Writing Is Like Sewing

I’ve been spending some time these last few days sewing on a new costume for myself. At first, I thought I had a deadline that it had to be wearable by Saturday, Oct 14. During the 2^nd day of working on it, my husband pointed out I didn’t need it until the middle of February. Whew! That was a big relief. Because, based on how much I was getting done each day, it was NOT going to be done by Oct 14. Not unless I started working on it every waking hour, and even then it would be iffy. Besides, concentrating on that and doing nothing else would lead to massive fatigue, lots of mistakes and TONS of frustration.

Today, I set the project away and worked on my husband’s costume, which needed some repairs. That he wants done by Oct 14, and I think I can get it done. If I don’t super-glue my fingers to it.

But I got to thinking about how much sewing is kind of like writing. Or vice versa.

The typical person who wants to sew a dress, for instance, starts with a pattern, a plan. Much like a person who puts together an outline to help them get from concept to a rough draft.

But I’m starting from scratch without a pattern. I know what I want it to look like, but I’m working on it much like I work on a story; by trying to figure out how the pieces go together as I go along. I don’t often sew by the seat of my pants, but I definitely write that way.

The first part of my story, er, costume, is to take strips of different materials and sew them together to make a striped body. Kind of like pulling together sentences and paragraphs to make a scene.

Once, I wasn’t paying much attention, and I sewed the seam on the wrong side. So I had to take time to rip that seam out and do it correctly. Rather as if I had written a scene that didn’t take the story where I wanted it to go, so I had to try again.

Later, I will have to decide where the neck and sleeves go and cut the striped material accordingly. Consider that the first couple passes of editing or re-writing: Cutting out words, paragraphs, even entire chapters that aren’t needed for the final product.

And finally, there’s all the hemming and doing the finishing touches of the costume. That, I figure, is like a final polish to a story.

Hey, don’t blame me if you think my muse has got a screw loose, comparing sewing and writing. Possibly she does (have a loose screw) but sewing and writing have both been on my mind this past week.

Back to the Old Grind

 Well, I'm back to not having enough time in the day to get things done, so I must be well on my way to recovery.

Back when I was sick with covid, I didn't care what or how much wasn't getting done. With both of us sick, no one was up to doing any cooking, and we pretty much survived on bananas and soda pop for 2-3 days. We slept when we wanted to, which was a lot. Took tylenol when we had a fever and tried to drink lots of water. Which is what you're supposed to do when you have a cold. But of course, this wasn't a cold, even though it felt like a nasty cold. If we hadn't been retired, we wouldn't have been allowed to go to work.

So, for the first time since I was a child, I allowed myself to be sick. Can't get my blogs posted? Okay, the world won't end. Can't work on getting books ready to be re-published? Well, with your brain fog, you'd probably make more mistakes than you'd fix, so just set it aside until you feel better.

As soon as Hubby started to feel better, he decided it was time to clean house. And I don't mean just run the vacuum and call it done. After 2 days of sorting and cleaning, we had 7 or 8 sacks of stuff to donate, including 5 pairs of jeans I'd forgotten about and which were now too big for me. Of course, we couldn't donate until we were out of quarantine, but it felt good to get them packaged up and ready to go.

About mid-way through quarantine, I started spending an hour in the evening—which is usually when I write—working on the first of those books I was updating. It was slow going, but I got a little faster with each evening that I worked on it. I dreamed of finishing it up last night, but... I hit a problem when I was inserting bookmarks to produce a Table of Contents. So I set it aside and went to bed, intending to tackle that problem today.

Now, here it is, half-way through the afternoon, and I haven't tackled that problem yet. Too many other things intruded in my day, needing my attention. Little things, big things, some things I haven't looked at in 3 weeks, so they've started howling pretty loudly to get my attention.

Time to get back to work.

The Problem With Deadlines

How many times have you found yourself working in a frenzy to get some project done before a certain deadline? I've long since lost count, but then, I didn't try to keep count way back in school, when I had reports, science projects and other such things that were due at a certain time. Really, when you were in school, did you learn anything from having to go through a very uncomfortable day or weekend when you were rushing to get a project done? I didn't. I may have started that 10-page report a week before it was due, but I was still rushing to get it done before I had to turn it in.

It continued into my adult life, as well. Let's say I dreamed up a new costume that I wanted to wear at a certain sf convention. It was not at all unusual for me to be rushing, trying to get it done before I had to pack the car to go to that convention. I remember one costume in particular where I was still hemming the legs and arms as somebody else drove across 2 states to get to the convention.

I'd like to say I've finally learned my lesson, but that last week before Villicon where I was not only making prosthetics, but packaging them and packing them as well, that was not a joyful time for me. I spent an entire day standing at the kitchen island, sorting through prosthetics, packaging and pricing them, and then stuffing them into boxes in something resembling order. Since I'm usually sitting at my desk most of the day, it's no wonder I then spent 2 nights and a day suffering from leg cramps.

And the aftermath of that rushing around isn't really pleasant, either. Friday of Villicon, we got up and finished packing the car, dropped the dog at the kennel and drove into Orlando to the hotel. Once there, we spent about an hour unloading the car and carrying all our stuff to our tables - John was there with the Klingons, and I with my dealer's table. Then we each had to organize our stuff on our tables, and finally, about 2 pm, we hurried across the street to get some lunch. That was the first thing I'd eaten that day, and, it turned out, the only thing I ate that day.

I like going to conventions, but they are not relaxing for me. I'm an introvert, and being surrounded by a few hundred strangers grates on my nerves. Imagine spending 3 days listening to fingernails drug across a chalkboard. I need quiet time in my own place to truly relax.

It wasn't until Monday that I got to go back to my 'usual' day at home and could relax. Except I realized I wasn't really relaxed, I kept thinking I had to DO something to meet a deadline. No matter how many times I told myself I had no immediate deadlines, I still had the uncomfortable feeling that I did. That lasted for 2 days.

By Wednesday, I was over that 'Looming Deadline' fear, but I wasn't back to my usual routine yet. I found myself pushing aside almost all my daily chores in favor of... playing games. And not even the games I usually play; I dug up an oldie that I hadn't played in a year or so. Maybe that was the day I actually relaxed.

Now I'm facing another deadline, another convention, in about 3 1/2 weeks. I will be trying to make more product, more prosthetics, because I've got the raw material that is getting old and needs to be used before it goes bad. So I need to get started doing that. Tomorrow I'll be trying to catch up on the chores I didn't do today, and then I'll get started on that.

I hope.

 

Boreal Forest

If you want to talk about a forest that is larger than the Amazon jungle, then you will probably talk about the Taiga, the Boreal Forest or the snow forest. They are all one thing, with different names used in different parts of the world. Some say it is one huge forest, stretching from Iceland through the Scandinavian countries, Russia, Mongolia, Alaska and Canada. It is a coniferous forest consisting mostly of pipes, spruces and larches. It covers 6.6 million square miles or 11.5% of the Earth’s land area.

The boreal forest has a subarctic climate, with a very large temperature range between seasons. Summers last 1-3 months, always less than 4 months, and any given 24 hour period during the summer will average 50 °F or less. In Siberia, the average temperature of the coldest winter month is between 21 and -58 °F. The ground being frozen for much of the year, or even permanently frozen, can restrict the growth of deep roots, thereby favoring shallow-rooted trees like the Siberian larch.

Despite these harsh condition, the plants in the boreal forest have a lower threshold to trigger growth, and thus they ‘wake up’ a little earlier than one would expect. Even so, the soil tends to be poor in nutrients. Fallen leaves and moss tend to sit on the soil for a long time in the cold climate, so their organic components are very slow to be added to the soil. Also, acids from the evergreen needles leach the soil, making it even less ‘appetizing’ for anything but lichens and some mosses. On the other hand, diversity of soil organisms is high, comparable to a tropical rainforest.

It seems surprising to me that in a world that is frozen most of the time, fire is one of the most important factors that shape the composition and development of boreal forest. Some members of the boreal forest won’t release their seeds until the pods have been exposed to fire, and I get that, but how does something covered in snow most of the time suddenly burst into flames? Obviously, there is something about the process that I don’t understand.

Most boreal forest fires are either high-intensity crown fires or severe surface fires. These are large, often more than 10,000 hectares (a hectare is 100 acres) and sometimes more than 400,000 hectares. Different areas of the boreal forest burn at different lengths of time; drier areas might burn every 50 years, while wetter areas only burn every 200 to 300 years. And when an area burns, it could take decades, even a couple centuries to get back to ‘normal’. So all that carbon dioxide (a greenhouse gas) that is released into the air when those trees burn takes those same decades or centuries to be absorbed into the growing forest again.

This is particularly important now, when so much of the boreal forest is burning. Even Greenland - which doesn’t have any boreal forest, but does grow grasses and scrub brushes when enough ice melts to expose ground to seeds being blown around by winds - is on fire. Alaska and Canada are experiencing horrendous fires in their boreal forestland. In northern Siberia, one fire covered 7.9 million acres (over 3 million hectares), and that’s only one fire of 11 (or more) burning in Russia.

It’s been estimated that these fires dumped over 50 million tons of carbon into the atmosphere in June (2019), and they are still at it. 16 million adult trees burn in a day in Russia’s boreal forest fires. The Earth is not ready to absorb that much carbon. If we planted more trees - billions of them - it would help, but possibly not before the climate changes even more in response to that much carbon and carbon dioxide having been freed to begin with.

We really can’t sit around and wait any longer. We have to start facing this problem, and we have to do it NOW. The sky is falling, and doomsday is just around the corner.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/7/31/1875681/-Fire-at-the-top-of-the-world-Earth-s-largest-forest-is-burning-and-it-won-t-be-coming-back-soon

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taiga

One Problem

After being retired for 6 years, I have found a problem with it. At first I thought it was just a glitch, something that would wear off once I got used to being at home every day, not racing off to work 5 days a week. It’s not quite as simple as that.

I can’t keep track of what day it is.

When I was working, it was easy to remember if it was Back-to-Work-Monday, Too-Long-Tuesday, Hump-Day-Wednesday, Terrible-Thursday, Finally-Friday, Errand-Running-Saturday or Sad-Sunday. Not so easy when all the days are pretty much the same. They all start blending into each other.

I used to keep a calendar on my office wall. It came down and got packed away, of course.

I do have a To Do list, along with what date I’m supposed to do each item. It’s a document on my computer, and my computer will tell me what the date is, if I just look in the bottom right corner of the screen.

That doesn’t seem to be enough. For example, I was so busy trying to figure out how much mulch we needed for our landscaping project that I neglected to consult that list. It wasn’t until I opened up the list this morning and was crossing off some things I had managed to do yesterday that I realized I had forgotten to write, edit and post this week’s blog!

Forty lashes with a wet noodle!

I obviously need a calendar and not just a date. I just haven’t figured out where to put it that wouldn’t mess up this new paint job. Guess I’ll have to add it to my To Do list.

No Deadlines

I honestly don’t know which is worse:

• A.   Having gobs and gobs of chores to do, all of them inter-related and requiring research and learning, with deadlines for some stuff, and the entire day, nearly every day, to work on these chores.
• B.   Having limited chores to work on, because everything is packed away except for four flashdrives and a laptop with limited capacity; no deadlines; and the ability to go to a place and use their computer with a nice big screen (or two!) for a whopping 3 to 4 hours a day.

A is what I had before my husband decided to retire. It was mind-numbing. Every morning I would stare at that long list of chores and wonder, ‘Which one should I work on? Is there one that seems shorter, so I can feel like I’m making progress?’ (Inevitably, that short chore would turn out to be HUGE!) ‘Can I break this big chore into smaller pieces? So far, I’ve done research on X, L, and S, and now look, they all come together in this big knot, along with 6 other things I haven’t even begun to research!’ Over-whelming. Enough of that, and your mind truly goes numb. It ceases to function.

B is what I have now, as we wait for repairs and renovations to get done on our house. If you follow me on facebook, you know that we’ve been ‘living’ in one room for a month. To attempt to stay sane, we go out each morning to use those wonderful computers until lunchtime, then go home to check in with the workers. (At least they’ve mostly stopped finding more water-damage problems that need to be fixed. Now, if the carpet would just arrive…!) After lunch, we go to the gym for a couple hours, ending with 20 minutes in a massage chair before we go home to spend the evening watching tv, probably reruns from Netflix.

With everything we need to survive until the house is sold scrunched into that one room with us, there is only a path through the room, really. Only one of us can get up and move about at any one time, and unless they wander outside that room, they are probably blocking the other person’s view of the tv.

B is also mind-numbing. I start the day eager and happy to be working on a REAL computer, grit my teeth and put my body through its paces in the name of health, and then settle down to do… absolutely nothing.

Hey, something for me to research tomorrow! CPR for numbed brains! You know, for when we finally do get to settle into a new house and I start having deadlines again.

Life Gets In The Way

My apologies to everyone who may be a reader of this blog. However, every so often, for most of us, Life Gets In The Way, and that has definitely happened this winter. (And it isn't even winter yet!)

On top of holidays, cleaning my office and constructing a new website, several assignments landed on my desk at the same time; one manuscript to proofread and 2 to edit. And just to make things 'interesting', Winter Depression moved in with my Chronic Depression.

It became obvious - even with my brain drowning in depression chemistry - that something had to give, and I'm afraid Trudy’s Universe is one thing I'm putting on the back burner for a while. Check back for more of my musings around Feb 3, 2016. By then, these edit jobs will be done, the holidays over, the website mostly done, and I should be able to find my office. Best of all, all the things I’ve started to do to augment my antidepressant meds will have me back on an even keel.

In the meantime, entertain yourself with a good book. I could make suggestions, if you want, but... I’m probably biased.

I will be back. I hope you’ll rejoin me then.

Names for Pluto

If you’ve kept track of the various space trips we’ve sent machines on, you are aware that New Horizons is approaching Pluto. Of course, that was launched some 9 years ago, and some of us have trouble remembering what we had for breakfast. But I saw an article in January of this year that the New Horizons was ‘waking up,’ getting ready for the closest fly-by of Pluto ever. So I’ve kept my eyes open for updates on that.

In the meantime, I’ve discovered that Pluto has not just 1, but 5 moons! I’ve known about Charon for a long time, and it’s almost as large as Pluto. But the others are mere specks in comparison, and are named Nix, Hydra, Kerberos and Styx. I think I see a pattern in these names.

Recently, I saw an article asking people to submit and vote on names for when they start creating maps of Pluto’s and Charon’s surfaces, once New Horizons sends back photos taken close enough to show geological features. I hope they pick some good ones. I don’t want Pluto and Charon saddled with names like ‘Tom’s Mountain Range’ and ‘Smith’s Canyon’.

Again, they are looking for names for geological features. They don’t expect to find cities, villages or roads. Nor are they likely to find rivers, lakes or oceans... although I suppose there is some possibility that something may have frozen into long strings or blobs that might bear some resemblance to waterways. Mars has its ‘canals’, and now the bed of an ancient ocean. Even the moon has areas called oceans and seas, though it’s not likely any water ever sat in them.

So, do start coming up with names to propose for mountains, crevices, plateaus, craters and so on. The naming campaign is being promoted by SETI. You can propose names - and vote - at http://ourpluto.seti.org through April 7, which is only a few days away. The International Astronomical Union will decide which names will actually be used.

I wonder why there’s such a hurry to get a list generated? New Horizons’ closest approach won’t be until July of this year, the pictures won’t arrive here until after that, and then the maps will be begun. So, what would be your guess? A year from now, will that map be done and all the features named?

Stress-itis

A few weeks back, I read an article on how stress makes us sick. I spotted the article right after I'd made yet another trip to my doc to complain of aches, pains, stiffness and low-grade nausea. And he gave me what I thought was his automatic response - "It's stress." But then I read this article, which gave me something to think about.

Stress triggers the immune system. The immune system starts its repairs by causing inflammation around the injury. When there is no particular injury, only stress, that inflammation can occur anywhere and everywhere. So that explains why I need extra sleep and have more aches and pains after a convention or a tight deadline or when I don't seem to get anything on my to-do list done.

As an introvert, spending 3 days surrounded by other people at a convention is a big stressor. I sometimes retreat to a solitary place to recharge my batteries, but maybe what I'm really doing is trying to tamp down my stress. A looming deadline can be a whole heap of stress. A missed deadline effects my professional reputation, and could effect my earnings. Yikes!

The article said that people who have an active 'emotion center' have more issues with stress-itis than those who don't. No, I don't cry over every little thing that doesn't go my way, but I do have active emotions. I have worked hard to develop resiliency when receiving rejections of my work. But if my husband says something that I perceive as negative, my mood goes into a tailspin. Stress. Inflammation. Aches, pain, stiffness.

Happily, simply changing my reaction can help me release the stress and avoid the related illnesses. Keeping my mind on things not related to my situation, recognizing and labeling my negative emotions, even venting will help. I've been trying to do that, these past few weeks, and all in all, I think I've been feeling better. Yes, I've had some bad days, but not as many as before.

What stresses you out? How do you react to it?

Intensity

This past week, I learned something about writing I hadn't known before: How intense it can be.

I've been writing a short story to submit for an anthology for the last several weeks. I thought the deadline for submissions was January 15, and I started the story around December 15, so... not a lot of time. But I already had the story and characters in my head, so how hard could it be? I'd just whip that baby out and get it sent.

Have I ever told you I tend to run off at the keyboard? Words can just roll out of my head, down my fingers and onto the screen. And they do like crowds. For instance, this anthology wanted a maximum of 6,000 words. My rough draft was just shy of 15,000 words.

But I wasn't worried, even though I was already into January. I couldn't send it off without at least one re-write, and I always find 'unnecessaries' during re-writes; unnecessary words, phrases, paragraphs, heck, even unnecessary scenes! So, even though I needed to eliminate 3 out of every 5 words, I didn't let myself worry.

During that first re-write, I eliminated 6,000 words, leaving me with just under 3,000 words that still had to come out before I got that story small enough. At this point, a piece of me began to fret. Where could I possibly find that many words to remove and still have a story?

Now that I'm done, I have a theory: Once you eliminate the first layer of 'unnecessaries' (or layer of dirt in your house), your eyes can then see any remaining 'unnecessaries' (or clutter, trash, dirt) that you missed during the first run-through. If you've followed me on facebook these last 2-3 weeks, you'll know that I did get that story trimmed down to just under 6,000 words, and got it submitted on January 15th. (In the meantime, the deadline was pushed to February 15, but that's another story.)

Where does the intensity come in? Actually, it made itself known on the 16th. I got up, had breakfast and went to my computer as usual. As I was considering what chores and projects to tackle, a piece of my brain said, "Pull up that story, I bet we can pull a word or three from-" and I responded with, "No, we're done with that story. It's time to move on." It turned into quite an argument inside my head. I didn't get any work done that day. When I mentioned this internal argument to a friend, she said, "That shows how intense you became with your work on that story.

Intense? Me? Not an adjective I usually apply to myself. Then again, I don't usually have projects with such a tight deadline, either.

It's nice to know that, yes, I've got it in me.

Resolutions vs Goals

Have you made New Year's resolutions yet? If you read my blog last week, you know I've got lots of writing to work on in 2014. I didn't frame them as 'resolutions', because - let's face it - my resolutions last about one week.

Nearly all the blogs I've been reading talked about 'plans for the new year'. Those blogs are not calling them 'resolutions'. I think one called them 'hopes', but that seems nebulous and a source of pressure, so I prefer the term I saw more often: goals.

Resolutions tend to be vague; I'm going to diet, exercise, lose weight and get in shape this year! How do you succeed at that? If next Christmas, you have a piece of pecan pie, have you failed to diet? If you really can't find time to consistently work out, have you failed to exercise? If you only lose 40 of the 100 pounds you wanted to lose, have you failed? If on Jan 1, you can hardly walk from the bedroom to the kitchen, but by Dec 31, you can get all the way to the end of the block and back - even though you're still overweight and you still can't run a marathon - have you failed?

Goals need to be specific AND something that you can control. I'm going to get my first book published! is a resolution. I will continue to send my first manuscript to agents and editors this year sounds more like a goal.

With that in mind, I have started to look at my 'plans' for 2014, and turning them into goals:

·      >  I will lose an average of 1 pound a week through diet and exercise.

·       > Each time a manuscript is rejected, I will immediately send it to another market. (If suggestions were made on how it could be improved, I will take a week to go through and consider those suggestions before sending it out.)

·     >   I will compose 1,000 words per day and edit 1,000 words per day an average of 5 days a week.

·       > I will find opportunities to make personal appearances as an author an average of once a month.

Those are all things I have some control over. They are specific, but flexible. (If I have to arrange 12 appearances next December because I've been lazy and haven't done any all year, that averages to one a month, and I've succeeded.)

Believe it or not, I can do the 3rd one. I am currently writing 3 different projects and editing another. This past couple of weeks (yes, even in the confused haziness of impending Christmas), have been aiming at 1,000 words a day on the project with a short deadline, and about 500 words a day for the other two, then editing 1,000 words in the evening. And I try to work 7 days a week, so if I don't have a great day, I can make up for it.

Are you going to make resolutions? Or set goals? Let me know, and - if you don't mind - tell me just one of yours.

Looking Ahead

Okay, last week I looked back at 2013, so this week I'll try to figure out what I'm going to do in 2014 to get me closer to my goal.

The first thing that comes to mind is I've got to overhaul / reinvent the website. (www.MoonPhazePub.wix.com/MoonPhaze) I can't afford to hire anybody, so it's up to me. I've been gathering notes on what makes a good website, and I have people I can consult for their opinion, so maybe it won't be too bad. Still, it's not my favorite activity, so it will be slow-going.

Hubby and I will be attending the World Science Fiction convention in London, and the European Science Fiction convention in Dublin the following weekend. That has been occupying a lot of my time, trying to figure out the travel arrangements and all that. That long a trip will suck up a lot of our resources, so as far as personal appearances, the 'usual' local conventions may be the only ones I can plan to get to. Still, that doesn't mean I can't schedule some appearances at book stores, libraries or corn fields in the region that I can drive to in a day, so I will be trying to organize some of those.

MoonPhaze Publishing has wanted to print its first hard-copy book. We'll be looking at means of doing it that will not require thousands of dollars up front, like going with POD. Of course, if we happen to find a few thousand dollars to go to a regular printer, we'll switch gears again. In any case, having a paper-back book on hand could make those appearances mentioned in the previous paragraph more enjoyable, both for me and for anybody who attends them.

I've signed up for some classes in leatherwork! In at least two of my universes, I have a segment of the population who work with leather, and this will help me 'identify' with them. Besides, I like to learn new things.

As far as writing, I've got 4 contests/anthologies to submit to during the first 2 months of 2014. It's time for my second novel (romance) to start looking for a home. My third novel needs some rewriting & polishing, the roughs of 2 other novels need to be finished, and I've started a sf novel rough. If I keep finding more contests and anthologies, I should be plenty busy!

Maybe I should get an early start on some of that, don't you think?

2013 Wrap-Up

2013 is not over yet, but this seems a good time to look back at what I have or have not accomplished, before I start making wild plans for next year. Of course, looking back might not keep me from making wild plans...

In 2013, I gave readings at Conquest and OSFest. This was kind of 'dipping my toe in' to see how the water was, and it was this kind of activity that prompted me to join Toastmasters for a couple years, to learn not to freeze up when 'in the spotlight'. Okay, I got some practice at readings.

At Conquest, I also participated in panels. They weren't on my best topics, and I struggled to participate fully. I am not great at 'thinking on my feet' when the thinking involves talking. Now I know to prepare better for panels and work harder to get my 2₵ into the conversation.

OSFest had author tables, and I took a couple stints sitting there. I was not mobbed by fans, but I did have pleasant face-to-face networking time with other authors in those time slots. I learned quite a lot.

In October, we went on a Dr Who cruise, and participated in a writer's workshop. There were 6 people in our group, and we were to write a scene for 2 characters who had never met on screen in Dr Who. Of course, every member of the group had their own idea how the scene should go. Unfortunately, the guidelines kept changing; first we were supposed to do it as a screenplay, up to 5 pages. This was confusing, as the actors were only going to do a reading; no movements, no foley personnel. Then it became prose, no more than 3 pages, which made more sense, but we needed to cut. On top of that, every day that we had to work on this project, there were shore excursions to enjoy! I learned that I don't like writing by committee, and other than this frustration, the cruise was enjoyable.

I accepted the position of editor/copy editor for Class Act Books. I have since edited 1 book for them, copy edited another. I don't mind editing and polishing my own work, but I've discovered it's even easier/more fun to edit somebody else's work ... as long as the material is enjoyable.

Tommee and I, as MoonPhaze Publishing, put out our first western e-story ("Wrangler Required for the Deadfall Saloon", by Michael McGlade, https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/343185, 99₵).

I took a non-credit class from the local community college on how to market your book. It was a 3-hour class, and I felt it needed 3 sessions, not just one. Lots of information, but I'm not sure I caught it all.

As for my own stuff...

Alban Lake is considering my first fantasy novel, which is set in my Atlan universe. At least, I haven't heard that they don't want it, so I'm still hopeful.

I submitted a short for a vampire anthology edited by Carol Hightshoe. She has informed me that she is hanging onto it for further consideration. (Happy Dance!) I've heard that she was holding on to about 53 of the stories that came in as soon as the anthology was announced, and the call for submissions doesn't close until March 2014. Her editor has approved her making it a 2-volumn anthology. So... let's all cross our fingers, okay?

Finding Shiney Bits

I read a lot of newsletters. I mean, a LOT of newsletters. Some are to help me write better, some are about the publishing field in general, some give me lists of potential markets, and some are about marketing.

Unfortunately, when I had my knee replaced this summer, I got behind in that reading. Since then, I have slowly been catching up.

The good thing about being behind is that I can get through them a little faster. Whenever I see a list of classes, I don't check the titles to see if I want to take them, I check the start date. If the classes have already started, I skip the entire list. When I see a contest listed as a potential market, I scan for the deadline. If it's passed, or only a few days in the future, I haven't got a chance of making it, so I skip reading the rules.

The bad thing about being behind is that I miss a lot of opportunities; that class that might have been perfect for me, a contest that was right up my alley. I also feel a bit rushed, because I'm trying to catch up. Is everything I'm reading out of date?

Nope. The information on writing better is still applicable. The insights into the publishing field are still there, can still teach me about How Things Work, rather than me being completely in the dark. These are the Shiney Bits, the reason why I read these newsletters. And I look forward to the day when I catch up and can find even more Shiney Bits in the form of a class to take, a new market to try, a contest I have time to enter.

How about you? Do you find the Shiney Bits in your life before you throw out the dregs you don't want or can't use?

Science Fiction Soap Opera Serial

I’ve been getting encouragement to serialize one of my stories on the internet. This is a use of the internet that I’ve been watching with interest, but uncertain if I should try my hand at it. With the encouragement I mentioned, I have decided to dive in.

In the last few years, I’ve heard of authors who wrote each installment of their serial moments before they were due to post that installment. That was part of what scared me about this process; I know perfectly well my first draft is NOT ready to be read by anybody. I expect At Least 3 rewrites before it might be suitable to be seen.

Once I realized that, I looked through what stories I had, either ‘done’ or nearly done, to decide which one I would serialize: No, those are all shorts; that’s a long short, but not long enough; this one is long enough, and done, but is currently out looking for a home. Hmmmm.

It’s surprising how few novel length works I have finished (1). I have 2 or 3 others ‘in the works’, meaning about half of the rough draft is done. And then I remembered Mac.

I have said I would probably never publish Mac. I have also said that when I work on Mac’s story, I get sucked in so deeply, I can’t get any work done on anything else. But the truth is that “Mac, Book 1” is mostly done, except for a few highly emotional scenes at the end that I simply didn’t feel capable of writing a decade ago when I last worked on it. Since then, I have roughed the first 100 pages of “Mac, Book 2” and the first 25 pages of “Mac, Book 3”. So, I know where Mac is headed, and apparently, I don’t HAVE to spend months and months at a time enmeshed in Mac’s problems.

For the last couple weeks, I have been working on preparing the story into ‘bite-sized’ sections. I have also continued to rewrite some shorts and work on another novel. It seems Mac has learned to share my attention.

So, “Mac, Book 1” will start being serialized on Tuesday, 1January2013. I am setting it up on Blogspot, and will make a Grand Announcement on New Year’s Day, so watch for it. I am trying for installments of about 1,000 to 1,200 words, and I will post one each Tuesday. If people get engrossed in Mac’s antics and don’t want to wait an entire week for the next section, I will post a price for the next section to be posted early, probably about $10. I am not proposing that 1 person must send me the full amount; the readers could use the comments section to alert each other to how much they are chipping in. As soon as I receive the payment, I will post the next section.

I think you’ll like Mac. She’s a lot of fun. Or a constant irritant. And sometimes both.

Best Use of Time

I always run out of time before I reach the end of my daily to do list. Part of the problem is because I don’t really estimate how long it will take to do any particular chore. So if you look at my to do list, it seems like I’m supposed to spend 5 minutes on any one chore. Who can get anything done in 5 minutes?

I don’t estimate because I know from past experience that I have no idea how long it will take to get anything done. Cleaning out my mailbox? Anywhere from 10 minutes to 2 hours or more. Write a blog? It might take me half an hour just to figure out what to write about. And if I’m trying to do something that I haven’t really done before – like figure out how to record and edit a short video, or how to use a new software to create a website – that might take days, or even weeks.

So every evening, before I go to bed, I take a quick look at what’s on the agenda for the next day. If the list is more than a page long, then I try to pare it down. Can some of those items be put off for a day or two, a week? Well, eventually I’ll get to them.

Unfortunately, there are some things that I really should not put off, like feeding the family and doing a bit of housework, taking care of myself. Writing. Submitting. Marketing. I try to get a little of all of that done each day, but it isn’t easy. I just have to figure out how to best make use of my time.

To Do Lists

Do you have a To Do list?

Scratch that. Most everybody has one, but some people keep theirs in their head. Others - like me - know from experience that some things will ‘disappear’ and be forgotten if I keep my list in my head, so they go for something a little more tangible, like a grocery list.

My To Do list is on my computer. It’s the file I open first in the morning, and one of the last I close in the evening. It is currently 9 pages long. There have been times when it was 12 pages long, so I must be making progress, right?

Oh, not really. It’s time for my quarterly addition of tasks for another quarter. Once I’ve done that, it’ll be 11 pages, at least.

Some people think a list that long must be depressing. Some days it is, but I’m prone to depression. But I think of this list as a guideline. And at the end of each day, when I remove the items I’ve crossed off for that day, and transfer them to my Journal document, it serves as a reminder of what I’ve accomplished.

How could I possibly have a list that long? A lot of the ‘chores’ are repeating, and need to be done every day, or every week. And it covers every aspect of my life.  I list all my medications, and cross them off as I take them. I break down which room to clean which day of the week, and even that is broken into separate chores, like vacuum, clean windows, and so on. I might not get all those separate chores done each week, but I get some of them. Otherwise, I go into that room and am overwhelmed, wondering where to start. I keep track of which writing project to work on which day. (I typically have 2 I’m working on at a time; a rough draft and a rewrite.)

That list also includes doctor appointments, errands I need to run, projects for MoonPhaze, projects for my own marketing, projects for various organizations that I’ve volunteered to do....

I even have a reminder on there that we’ll probably need a new dishwasher in 2016.

Okay, so I have a long list. It’s long because I don’t want to forget anything, even the things I don’t really want to do. It’s how I keep myself organized. Sort of. Sometimes I have to put something off for a day because I underestimated how long I would need for something else. Like this blog post, which was supposed to be written yesterday.

No, it’s not perfect. But it’s mine.

Now What?

I had a reminder pop up the other day that the deadline for a particular writing contest was quickly approaching. This was shortly after Tommee requested a (4^th) story for e-publication, so I was pretty sure what I had available and ready to go. Namely … not much.

I’ve been fighting a bad case of depression since last fall, and even though writing is really close to the top of my ‘things I like to do’ list, I haven’t had enough energy or focus to devote to it.

I did find a story to submit to that contest. I also decided to get myself back to writing. But writing what?

Most of the stories I’ve finished have been in the Atlan Universe. I have several more started or at least planned. But I don’t want people thinking that’s the only universe I write about, so should I do something else for a time?

I have a few other stories started/planned/written also. Most of the ones I call ‘written’ don’t exactly thrill me, but I’m not sure how to make them better, so they just sit there, for now.

Most of my stories in various universes involve the adventures of the same pair or group of characters. Perhaps that’s what I find daunting; keeping the characters consistent from story to story. I haven’t had to do that with Atlans; each short story has its own set of characters.

Well, whatever my problem has been, it’s time to get back to writing. Okay, characters, which one of you wants to tell me your story first?

My 2011 NaNoWriMo Report

That was an ... interesting ... experiment.

The NaNoWriMo project is when authors try to write 50,000 words in 30 days – namely, the month of November. Once upon a time, when paper was expensive, 50,000 words would have been a novel, so they've started calling November "Write a Novel" month.

I managed to write a whole 4,424 words. Not even a short story, for me. Goodness, I think I've had one or two individual DAYS that were more productive than that.

I am reminded of back when I was a pre-teen, and I decided I was getting too heavy. No more ice cream, no more shakes, no more ... ! But as soon as I told myself that, all I could think of was how good a banana split would taste, how cooling a chocolate shake would be... I had no will power under that bombardment, and sure enough, I gained another pound or two before I weighed myself again. How depressing! So, since that tactic didn't work, I then decided that I could have all the ice cream and shakes I wanted. And suddenly, I didn't want them. (I doubt if I lost any weight, though. I was, after all, a growing girl.)

I think that tactic only works once. After that, your brain figures out you're just trying to trick it and doesn't respond the way you want it to.

And then there's the comment I've heard that as soon as my hobby (writing) becomes a job, it will no longer be fun. And certainly, this past month, I found myself distracted by the silliest things - fingernails that HAD to be filed down, papers that had to be sorted, dishes that had to be washed, and a job that I had to go to.... I will have to watch this particular tendency if I ever find myself facing actual deadlines.

What am I coming away with after this first dip into NaNoWriMo? The thought that NEXT November, it will be a lot easier to write MORE words than it would be to write FEWER!