Aug

24

Nearly End of Summer Update

Filed Under Novel In Progress, Personal | Leave a Comment

Time can just slip away from you and before you know it, the whole summer has past and you haven’t done nearly as many things as you’d hoped to. The kids will be going back to school shortly so I’ll be able to get back to my normal routine. I have to say I’m looking forward to both of those things. :)

One thing I did manage to do is put together the vegetable garden I’d promised the kids. It’s not as lavish as they would have liked, but it’s doing what we hoped it would. Today we had our first harvest, and you can read about it in my Chef Lisa blog.

After Labor Day, I’ll be working hard at a bunch of stuff, not the least is which The Morgan Affair, which has languished, though not collecting any kind of dust. I’ve gotten a bunch of ideas, including the basic plots of two sequels for it. Whether or not those will get written are a different story, but at least I’ve made a start.

Jun

1

When cooking with a crockpot…

Filed Under Stuff | Leave a Comment

…make sure you actually set it on “Low” when you get it going before you go to bed. Trying to cook something on the “Keep Warm” setting doesn’t work.

Oy.

Apr

26

Why Gardening Is Like Writing (or vice versa)

Filed Under Art of Writing | Leave a Comment

The weather here has been absolutely beautiful; records high temperatures, and though it has threatened rain, there really hasn’t been much more than a minute or two of light drizzle. It’s still April, and I know I’m taking a chance, but I went yesterday and bought all the plants I wanted, both for the beds and the container gardens.

The kids love marigolds, so we got two packs of those, along with some wave petunias. The “centerpiece” of each of their containers is a vegetable plant: Ari has a grape tomato plant, and Donovan has a red bell pepper. I got my own container garden going this year, with chives, rosemary, sage, cilantro and oregano. Oh, and thyme. Mustn’t forget thyme. The rosemary and chives are in their own pots because they’re perennials, and when we move, I intend to put them in the ground. We got a bunch of other plants, mostly perennials, to round out the garden. Matt’s out now buying the mulch because the bags are really too big for me to lift.

We planted the container gardens yesterday, and we just finished doing the two beds. I hurt now, and I’m going to hurt even more tonight and tomorrow, but that’s all good. I’m going to be able to enjoy the garden for the rest of the year (and it should help with the value of the house).

(And wouldn’t you know it, it’s starting to rain, so maybe I didn’t have to water everything after all. :) )

Now, I bet you’re wondering why I wrote all this and what it has to do with writing.

Read more

Apr

21

Catching Up

Filed Under Novel In Progress, Stuff | Leave a Comment

Donovan & IHas it really been almost a month since my last post? I don’t really have much of an excuse, other than things have not been what I would have liked. One of the few highlights, however, was having lunch at school with Monkey #1, otherwise known as my son, Donovan. His schools has “Have Lunch With Our Bunch” days, where parents and other family members are invited to come to school and have lunch with their kids.

I got to his school a bit early, so I waited in my car for a bit. As part of the kids’ gym class, they sometimes have them walk outside, doing laps around the school. The day of the Lunch was one of those days, and the look of surprise and delight on his face, seeing me there, was priceless. I’m looking forward to doing it again next month.

Work on TMA has ground to a virtual halt. I’m stuck on a specific scene. It worked just fine when I did the original outline and initial writing, but I’ve changed enough in the earlier chapters that it doesn’t work as anymore. I can’t just toss it, as it’s a set up for stuff that’s going to happen later.

Okay, enough with the self-pity. Time to get to work.

EDIT: Ack, that was a really bad hair day for me. Frizzy curls I couldn’t do anything with, and I couldn’t find any hair elastics to pull it back into a pony tail.

Jan

30

Month End Evaluation of Goals

Filed Under Art of Writing, Stuff | Leave a Comment

Back on October 22, I posted my writing goals for 2009. As a review, here’s what they were:

January 2009

  • Revise TMA, one chapter per week, minimum 1k words revised per day.
  • Submit minimum 3 chapters to crit group.
  • Do required 6 crits for writing group.
  • Start checking out agents currently accepting submissions.
  • Do Create A Culture & Create A Language for Zaan for Storm King’s Eye.

January is more or less over, so let’s see how I did:

  • I did not get the revisions done, but I did submit the three chapters to my writing group.
  • Completed one crit. I think.
  • Did not start looking for agents.
  • Did not do Create a Culture/Create A Language for Zaan.

Not a very good start to 2009. A big part of not getting the last two things done on my list was, well, because I forgot about the existence of these goals. I have since found the huge planning binder – you know, the one I put in a “safe place” – and will faithfully work from it starting February 1st. After the Superbowl is over.

Next Page →