Hey guys! Welcome to August!! I’m honestly clueless about what to write tonight. It’s been a whirlwind few days and my mind is quite scattered…but it always is, so let’s see where this post takes us, shall we?
I’ve been reading up a storm for my cancer society fundraiser (Read Every Day Challenge). I already read a lot, but here it is the fifth of the month, as of this writing, and I’m already two and a half books in! I’ve been more in a reading mood than a writing one these past few days and have been enjoying the total escape into these books. Of course I will link to them below the post and add them to the 2025 On the Bookshelf page as well, but that’s not really the point. The point here is that a book can be a great vacation. So far this month I’ve been to Maui, an island off the coast of Rhode Island and now I’m visiting Nantucket. No airport hassles, no middle seat nightmares and no traffic to deal with. Just me and a book and I’m happy. So if you can’t get away this year, I highly recommend this as an alternative.
While this has been going on, I’ve still been trying to keep on track with my writing. I have so much to do as far as reworking scenes, edits and of course, coming up with new stuff. But by the time I’ve been getting to it lately, I’m just too damned tired to write. I have also not been eating. I don’t mean a little here and there, I mean I’ve gone a full day with no food which is not helping the tired. And yes I know, I have to deal with that, but it does happen to me from time to time and I try to get a little something in me, but again, like insomnia, it happens.
I’m finding that the scenes that I’m writing in this state have been all over the place and good for a blooper reel, if that’s a thing for authors. Plus, trying to get into my own work after deep diving into these other novels has been a little harder lately. Usually when I’m reading a book, I will get a sudden idea for something. Ironically, not related at all to what is in front of me, so no, I’m not plagiarizing anything. It’s just sometimes reading clears my head and an idea hits. The lack of sleep, the lack of food and a lot of caffeine have been fueling such strange stuff that I have been more than happy to not just edit here and there, but cut full pages completely.
I will say this though, my own book is never far from my mind. I have had the opportunity to see both family and friends over the last few days and while in conversations, my mind is playing out something that I wrote just the night before. The bonus of this, was that with the research I’ve been doing for one plot line, I remembered that someone close to me was once in the same profession as one of my characters. I was able to pepper her with question after question to get the inside track of what the life was like and it really helped me navigate the story a lot better.
Never let a resource get away!
You may be surprised to find that while you are googling for background, there may not be a reason to. That someone in your life is connected to what you have been looking up! Also, don’t be afraid to ask questions. For many, many years, I’d never asked anyone anything for fear of sounding stupid or totally out of my element. Especially in the workforce. However one day I realized that at most, someone could just simply answer ‘no’ and that would be that. Never fear the ‘no’. Just go for it. If they won’t answer, then Google it is! In this case, I was able to find out some valuable information that is really going to help a lot and I couldn’t be more grateful.
And that is where I’m going to leave you for today. As usual, I hope you got something out of this post. I know I sounded completely scattered and that’s basically how I’ve been feeling lately, but the message still rings true…never fear the no.
If you are enjoying this site and would like to help support this site (and me in the process), you can click on my Ko-Fi link either by clicking on the logo or by clicking HERE. I appreciate those who have already clicked so much. It is not taken for granted at all.
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If you’ve made it this far, I thank you so much. See you all soon!!! ☺️
Hey guys, welcome back! I hope you all got to see the bonus post I did filled with Summer Reading ideas. If not, it can be found in the ‘new posts’ tab, I’l also link it below this post. I am planning to put it up as part of the On the Bookshelf page as well as I’ve been really neglecting the rest of the site this year as far as updated pages. Also, please note that my links show up on this site in a darker color. They are (unfortunately?) not as defined as other sites.
Anywhoo, let’s get the post at hand, shall we?
Just going to say it, I haven’t been sleeping. Part of it is because it’s hotter than the sun here in the Northeast these days (and other places as well) and my AC is struggling to keep things cool. I mean, 90 degrees inside isn’t exactly cooling things off. I did treat myself to some Gatorade so hey, living the dream!
The lack of sleep has had me writing a whole lot. I have the house to myself this week and with my odd sleep schedule of staying up and night and sleeping during the day, I decided the other day to see how long I could go just writing.
I mentioned in a previous post that I’ve developed a pretty regular routine. To give you an idea (read:recap) of how screwed up my schedule is: I always start by reading the previous night’s work and editing as I go. This usually begins around 4am. At 5am I’m most likely done and then I write the new stuff until about 7:30-8am or until I finish a chapter. I type very quickly, so a chapter can sometimes only take me two hours or a little more. For a little perspective though, some of my chapters are short at only 11 pages or so. I take a lot of meds because of medical issues and I need stuff to help me sleep. Sometimes I will take something about an hour into writing so that I can fall asleep by 9-10am. (Boring you yet? Sorry)
The problem with this a lot of times, is that I’m just getting into the story or getting more ideas for where the story can go just as the sleep stuff kicks in. Then I’m stuck replaying it all in my head making it hard to get any actual sleep. Again, I have the place to myself and had nowhere to go the other day. So I decided to try something and not to take anything. To see how long I could keep going with the story. To just keep writing.
When I finished what is a very pivotal chapter, I went to do a page count and I had typed out 31 pages! I started at around 5am and went until 1pm. I just kept writing.
Will I keep a lot of it? Will the chapter be broken up into two? Is any of it good? Well, that’s what editing is for! But to know that I could keep going like that proved to me that I’d like to try doing this more often. That stifling the creativity just as it gets rolling may not be the way to go. And yes, I have tried starting earlier than 4am. It didn’t stick.
This story has really consumed me. Suddenly, scenes I hadn’t really planned on putting in, are taking over and I’ve been surprised at how they fit into the story as a whole. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that this new book is being written in the first person. The main character has invaded my thoughts and when I put everything away at ‘bedtime’, the story continues in my head like a movie. I will lay there trying to clear my head, only to sit back up and write stuff in the notebook I keep near my bed so I don’t forget anything later on. Yet still, the storyline keeps playing in my head like this week’s Netflix trailers.
There’s also a few things I keep going over, especially now that I’m 36 chapters in. Do I change things up? Do I throw in a major surprise? Is it time to start thinking of this as a series rather than a standalone book? I’ve created some characters and a location that has become so real to me now and that has become a great escape for me that frankly, I don’t want to leave it. But that’s me. What will readers think?
These are the things that are now starting to keep me up at night. That and a whole lot of heat.
And that is where I will leave you for today. I’m sorry if this one wasn’t too exciting but as I’ve said before, sometimes I just need to get out the thoughts so I can move on with my life. 😂
I very much appreciate your hanging out with me for a little bit. I hope you are staying cool and hydrated and that if you like it here, you’ll share this site with your friends.
Hey all, happy March! I know it sounds odd to say as I write this and it is only March 6th, but boy is this month flying! Why does it seem that January and February go on forever, (well, more January of course) and then March comes and boom, it’s almost St. Patrick’s Day already! I’d like to be upfront here and let y’all know that I tested positive for Covid (edited from the flu as I hadn’t taken the test yet) and have a fever, so I am not quite sure where this post is going to go, but let’s see what happens, shall we?
I have been going through some past posts and I realized something, there are almost no humorous moments in them. I find this rather disturbing as I am generally known to be a funny person. I love to make people laugh and even considered going into stand-up once upon a time back in my theater days. But here on this blog, which is supposed to be all kinds of personal and documenting not just my writing journey, but my own, I find my posts to be lacking in the humor department. Of course, now that I’ve put the pressure on myself to make you laugh, I am thinking I shouldn’t have said any of this ‘out loud’ as it’s like telling someone not to think about pink elephants and then suddenly that’s all you can think about. (Again, flu, fever, pink elephants just seemed like a fun thing to think about. Let’s all pause for a moment shall we?)
Annnd, we’re back!
So large, colorful trunk-faced mammals aside, the humorous component has yet to surface. Unless it has and I am just so used to my own quips that they blew right past me. Anywhooo, I have been reading a rather funny book by Emily Henry whose books I just love because I literally laugh so hard at times, I have to put the book down to compose myself long enough to get past the sentence that brought tears to my eyes and my inhaler to my lips and have noticed that I lack such segments in my own writing. Not that the novel I wrote (and am now editing) is supposed to be a comedy, but I was hoping to get a few of these little moments in there to keep the reader on their toes. (By the way, that rather long sentence above is basically how I speak in real life and it is no wonder I need an inhaler, just to get through such a mini-monologue.)
But I digress…I’m not saying that humor should be in every book. Quite the contrary. We need diverse offerings. But when I read something like this and it comes to me at the right time, like when I need a laugh the most and the trigger sentence sneaks up on you like a seagull waiting for you to drop that bagel in a convenience store parking lot, well then, it makes you not only literally laugh out loud but for a writer makes you think about your own writing and what can you do to improve it.
I mentioned in the last few posts that I had been reading a series for my February Cancer fundraiser and after I completed all 9 books (in the shortest month of the year thank you very much), I needed a change. I dove into my TBR pile to grab something a little different that would make me laugh and Ms. Henry’s books never fail me in that regard. The beautiful thing about reading is that for the writer, it inspires you. I won’t go into too much detail as I already discussed this very topic last week, but it never fails to astound me the level of inspiration I get while reading something I really enjoy. It doesn’t even have to be the same genre, just something that gets in your head and suddenly, ‘hey, there’s that hook for that one section that I’ve been looking for!’ Of course why it comes to you at that moment is always a mystery and frankly, it doesn’t even need to be while you are reading! Hell, I once wrote a crime noir short story after watching an episode of Friends. Who knows how the brain works?
Which brings us to suggestibility. I have the mind of a sponge and I think the advertisers out there are on to me. One of my favorite commercials that I could watch over and over again is the Haribo Gold Bears ad with the football players. No matter how many times I watch it, I laugh. So of course, while picking up prescriptions one day, I had to get the damned things because I could hear them talking in my head. (The football players, not the gummy bears. Just wanted to make that clear.) There is now a Lay’s potato chip commercial that was a popular ad during this past Super Bowl and used the Barry Louis-Polisar song, “All I Want is You.” It didn’t make me want to run out and buy a bag of chips, rather it made me want to watch the movie Juno again for like the 75th time because it is the song used in the opening credits scene. And really, the movie never gets old, so any excuse to watch it and I’m all for it.
I have a quirk where I can’t move past something until I’ve done something that’s in my head. I’m sure there are many out there who are also like this, but this is how I ended up writing the first seven chapters of the sequel to my first book that has yet to be finished on the editing side. Actually, it’s why I’ve started several other books because of this same reason. I could be doing something, like I’m doing now and suddenly an idea pops into my head. I have to get it down now or I will forget it. Granted, I have some neuro issues with my health that cause me to forget things quite easily, but that being said, I can’t just jot a note down about the idea. I have to full on begin the entire process of getting the story down in a draft for the future or it’s gone forever. Which is why it takes me so long to get through a first of something. ADHD at its finest.
I’ve found that the only time I can really focus on anything these days is while I’m either reading or writing. I love true crime shows. Love. Them. My Sunday nights are dedicated to the ID network and I’ve affectionately dubbed them “Serial Killer Sundays” but of course, that is just one day out of many that I’m glued to these demented shows about real and tragic things that have happened to people. However, if it is a two hour Dateline, I am screwed. Every Friday night for many years, I hit the remote to watch the weekly two hour episodes. (Unless it’s baseball season or I was going out, then I’d record it. Just want to make that clear. Let’s go Yankees.) I’d sit and get through the first hour on the edge of my seat thinking I’ve solved said crime and of course the big twists always happen in the second hour. About an hour and a half in, they lose me. Even though there are still massive plot points to reveal and moments of ‘oh crap I didn’t see that coming,’ I’ll have moved on to a game on my iPad or listing more vintage jewelry on eBay. (For some reason I find Keith Morrison’s voice soothing and motivational to get my work done on my listings.) But while doing these things, I lose the momentum of the show. I know it is not Mr. Morrison’s fault. If anything, I love his voice so much I want the man to read the eulogy at my wake! I just can’t stay focused enough to make it to the end without having to rewind sections over and over again until what they’ve said on screen finally lands in my brain. I used to have this issue with my reading. Turns out, it was part of the dyslexia I didn’t know I had until I was in my 40’s. But tv has been betraying me as of late and I am just thankful to live in an era where rewinding is possible.
We all have that thing though that we love, that we can spend our time truly focusing on. It can be music, it can be a craft, it can be a job you love, hell it can even be getting behind the wheel of a car and taking off for the weekend. Your focus is strong and that means, it is something that makes you happy.
While you may already have something like this in your life, be open to suggestions. Maybe you are on YouTube one day looking up how to fix that toaster that just won’t brown the bread on one side no matter what you try and a video comes up on airplane model building. Maybe it’s something you have wanted to try but never thought to look up! Maybe it sparks a creative side of you that, while it may not be model building, but by the mere suggestion of it, has you thinking about buying that watercolor set you’ve been eyeing on Amazon or trying out that new dance class that just opened up downtown. Yes, these suggested videos can take you down a rabbit hole of doom scrolling to things you had no intention of ever watching and now your daily ‘for you’ on either YT or TikTok looks like a mashup of Martha Stewart flower arranging diy’s mixed with how to throw a ninja star with style and grace tutorials. In some ways though, that’s the fun! Maybe you’ve been restless and looking for something new to try, well, these side videos may just help you find that one thing you’ve been looking for.
Look, I’m not suggesting you go on a 12-hour binge on YouTube or TikTok. (Been there, done that.) I’m just saying, as focused as you may be on some things in your life you should also be open to the occasional suggestion that may come from a source you weren’t expecting. You really think that there is a correlation between Friends and a noir crime story? My brain tends to connect the dots in a rather strange way, but you get my point.
So this week, I challenge you to look around your space. Pay attention to the everyday. Do you walk past a building you never realized gave weekly classes in something? Do you like that donut you had this morning for breakfast and always wondered if you could make them? Maybe there is something you do that just doesn’t excite you the way it used to and you find yourself daydreaming of doing something else. Why not look it up to see if there is a call for it near you, or if you can find a video on how to get started! Or maybe, just maybe, fixing that toaster felt great and now you want to fix other stuff as well because using your hands in a constructive way can be so much more rewarding than sitting in front of a screen all day. (Plus the feeling you get every time you make a slice of perfect toast just gives you a sense of satisfaction you never thought you could achieve in life!) Give yourself the opportunity to explore different areas of life and you may find your own Haribo Gold Bears at the end of the rainbow!
Until next week my friends…Cheers!!
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Disclaimer, this post is not sponsored by any of the above mentioned goodies, but hey, if I’ve got you thinking of gummy bears and potato chips, click here and here!
New Chapter Cove 