Celebrate the Small Things-September 25, 2015

It's Friday!  Let's Celebrate the Small Things with Lexa Cain!  Tonja and I are her co-hosts.

My oldest son Jude has been home sick the past couple of days, but he's starting to feel better.  It's nothing more than a nasty cold, but those can wear you out too.  He should be good to go back to school on Monday.  So far Lyle has remained healthy, so I'm hoping that continues to be the case.  Having one ill child is stressful enough.  It's worse when everyone gets it.

I'm still making good progress on my Christmas story.  My goal is still to have the rough draft done by October 1st, but it's looking like I should be able to finish it before that deadline.  Who doesn't love the possibility of finishing a goal before the deadline?

We're probably ordering in pizza for dinner tonight, and I'm definitely looking forward to that.

What would you like to celebrate?

Celebrate the Small Things-September 18, 2015

It's Friday!  Let's Celebrate the Small Things with Lexa Cain.  Tonja and I are her co-hosts.

This has been a busy week as far as writing is concerned.  I've been working away at my Christmas story Self-Help 101 or: How I Learned to Take Over the World Through Tolerating My Family.  I'm shooting for having the first draft completed by October 1st, and I think I'm on track to doing that.  I can say that the story is turning out a bit longer than I was initially expecting.  At this point I can say with confidence that it's going to end up being a novella.  It won't be a long novella by any means, but it will be one nonetheless.  I set myself the goal of writing a minimum of 1,000 words per day, and I've met that every day so far.  One day I even wrote a little over 3,000 words.  Not too shabby.

The weather is still warm here, and that's been nice.  Winters here can be long and awful, and I'm perfectly happy to hold that seasonal change off as long as possible.

What would you like to celebrate?

Celebrate the Small Things-September 11, 2015

It's Friday!  Let's Celebrate the Small Things with Lexa Cain!   Tonja and I are her co-hosts.

I'm celebrating the fact that writing is keeping me busy.  I'm in the middle of working on three projects, and two of them have a deadline.  There's nothing like a deadline to keep me focused.  One of those projects is my short story for the IWSG anthology contest.  I have it started, and I have an idea of how I want it to play out, but I still need to figure out how to frame the story so it fits into the word length requirement.  No worries though.  I'm up to the challenge!

The second project with a deadline (granted, it's a deadline I imposed on myself, but it's a deadline nonetheless) is a humorous Christmas story.  It'll be a short story, and I was thinking of releasing it in early December.  It's not science fiction, so it's outside the genre where I normally write, but I've always enjoyed humor.  I want it to be a fun story, and I figure diversifying the work that I put out may help to grow my readership.  The title, for now anyway, is "Self-Help 101 or: How I Learned to Take Over the World Through Tolerating My Family."  I'll give you more details as my intended release date approaches.

The third project is the sequel to my novella A Silent Soliloquy.  There is no deadline on this one, but work continues to go well.

I know, I'm crazy for tackling so many projects, but I'm scatter-brained on a good day.

What would you like to celebrate?

Celebrate the Small Things-September 4, 2015

It's Friday!  Let's Celebrate the Small Things with Lexa Cain!  Tonja and I are her co-hosts.

Last Friday I mentioned that it was a rainy day.  Well, it turned out to be more rainy than I expected.  A lot of towns here got between 5 to 7 inches of rain.  Our town was one of them.  We pulled our cars, which we park on the street, into our yard because the road was starting to resemble a river.  Our basement also took on water.  I managed to save our Christmas tree before it got too bad, but we lost a lot of the stuff we had stored down there.  It was mostly old clothes and various things that we don't use regularly, so we were more upset about having to clean up the mess than we were about the stuff that got ruined.  I'm grateful, though, because it could have been a lot worse.  There were plenty of people in town who had way more water in their basements than we did.

It seems like weather has been picking on us lately.  A couple weeks ago a strong storm moved through that took a roof off a church in town, did some damage to the school and the house across the street from it, and took down various trees all over town.  Our house was virtually untouched, so we got lucky there too.  My husband and I were sipping wine and playing cards when it happened.  If anyone's curious about that storm, there's plenty of news coverage about it.  Here's a link for you to check out.

So yeah, I'm celebrating the fact that our family has escaped the worst of the crazy weather we've been having, and also that no one has been hurt during any of it.

On a brighter note, I'm still celebrating being the WEP runner up, and I'm celebrating the IWSG anthology contest.  I can't wait to get to work on a story.  I still need to come up with an idea, though.

I needed to get my oldest son in for a dentist appointment and an eye exam for school, and I got both of those done this week.  I always enjoy getting things like that out of the way.

Oh, and I'm celebrating the fact that this is a three day weekend!  Woohoo!

What would you like to celebrate?

The Insecure Writer's Support Group: September 2015

Is it really the first Wednesday of the month already?  That means it's time to convene another meeting of the Insecure Writer's Support Group!  Our esteemed and enigmatic leader is Alex J. Cavanaugh.  His minions for this month are Julie Flanders, Murees Dupé, Dolorah at Book Lover, Christine Rains, and Heather Gardner! 

Also, don't forget to pay a visit to the IWSG website!

This month has had its share of insecure moments.  As my fellow writers will know, it can be difficult trying to market your work.  The sales are often slow at first, and I've struggled from time to time to keep those slow sales from getting me down.  I've also had insecure moments when it comes to my writing.  I am getting work done, but there are days when I fret over whether I'm getting enough of it done.

Fortunately, I've also had plenty of reasons to feel self-confident too.  The moments of self-confidence came when  I reminded myself that, while I do not have the massive audience writers long to have, the reviews of my work have overall been pretty good. I've also reminded myself that quality counts more than quantity.  I may not have gotten as much done on my WIP so far as I might have hoped, I am happy with the work I've done so far.  That's something to be happy about.

My main self-confidence booster, however, came when the Write . . . Edit . . . Publish winners were announced.  The excerpt from my WIP earned me a lovely Runner-Up badge!  I read many of the WEP entries, and we all faced some stiff competition.  It often amazes me how talented this community of writers is.  Placing second overall is an impressive feat, and I'm so excited about that!  If I have any moments of self-doubt as I continue on with my WIP, I'll look at this badge and use it as encouragement.

Read my WIP extract here.

Be sure to check out the other WEP winners by going HERE.

What are you feeling insecure about this month?