It's over! Now for my next trick #amwriting #nanowrimo

Whew! I did it. Managed 50k words in 30 days. Uff-da!

And of course, the week fight after NaNo, my schedule was … yeesh. Needless to say, I haven’t written a word for a week. Three evenings were filled with subbing at the library or our Sisters in Crime chapter year-end potluck. It’s all fun, but not conducive to writing much.

Just when I thought I could finally get back into my treadmill routine before an hour-plus writing session, the migraine hit. Double ugh. And this time it carried over for a second day because apparently it didn’t have enough fun the first day. Sigh. Even now it’s still jabbing me. I don’t get them often, but when I do, I can’t write. (For those who suffer with chronic migraines, I am in awe that you can carry on with everyday stuff when they hit. Especially if you can also write when your head is waging war within. Seriously.)

Needless to say, I haven’t written anything this week until now. Next week is finals week, so I have my empty nest for one more weekend before the kids are home for semester break.

How far did I get on my WIP? Not quite finished, but I’m at a point where the scenes should flow from brain to keyboard pretty well. Not quite to the climax, but close. If all goes well, I should be finished with the draft of Book 2 by, hmm, the end of next week.

To all my fellow NaNo-ers, congratulations! Whether you managed 50k words or more, or less, you have that many more words now than you did when you started. High five!

I’m still way behind on reading blogs, etc, so don’t be surprised if I finally get to the post you wrote two weeks ago. Or three. I’m also way behind on a lot of other stuff. I keep looking at my list hoping it’s getting shorter.

Not so much. In fact, I think my list just gained another three items. Dammit.

Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving and managed to travel safely despite the winter storm. Nothing like a wham! Bam! Here I am! arrival of winter on a holiday weekend. So glad I couch-shop on Black Friday, aka the weekend all the die-hard shopping people brave crappy weather to just miss the best deals on the hugely-discounted items any store has, because they only have, like, three of them in stock. Anywhere.

I’m eager for the solstice. At least then the days will start getting longer again (yes, I know, still 24 hours in a day, but more of that time will be light.)

Okay, off to keep up the writing habit I redeveloped over NaNo. Stay safe, keep writing!

Still behind in the home stretch #nanowrimo #amwriting

Image by Steve Howard from Pixabay

My writer finally comes through the door to her writing office. I have to make a show of checking my non-existant watch. “Where the hell have you been, love?”

She grimaces at me. “I know, I know. I worked at the library two nights this week, and I’ve still been writing every night, so …” She trails off into a grumble.

“Watch your language. You’ve been distracted.”

“Duh!” Julie grabs her laptop and plants herself in one of the recliners in the corner. More grumbling. She’s wearing her NaNoWriMo hoodie, but it doesn’t seem to be helping much.

“Would you like to talk about it, love?”

“I have to write.”

She’s so grumbly I can feel the creative energy being repelled. Sigh. I settle next to her in the other recliner. “Tell me.”

“You already know. Why should I tell you?”

“Because by actually saying it you will feel better. And yes, I can feel the energy shift. When is your daughter supposed to be home?”

“Soon.” She chews on a knuckle. “I didn’t get as much writing done last weekend as I had wanted to. I worked at the library and tried to write. I did write when it was slow, just not enough. I even wrote every day this week, and I still didn’t hit my word count. And I’m not going to get that short story done to submit for the anthology.”

“You could, love. That’s the one with a hard deadline. Your draft doesn’t have a hard deadline.”

She looks over at me, her face flushed. Frustration, I think. “I don’t know how to write it. I’m stuck. You know what? I think I need to write something different. I want to work on the Spring Brook story. Or I could revise my police procedural. Or maybe work on that urban fantasy you keep pinging me with.”

The urban fantasy would be a nice change of pace, but now is not the time. “Tell me what’s distracting you, love.”

She bounces her head back against the recliner. “Everything. Do you realize Thanksgiving is next week already? And my daughter is home this weekend, then coming home for the Thanksgiving holiday two days after she goes back. The energy is,” she rubs at her eyes, “different. Harder to work with. And I have housework to do, even if it is the bare minimum. And I have to get my new computer set up. And damn it, I need to be writing.”

“Yes, you do. So what do you need to do to get there?”

“Stop talking and start writing. Go finish my blog post. Please.”

I try another test. Most of the creative energy is still not sinking in. Bloody hell. “I’ll call Wander in. Maybe she can help.” There’s something about dragons that helps my writer open up.

Not Wander, but close.

“Fine. Whatever. Let me try to hit my word count tonight, alright?” She glances at the clock on the desk and groans.

I lean over to her. “Relax, love.”

“Easy for you to say. Finish the post, then help me with this transition.”

And I expect that’s how the weekend will go. If I can get her to hit double her word goal over the next two days, she’ll be on track to hit 50k by the 30th.

Wish me luck!

Hometowns and history #amwriting #Englishteachers

“Just come back later,” I tell my Muse, who is wearing a look of concern. Then again, he had that same look last night when I finally returned home from my author event. “I’ll make up the word count this weekend. Promise.”

My Muse crosses his arms over his broad chest and taps a foot. “You are supposed to be writing, love. You didn’t write anything yesterday.”

“I know, I know. I had an author event.”

“All the more reason I should be writing the post.”

I resist the urge to roll my eyes. “I’ll count these words, okay?”

He sighs. “Fine.” He waves a finger. “You will make up your word count and get ahead this weekend. Your kids are not home. No excuses.”

Except for the bathrooms that need cleaning. And the vacuuming. And …

“Julie. You need to write. Your short story has to be submitted by the end of the month.”

“I know, I know.”

Last evening I had an author event at my hometown library.

The “new” Myrtle Maybee Library in Belgrade, MN

When I was growing up, I spent a LOT of time there perusing their collection. I would ride my bike the five or six blocks (small town blocks, not city blocks) to the library at least once a week and check out enough books to last a week 🙂 Despite being quite small in size, our local library had a lot of books. Then I discovered I could order books from other libraries!

Since then, the library has moved to a larger location. The new place used to be a hardware store, and is a little more than twice the size of the old place. Ah, the memories!

I saw some familiar faces and got to reminisce a bit. Since my dad sold the house last year, I haven’t had a reason to go back until now. So much has changed, but so much is still the same. I met people I haven’t seen for years, and to my pleasant surprise, I remembered their names! (You know what I mean, right? The old “I know I know you, but I can’t for the life of me remember your name” dilemma.)

The person I really wanted to see again showed up. My high school English teacher, Mrs. Anderson, was my favorite English teacher. She loved Anne McCaffery’s Pern books as much as I did. She may not remember, but I remember telling her I was going to write a book.

See, I did it! Me and Mrs. Anderson, my high school English teacher

It was a great crowd. The library scheduled my visit during the time the book club normally meets, so the book club members were there, along with a number of other locals. My old piano teacher was there; my siblings and I all took piano lessons from her. She is now teaching my nephew!

Mrs. Adrian and me. Still teaches piano to my family (my brother’s kids take lessons from her)

It was a long day, but a great day. Our former neighbor (she still lives there, we don’t) was kind enough to take pictures for me (thank you, Kathy!). There is something nostalgic, and somehow comforting, about going back to the place where you grew up (provided you had good experiences there, of course). I met my dad at the local cafe, but I had to smile when he called it by the name it had way back when we first moved to town. Since then, it changed names at least once, and is now a Mexican restaurant with a nice supper crowd.

Okay, back to my NaNo writing. I missed my word counts this week, but it was a busy week, with my Sisters in Crime meeting and a day of subbing at the library, plus the author event. No kids home this weekend, so I’m planning to hit it hard to catch up and give myself a bit of a buffer. We’ll see how that works out 😀

Have a productive writing weekend!

Sweaters, the spooky season, and a surprise #amreading #mnauthor

I was going to save the surprise for the end of the post, but I’m one of those people who shakes the present to try and guess what’s inside, so I moved the surprise to the top. You can thank me later 😀

One morning I got an email that made me do a double-take. Turns out, I entered my book in a contest (I did remember entering … eventually 😀 ).

Murder in Plane Sight won IAN’s Outstanding Mystery of 2019!

Okay, back to our regularly scheduled boring post 😀 😀

Have you broken out the sweaters yet? It’s time to do the ol’ seasonal outfit swap–pack away the summer shorts and T-shirts, and pull out the sweaters and mittens. Now’s the time to stock up on hot cocoa mix and mulling spice (with apple cider!).

Image by StockSnap from Pixabay

I have scraped frost from my windshield a few times already this season. It’s a reminder of what is to come. I don’t mind winter so much, up until the holidays, then I’m good with ending winter and opening the gates to spring. Of course, living in Minne-snow-ta means more than two months worth of winter. Try twice–no, three times that.

Okay, I do like winter, as long as I don’t have to drive in a snowstorm, or on icy roads. On the plus side, no weeding the garden, and a great excuse to stay inside where it’s warm and write.

All Hallow’s Eve is coming. That night kids look forward to. Dressing up is encouraged, and candy is the rage. Adults like Halloween, too. Have you noticed how many people decorate for Halloween these days? It’s almost like driving around looking at Christmas lights. with the inflatable lawn ornaments and the spooky haunted house setups in front yards , and even string lights. Sheesh. On the bright side, it’s warmer when setting all those decorations up than when you set up the outdoor Christmas stuff.

Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay

The trees are shedding leaves like crazy, which is a bummer because they are so pretty when they are dressed up in yellows and reds and pinks and oranges.

And next on the agenda for a writer trying to get her butt in gear? NaNoWriMo! I am anticipating the marathon, and planning to use the excuse to focus on regaining the habit of writing every day (actually to avoid stuff like housework 😀 ). I have a few projects I want to work on, and wonder of wonders, hubs cleared some clutter from my old writing space (since I haven’t worked on organizing my son’s room yet), so I have a cave–er, I mean, a spot where I can hide out.

Have a great weekend! Get that yardwork done before the snow flies!

It’s over … mostly #gardening #minnesota #fall #autumn

Remember the snow from last week’s post? And I had to scrape frost from my windshield a day or two later. No, I didn’t cover anything this time.

How do you spell relief when you are a gardener in MN?

FROST.

Yep. Killed pretty much everything not related to cabbage. This picture is from the vantage of the potato bed. Not a great shot, because I dug potatoes weeks ago. It does look pretty desolate though.

The peppers and the zucchini are now wilty versions of their former selves, along with all the remaining bounty. It was a great year for peppers; I finally stopped picking them because, well, how many stuffed peppers can two people eat?

My seasonal favorites weathered the cold just fine.

brussels sprouts, kale, etc

kale, brussels sprouts, etc

I’m finishing off the last of the beets, and brussels sprouts are next on the menu, I think. Or kale. Or both. The sprouts did really well this year. I have had some already, but after a frost they tend to sweeten up a bit. Kale, too.

The biggest task now is to clean out the garden and till it. I like to take all the raked-up leaves (when I feel like raking them, because with a grove, it’s like cleaning up kids’ toys just before they roll through again; looks like you didn’t do anything 🙂 ) and dump them into the garden before we till it in.

We’ll leave the sprouts and kale alone. They’ll be fine for a while yet. Oh, and another bonus we get almost every year:

I suspect it’s the variety, but we usually get some berries in mid-summer, then another crop in fall, depending of course on how cold it is. The raspberry flowers are some of the few flowers still around for the bees. When I was picking peppers a couple weeks back, I checked out the raspberries. So many bees! I don’t think I’ve seen that many bees in one place all summer. They weren’t the European honeybees, though. They were wild bees, which are furrier then the European ones, but not as big as bumblebees. So. Cool.

The chickens are all laying eggs now, or at least most of them are. And the flock likes to follow us around; a couple of the black ones are really keen on being shadows.

Five of the seven: 3 black, one brown, one speckled

We keep discussing letting them out of the pen for a few hours (putting the dogs in the house, of course), but hubs said he heard a coyote during the day earlier this week. So, probably not letting the chickens out to roam. Not now, anyway. I feel bad because there isn’t any vegetation in the pen (hubs and son “re-landscaped” the area when they redid the pen this spring). I throw tall weeds in the pen for them; its’s a great use for those weeds that are too close to the garden fence to mow.

And more homework! I’m revising my next chunk of my WIP to send off to my writing teacher. I want to get the draft done before NaNo starts. A dream, unless I whisk off to an isolated cabin with heat, internet, wine, and chocolate for a week or two. Still, I’m going to try. Even without the chocolate 🙂

So, as Dory says:

Have a great weekend!

Don’t say it’s Snow #minnesota #amwriting #winter

It is. The four-letter S word. NOOOOO! It’s too early! It’s only almost the middle of October.

Then again, we will miss out on the BLIZZARD hanging out in North Dakota. Whew!

So not ready for this. I’m still trying to enjoy the fall colors. Sigh. Then again, bonus: what a great excuse to stay inside and write! Granted, this weekend–tomorrow really–is only a taste of winter, and we get back to our regularly-scheduled autumn next week. Cooler than average, but no snow.

I didn’t get a chance to take a picture of the garden; I’ll try to get it once the weather clears up in a couple days. The only things really left are the kale and the brussels sprouts. I’m not going to cover the peppers or zucchini. They will fall to the cold.

I’ve got one more unit left to finish for my class. I get to write a query and synopsis for my WIP. However, I’m going to finish the draft first. Translated: put off writing the query and synopsis as long as possible. 😀

And for those preparing for NaNo this year, I’ll see ya there! (buddy up if you want: my NaNo handle is Aislinge) Depending on how far I get with the draft for Book 2, aka my WIP, aka my class project, I’ll either keep working on that, or start drafting–again–another project I keep thinking about. And I’m going to squeeze in a short story somewhere in there. Our local Sisters in Crime chapter is putting an anthology together again this year. Deadline for submission is December 1. Whether my story will get chosen or not, who knows, but it’d be great if it was.

Another short post this week. Somehow I always feel like I’m trying to keep up or catch up. It’s tough enough to keep up with things around a full-time job, garden stuff (except that’s pretty much done now), and house upkeep (read: the house is sooo not clean). Crossing my fingers any sort of cold or flu stays far away.

Some of my writer friends have been under the weather lately. I know I can’t write or work on the computer when I’m sick, so I tend to watch TV, or maybe read. TV-wise, I will often pull out a How to Train your Dragon movie or a Star Wars movie. What about you? What do you do besides sleep when you’re sick?

Happy Writing and may Winter stay away for another month!

Bah! Wake me when it’s over.

October Already?

Image by StockSnap from Pixabay

I’m still trying to figure out where September went. Or maybe I just blinked and it vanished. The trees are starting to wear their colors in our area. I was driving home from work and noticed the hills along the river have more yellow in the green now. There are a few brilliant pinks around, but more of the deeper magentas.

It’s my favorite part of autumn. The colors, fewer bugs, the garden is pretty much finished, and there’s something about the apples, pumpkins, and squash that are ready about now. I don’t know what it is. Maybe it’s the cooler weather; a great excuse to find more “cozy”. You know, hot cider, flannel, fireplaces lit, curling up with a good book, but no snow. Not yet (except way up in northern MN, where they got a dusting earlier this week).

Image by Rahel Bürger-Rasquin from Pixabay

I haven’t grown pumpkins for a few years, but I might have to next year; I’m thinking it’s past time to make pumpkin bread. I’m not one for pumpkin pie, but I have a good recipe for pumpkin bread. And apple bread, but it’s the first part of the harvest, so I’m not tired of apples yet. I just bought my first tote bag (about a peck) of Honeycrisps. There’s a new variety out now, developed, like the Honeycrisp, by the University of MN: First Kiss. It’s the first year it’s available, so there aren’t many around yet, but I’m interested in trying it.

Yes, I’m already thinking about next year’s garden, and I know what I’m not going to plant: zucchini. Nope. No zucchini. I cooked up zucchini only once this year. I’m debating about cucumbers as well. But the chickens love cucumbers …

Saturday I’m off to another book festival, so Sunday is slated for writing. I still have a homework assignment I promised my writing teacher I would finish by Monday. And all those blog posts I’m behind on. So my word for the weekend is: FOCUS.

Short post this week, so I can practice FOCUSING. On the bright side, NaNoWriMo is coming up in a month. I always take the opportunity to reset the habit of writing every day. Which means, FOCUSING.

Have a great weekend, everyone, and keep writing!

On the prowl