare room in the basement, now that I managed to remove the bed that was just taking up space. Yes, cleaned it, at least the top layer.

c. Work on emptying the spare room upstairs. Not only did I sell the bed from the basement, I sold the sofa sleeper in the spare room upstairs. I was so ridiculously psyched about it, that I cleaned the entire room. Then I went to the furniture store on Monday and ordered a bed! Got it set up on Friday and am pretty pleased with myself.   

b. Do four things for the nonprofit, Tumaini Volunteers. Only did three.

1] re-organize the art for sale at my daughter’s work. Didn’t have to, coz I guess she did it on her own sometime before I got down there. I guess what matters is that it got done.

2] Confirm our craft sale for December 16.

3] Start advertising for our sale on the 16^th.

I sure made a mess of last week’s goals, didn’t I? I mean, I did okay, but let’s try to actually either work on a goal or not. Here we go for next week:

1)    Promote the new book, “Where the Sky Meets the Sand” three times. I know I need to work on this more, but I think I need to take a break til the first of the year.

2)    Promote my two Christmas devotionals. As we begin to cruise into the Christmas season, I may have an easier time getting these sold.

3)    Speaking of the old books, I have only around a dozen of each of the three of them on hand. I should order more from that publisher.   

4) Write 2,000 words on the new WIP, “Now For Something Totally Different”. It’s time to be realistic. I had hoped to be finished with the rough draft by the end of this week and start editing the river story, but I see that is going to have to wait until the first of the year. 

5) Post three times to my other blog, The Dino Chronicles.

6) Read five other blogs and comment on three of them.

7) Non-writing things to do:

            a. Decorate the house for Christmas.

b. Scan a dozen of my mom’s old pictures into the computer.

c. Do three things for the nonprofit, Tumaini Volunteers.

Is the holiday season starting to derail your goals? How do you compensate for that? 

An anticipated failure of a week

As I mentioned last Sunday, I knew this week was going to be busy. Had two combined sales (my books and the nonprofit), one on Wednesday and one on Saturday. Had church service Monday night. Went to a Young Living Oil Party on Tuesday. Had a meeting at church on Wednesday night.

Then Thursday night, things really derailed. We had a murder in my small town. First one since March of 2008. I probably wouldn’t have been so freaked out by it (though no matter what, it sickened and saddened me), except it happened in the house less than a block from my work and pretty much everyone was gone from my end of the building except for the cleaning person and I didn’t know what was going on until I pulled out of the parking lot and drove by all the squad cars. So Thursday night was a total waste, as I made a bunch of phone calls and kept watching and listening for news updates. I slept okay that night, but got up at four am to write a post to my other blog about it and why I feel the way I do about guns. Stressful, stressful, stressful.

And then Friday, my day off, I powered through the house work and got ready for the sale yesterday. Speaking of the sales, on Wednesday the nonprofit did well, but not so well on Saturday. Sales of my books was opposite of that. Most exciting was that I talked to someone from a Bible camp who might want me to speak at a group there.   

So this is what got done on my list. (As usual, green is goal accomplished, yellow is worked on, red is a failure.)

1)    Promote the new book, “Where the Sky Meets the Sand” five times.

a.     Attend the book signing Wednesday. Sold ten books. Thought that was pretty good, then . . .

b.     Attend the book signing Saturday. Sold 19 books!

c.      Promoted those book signings before and after.

2) Write 3,000 words on the new WIP, “Now For Something Totally Different”.  Nope. Not a word.

3) Post three times to my other blog, The Dino Chronicles. Yep.

4) Read five other blogs and comment on three of them. I read three and commented on three.  

5) Non-writing things to do:

a. Scan a dozen of my mom’s old pictures into the computer. Nope, I don’t think I got to any of them.

b. Do four things for the nonprofit, Tumaini Volunteers.

1] Repack all the Kenyan merchandise, re-inventorying it as I go. 

2] Attend the craft sale on Wednesday.

3] Attend the craft sale on Saturday.

Mini-bonus: I sold the twin size bed on Facebook’s Marketplace. Nice to get it out of the basement.

I only work at the day job on Monday and Tuesday this coming week. And granted, Thursday is Thanksgiving, but Hubby is working, so I’m not going to cook and only my two kids will be home. I better get something done during those five days off.

1)  Promote the new book, “Where the Sky Meets the Sand” four times. As much as I know I should keep working on this, maybe it's time to back off. The book needs to start to find its own way in the world. 

2) Write 3,000 words on the new WIP, “Now For Something Totally Different”. 

3) Post three times to my other blog, The Dino Chronicles.

4) Read five other blogs and comment on three of them.

5) Non-writing things to do:

a. Scan a dozen of my mom’s old pictures into the computer.

b. Pick up the spare room in the basement, since the bed's gone. 

c. Work on emptying the spare room upstairs, even if it means putting some of that junk in the room downstairs.

d. Do four things for the nonprofit, Tumaini Volunteers.

The list continues to look much the same. I need to get these things done. And start fresh January 1!

Have a Happy Thanksgiving. 

With my lovely daughter, at the sale on Wednesday.

Pretending to sign a book at the sale on Saturday. 

A Colorful Post

As you know if you read my post on Wednesday, I started a new work-in-progress Tuesday morning. I’ve written 4,703 words on it since then. That is certainly not a bad thing, but kept me from staying on task as much as I had hoped. Looking over my goals for last week, however, somehow, I did pretty darn good.

(Green highlight is “I rocked that goal!”, Yellow highlight is “I gave it a shot”, and red lettering is “I just ran out of time!”)

1)    Promote the new book, “Where the Sky Meets the Sand” five times.

a.     Posted the back cover of the novel on my social media.

b.     Created a Facebook event for my book signing on the 18^th.

c.      Contacted my publisher’s media person and gave her the names of five more area book stores I would be able to visit.

d.     Updated my Facebook cover photo with all four of my books.

2) Work on the study guide for “A Time for Every Purpose Under Heaven”, which I had started in September. Na-da, but that’s coz I started a whole different story. (Which I thought deserved its own separate color.)

3) Update my website.  A very little update, but hey, I did something on it.

4) Post three times to my other blog, The Dino Chronicles. Done.

5) Read four other blogs and comment on three of them. Read five and commented on three (I think).

6) Non-writing things to do:

a. Scan a dozen of my mom’s old pictures into the computer. Actually, I fell down the rabbit hole of looking at my old pictures, but I did scan 20 of them.

b. Get another box of stuff out of that spare bedroom and take it to the second-hand store. Not a second box, but at least I took that first one to Goodwill.

c. Post things to sell on Craig’s List.  Posted four items on Facebook’s Marketplace and got rid of two chairs!

d. Do three things for the nonprofit, Tumaini Volunteers.

            1] Created a Facebook event for craft show on the 18^th.

2] I set out all of the merchandise I have that’s for sale, as my son wanted to re-inventory it in QuickBooks, but he never made it to my house yesterday. Hopefully will do that today.

Bonus Points: I sewed a skirt yesterday. (Am I overboard with the color highlights?)

This week I have two combined sales (my books and the nonprofit) on Wednesday and Saturday. We also have a new schedule at church, so services are Monday night now instead of Saturday night (along with Sunday morning, which I never even try to make coz I am usually on the computer all Sunday morning), so, I should get to church Monday night. Tuesday night I’m going to an essential oil party. Wednesday night I have a meeting at church. I think that’s enough!

Yet I’m going to do all this as well:

1)    Promote the new book, “Where the Sky Meets the Sand” five times.

a.     Attend the book signing Wednesday.

b.     Attend the book signing Saturday.

2) Write 3,000 words on the new WIP, “Now For Something Totally Different”.  

3) Post three times to my other blog, The Dino Chronicles.

4) Read five other blogs and comment on three of them.

5) Non-writing things to do:

a. Scan a dozen of my mom’s old pictures into the computer.

b. Do four things for the nonprofit, Tumaini Volunteers.

1] Repack all the Kenyan merchandise, re-inventorying it as I go. 

2] Attend the craft sale on Wednesday.

3] Attend the craft sale on Saturday. 

The first wrap skirt that I've sewn.
Even without a pattern it was super simple and I love how it turned out. 

when i spring out of bed

I woke up from another vivid dream the other morning. This one supplied me with several scenes and a premise. It’s not enough for a novel, but I can picture it as a novella and actually have two other stories in mind with a similar theme – strength in marriage when the odds are stacked against you, or something like that.

So I sprang out of bed yesterday morning and wrote close to 400 words, adding another thousand last night. Coz I just don’t have enough going on.

1)    First novel, “Where the Sky Meets the Sand”, released two months ago. I have two book signings for it coming up next week, but need to continue to promote it online and where ever else I can.

2)    Second novel, “The Truth Beyond the River” (or something, still not sure about the title). Finished the rough draft a few weeks ago. Will give it til maybe the first of December and then start editing it. Hope to start looking for a publisher (or even an agent) for it by maybe February.

3)    Latest work. A book of three novellas. I’m calling it “Now for something totally different” for now, as the feel of it is different from other things I’ve written. Not as heavy on the Christian theme, the characters even have some questionable morals. Of course, they are good people in the end, but – yea – we’ll see. 

4)    The memoir of my second and third trips to Kenya. That’s kinda passed the mellowing stage and is just plain fermenting.

5)    The study guide for my first memoir. I really want to throw that together. I know that it won’t make any money, so I may just make it available for free to anyone who wants it, but I still want to finish it.

6)    I have three more ideas for novels. Argh! Along with my sister’s story. And I’m sure there’s something else.

Anyway, just wanted to share that with you! Time to get back to work.  

From August of 1979, I would have been 17. It's my "take a picture of me and you die" look.
Or my "leave me alone, I have books to write" look. 

It really wasn't that bad

I’m not going to berate myself for this past week’s accomplishments. I worked until after seven Monday night and after six on both Tuesday and Thursday. I had a meeting at church Wednesday night, and I left home late morning on Friday for an educational seminar for the day job, returning home last night. I am totally okay with not getting much done on these goals in light of that schedule, and I wasn’t even going to repost those failures here. Then I looked at them, and it wasn’t really that bad.

The really bad thing that happened last week is that two of my book signings were cancelled. They were at two different Book World locations, and it was announced the first of the week that the chain is closing all of its stores by the first of the year. This is my kind of luck. On the upside, I sold seven books yesterday at the conference and also had a poem published in an online poetry journal. There is just no reason to get down about things; there is always something, something to be thankful for.

Here are my goals for the past week and as usual, green highlight is goal accomplished, yellow highlight is at least worked on and red print is a total failure.

1)    Promote the new book, “Where the Sky Meets the Sand” five times.

a.     Shared the flyer for my next book signing on my social media. And then had to retract it, as that signing was cancelled.

b.     Shared the information on the book signing which is still on for a week from Wednesday.

c.      Sold those seven books at the seminar yesterday.

2) Work on the study guide for “A Time for Every Purpose Under Heaven”, which I had started in September. Nope.

3) Post three times to my other blog, The Dino Chronicles. I only posted twice to the Dino Chronicles, but I did write a mid-week post to this blog, so I think it is reasonable to count that.

4) Read four other blogs and comment on three of them. Read four and commented on three.

5) Non-writing things to do:

a. Scan a dozen of my mom’s old pictures into the computer. Scanned ten of them.

b. Get one box of stuff out of that spare bedroom. Man, oh, man, I have got to get that junk cleaned up! The box I had filled the week before made it to my car, but I never got around to dropping it off at the second-hand store, so it will probably be in my back seat for another week.

c. Do three things for the nonprofit, Tumaini Volunteers.

1] Audited the books for last fiscal year. 

2] Talked to two women about going on a medical outreach with me to Kenya next year

3] Posted on Facebook about our craft show on the 15^th.  

Gotta say, I’m surprised there was so much green and yellow. Now, for next week.  

1)    Promote the new book, “Where the Sky Meets the Sand” five times.

2) Work on the study guide for “A Time for Every Purpose Under Heaven”, which I had started in September.

3) I’m thinking it’s time to update my website as well.

4) Post three times to my other blog, The Dino Chronicles.

5) Read four other blogs and comment on three of them.

6) Non-writing things to do:

a. Scan a dozen of my mom’s old pictures into the computer.

b. Get one box of junk out of that spare bedroom and taken to the second-hand store. 

c. Post things to sell on Craig’s List. 

d. Do three things for the nonprofit, Tumaini Volunteers.

I don’t think there is much on my schedule to slow me down. On Friday, we are getting a new oven, so I’m sure I’ll be doing some baking next weekend. It’s been, I think, four months since the oven has worked, so, yea, I need to bake something!

Have a great week. Have you started your holiday baking? 

One of the old pics I scanned last week.
"Cuttin' the rug" with a relative at a cousin's wedding in 1979. Man, I wish I was still that thin. 

Asking for some help

I don’t have an update to post today; am just looking for help in making a decision.

Now that my second novel is finished, I really need to decide on a title for it. The setting is a huge old house (which was most recently a monastery) next to a river. Just like in my newly released novel, the setting is a major factor. The reader is reminded in nearly every scene of where they are. Even more so than the first book, this one revolves around that setting. Granted a real-life drama inspired this story, but it was that big old house that triggered my imagination.  

I’d ideally like “river” and “house” in the title. Unfortunately, nearly everything I’ve come up with which include those two words has already been done. Also, even though I looked up the title “Where the Sky Meets the Sand” on Amazon before I committed to it, I didn’t do a google search until it was too late. Apparently, there is an entire Arabian television series by that title. So not only have I been checking the title of books, but the titles of movies and TV shows as well.

Here are the names which I’ve come up with which I haven’t found anywhere else.

The River Beyond the House

The Place Along the River

What cometh down yon River

The House Beside the River

Where the House Sits

Where the River Flows

Where the River Always Runs

What the River Said

What Lies Beyond the River

Do any of these grab anybody? 

I was looking for a line within the book which used one of these phrases and I found one. Can you guess which it is?