Much Thanks! and Reading!

First off I must thank my cousin, Donea Weaver, for putting a shout out for my blog!  She really is awesome and fun and talented!

Second I must thank all of you who came and commented and followed.  I'm feelin' the love!  I'm excited to get to read more blogs from people who have similar interests.

Now for the post...

I wanted to put a list together of all the books I've read over the last month.  Because how do you choose books?  Sometimes it is from shopping but mostly it's by word of mouth.  So here is my spreading the love by sharing some awesome reads with all of you!  (These are all, except for The Way of Kings (fantasy), YA fantasy/dystopian.  Don't know why, but hey, they are good.)

The Maze Runner by James Dashner

The Scorch Trials by James Dashner

Divergent by Veronica Roth

Variant by Robison Wells

The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson

Possession by Elana Johnson

Currently reading and will be finished within the next day or so...  The Death Cure by James Dashner

The reason I post these is also because reading a good book inspires me to write.  I want to be able to touch someone else's life with my work like these authors have touched mine.

I hope all of you might share at least one good book you've read over the past month with me.  I'm always looking for something new...

Happy reading and writing!
(Some of the pictures were from Wikipedia the others were from Amazon.com)

Mile Stones/Progress

So today I finished a first draft/outline!!!

Yes!  I'm so excited!!!  I've only been doing this for a month!  

If you've been following my earlier posts you'll remember that I wanted to write for a long time.  I did it off and on with no real schedule and thus no real progress.  This year my youngest is in preschool 3 days a week for 2.5 hours so I made that my writing time.  It worked!  I've made so much progress-obviously!  I've actually got the story down and can now focus on making it the best story I can.  

Being at this point however did bring up a question...  Critique groups???  Not if you need them or not because I believe you do but how do you find the right one for you?  Any suggestions?

Write On!

I Love Reading!

So, I was at a loss as to what I should write about today.  I then looked at my decidedly messy desk and remembered that I'd piled a bunch of magazines on the corner a few weeks ago.  I thought maybe if I looked through them an idea would come.

I was on my third magazine, an old edition of The Week, and that is when I came across something that caught my eye.  It wasn't even a main article.  It is a total of four sentences at the bottom of the page in the corner.  But it made me look twice...

"More than 450,000 people have joined a Facebook group called 'I Hate Reading.'  A rival group, 'I Love Reading,' has attracted fewer than 45,000 members."  --LATimes.com

Really???  I can't imagine that so many people really hate to read and so few really like it.  Do the haters just have a bigger support system?  Everyone I know likes to read something.  It may not be fiction.  It might be history books.  It may not be biographies.  But it could be the newspaper.  I mean how do you go around saying you hate reading?  It's like saying you hate that you have to lift your arm up to put food in your mouth.  :)

Anyway, Facebook is a crazy place and at least it gave me something to write about tonight that was at least in some way related to my work of writing!

Read on!

Spirits Up!

Today I struggled with keeping my spirits up.  The dumb thing?  There was no reason for it.

Yeah.  So, a side effect of this was that I couldn't keep focused on writing.  (I'm even having a hard time with this post!) I did get some writing done but not any where near what I wanted to pound out today.  And right now I'm forcing myself to write this blog because I want to so bad that I don't even care if it is bad.

I'm hoping that some of you have had a similar experience and can share what you do to pull yourself up when you don't really know what's bringing you down!  (Especially if it is effecting your writing...)

Passion as Love

I have passion about very few things.  One is my family.  One is my writing.  One is music.  I LOVE this stuff.  

I love how my family keeps me sane.  I love the support they give me.  I love the encouragement.  I love how we can laugh together.  I even love how we fight and then make up.  I love our differences.  I love our learning experiences.

I'm a piano player.  I love music.  I actually was majoring in music oh so long ago when I was young and in college.  I love how music can make you feel.  I love how complicated it is.  I love how it can create an emotion.  I love how it can help you remember certain feelings or times in your life.  

And I obviously love to write.  I love how I can put my feelings down on paper (or computer) as in a journal entry.  I love how I can create a person.  I love how I can create a world.  I love how I am in control of that world and character and I can create a moving, exciting, wonderful, terrible place.  I love to explore all the things that could happen in my world with my characters.

I just felt today that I needed to share what I loved about the things that I loved most in my life!

Happy Writing!

The Elusive Muse

All this time, I thought I was better at writing when the moment hit me.  When I was single, it was so easy to write when the Muse took me.   When I got married it was a little more difficult but still possible.  Then I had my first child.  Then another.  And finally my third.  I found I would wait.  And wait... and wait...  for the muse to come and take me away to my story land.

Now, as mentioned in a previous blog post, my third, and youngest is in preschool, giving me 2.5 glorious completely alone hours.

I realized that I was going to have to get that blasted Muse myself.

I decided when I signed him up and after having hardly ever had the Muse take me in the last 3 years that I would dedicate that time to writing.  I was a little hesitant because I never had done that before and I honestly didn't know if it would work for me.  I'm having way more success than I ever thought I would.  I'm so glad that I did schedule the time to write and I only use it for writing.  Not to say that I don't have a quick thought, idea, or description come to mind that I need to write down.

How many of you schedule time for writing only?  Or do you wait for the Muse?  Or do you use a combination of both?

Having Fun

I must say that my commitment to writing while my son is at preschool has been fantastic!  I'm totally excited and things are moving along.  (YIPPEE!!!)

Sometimes I have a hard time focusing on my writing because I'm thinking, "This is awful.  This definitely sucks."

I decided that I needed to take the advice of letting myself write "crap."  I tell myself that it is OK for now, I can go back and change it later.  I can fix it.  I just need to get the idea down, the emotion, the scene.  I found that this at least helps me to move forward with my story instead of dwelling on a section that can't be fixed yet because I don't know where it was going anyway!

Do you fellow writers have a mantra you tell yourself as your writing to keep you focused enough to get the story out?


As always... Happy Writing!!!

Time

My youngest child is now in preschool 3 days a week for 2.5 hours.  I had decided that when he started preschool that time was my precious writing time.

He has been to school twice now and I have written both days.  I didn't get as much done on the first day as I thought.  I vowed to do better the next time he went.
I dropped him off.  I came home.  I sat and I wrote CRAP!  I was so discouraged.  I posted on Facebook and Twitter that I was suffering from writer's block.  I had two friends give encouraging comments on my post.  So I gritted my teeth and wrote.

I doubt I'll keep a lot of what I wrote today but I did figure out a major plot point and got my story moving again and regained some excitement.

What have you done to get through those tough writing times?

Before I lose all momentum...

I thought I would force myself to at least blog today.  It seems I haven't any ideas to put on here and so I wait for something to come.  Obviously that isn't working.  I will just have to get on here and do it.

I've certainly been in a bit of a funk lately.  As a bit of explanation:  My husband worked out in California for the last 9 months.  I was here.  Lonely adult with three kids and the dog.  In a new house that needed unpacking.  I figured it would be great when he got back.  Not so.  He is a wrench in the works that I've tried to hard to keep together on my own.  Bummer.  I am glad that he is back but I'm also not glad that he is back.

I was also hit emotionally harder than I thought I would be by the death of a dear, sweet friend of mine.  She died of pancreatic cancer and I'm still near tears as I write this.  My nose is stinging and my heart hurts every time I think of her and the wonderful people she left behind who needed her.

As a writer, I've taken this opportunity to put in my mind the feelings of grief and confusion that I'm feeling.  One day I'm sure to write a scene where I will need to pull on these intense feelings.  For now, that is the only good I can come up with for this situation.

Happy writing!

It's been a while...

As the title infers, it's been a while since I last posted.  My life suddenly became very hectic for the past few days.  My little guy had a small surgery.  I had my mom come to help me because I thought I might go crazy at the hospital.  (Luckily that didn't happen.)  Then we decided to paint a bed frame for little guy and instead it turned into not only painting the bed but the nightstand, table, bookcase and room.  Looks fabulous and I will post pics once I get all the furniture arranged properly.
 
I was thinking during all that time that I needed to sit down and write a post!  I was crazy with it... and then the feeling left me, until tonight.  I must get back to writing!  My next big thing is my writing conference!  That may explain why I suddenly got the writing bug back.  I'm really excited to go and learn some writing stuff.  (Plus I will be at a hotel with no kids.  Heaven has come for me at last!)

I really enjoy going to conferences.  I love meeting the people and talking with others who have the same passion as I do.  It is really quite refreshing.  I enjoy learning all the little details about the craft or the business.  I love how the published authors that are in doing their classes love helping those of us who haven't gotten published yet.  They want us to live our dream too and I love the support and passion from all those around me.  If you haven't been to a writing conference (and you want to write) I would go.  Just sayin'...

Motivation-or lack there of...

I've been thinking A LOT lately (probably the last 6 months) about motivation.  I can be totally motivated and excited about something I'm doing and then, especially if it's a large project, I lose my excitement and motivation and I begin *gasp* procrastinating.  So what motivates me?  And perhaps that is the wrong sort of question to ask.  Maybe I should be asking, "What keeps me motivated?"  I don't have problems finding motivation at the start of a project.

I've come to the understanding that I don't really know how to keep myself motivated.  I don't know what happens to my motivation.  Maybe I need to look at my story in a different way?  Maybe I should split up the story into smaller pieces?  Maybe I should give myself a time limit?  Maybe I should have a few different stories to work on at the same time?

If anyone has any ideas please feel free to share!

Today... distractions...

I'm a writer.  I don't know if a single person who knows me knows that.  I don't share my writing.  I don't write as often as I should.  Can I even call myself a writer?  I'm gonna have to say "yes."  I want to write.  I want to write!  I WANT TO WRITE!!!

I have discovered, however, that I'm really exceptionally good at distracting myself.  I can play games on my computer, my DS, my iPhone.  I can even (and this one doesn't make sense since I HATE doing it, just ask my hubby!) distract myself with house work.  I'm also an avid crafter.  I have projects galore that need me.  And my biggest distraction of all???  READING!  I love to read.  I'm never without something to read.
 
So what am I to do?  Many authors have already discovered their own ways around these things I'm sure, but for me, I had to rethink how I was going to actually do it.  Here is what I did:

1.  I figured out that I can't write on my computer.  It is too big of a distraction for me.
2.  Because of #1 I decided I would buy myself a new notebook and pen.  That being purchased...
3.  I headed to my local Barnes & Noble to write.

Why did this work?  I don't play my games because I don't have my computer.  I don't do any housework because I'm not at home and I like getting new things no matter how small.

The story is off to a fantastic start and now all I have to worry about is the little voice in my head telling me this is stupid!