A Room of My Own

I've always been relatively flexible about having my own space - I'm a woman, and I've had to. People were all around me in my home.

For most of my marriage, there were gaps, in the midst of which I wrote. Those gaps could be:

• Physical - literally a separate room in which I could not have interruptions
• Time-based - that space when kids napped, were at school, or evenings when my husband went out for a few drinks
• Scheduled/Stolen/Built-in - I sometimes made time by scheduling some out of the house errands, and stopping off at the library or coffee shop for some writing. Sometimes, I didn't even tell my husband what I was doing, or just implied that I'd been working late that day. Other times, I would use a lunch break, or head to work early to get some writing done.

What I didn't do was say: I'm going to need to be by myself to write.

I've always be shy about openly telling people I'm writing. My husband's first reaction, when he asked what I was planning to do in retirement, and I responded by saying I was going to write, was surprised laughter.

It stung. I'm still perturbed about it.

I don't think he was trying to ridicule me. I just think he was so surprised that I had that ambition, he didn't really know what to say.

He's never thought all that much about writing or writers. He's a hard-core science, math, and engineering kind of guy. For him, writing was that horrible thing he had to do in certain classes, that he struggled with. He is quite articulate, when speaking. It's just putting his thoughts on paper he finds difficult.

That someone would actually WANT to do what is so hard for him to manage is just beyond his understanding.

UPDATE: I came back here to create an end-of-the-impossible-year post, and found this half-finished. So, rather than leave this hanging, I decided to combine it with the Last Post of the Year From Hell.

That's an exaggeration - in some ways, this has been a good year. I've lost a little weight, managed to clean up part of the house, organized my business files, begun mastering the virtual meeting, put out a proposal for an online course (which was accepted, and I will be starting in February), and connected with my kids in different ways.

There were losses - people no longer with us, lost time with grandchildren that can never be re-captured, lost opportunities.

But, for the most part, the gains outweighed the losses.

Some plans for the new year:

• Get that backlog of mending/sewing/crafting whittled down. I have a new sewing machine, and that will go a long way towards accomplishing this. I'm also going to use some stashed fabrics to recover some seat cushions, as well as make curtains for windows that have been neglected.
• Crafts: Finish a few projects, organize the yarn/needles/hooks into containers. Organize by project, and schedule time to work on them (one at a time).
• House: keep working on getting those parts of the house completely cleaned/organized. Work on small sections every day. Start hanging up pictures, and weeding out stuff I don't need/want.
• Writing: Every day, make progress - 1 long-term project, 1 short story, and my journal. Get back to tracking progress by the number of words. First project should be my course-book.

But, to make that happen, I have to get my Dell laptop repaired (can't tackle that until at least Saturday - Best Buy's tech support is closed for the holiday). So, I will do what I can on other things until it's back in operation, including using the Pi for journaling and such.

My knee has to be rehabbed; without being able to do stairs, the piles in the attic can't be tackled. I may move some storage (bookcases, old files) upstairs, once I've started clearing out the crap.

The Room, at this point, is a pipe dream; but, by this time next year, if I can do these other things, it will become a reality. (I started to write MAY, rather than WILL - but, when I realized the difference between that dream of May, and the goal of Will, I changed it).

The Prince - Week One Reading

 Sorry for the long delay. I was obsessing over the election (Machiavelli would under that focus on politics, I think).

Let's plan on meeting next Sunday, 11/15, at 2 pm. I'll send the Zoom invite to your listed email.

The topic: Chapters 1 & 2.

If you've not yet signed up, here's the link.

Fox's Book Club - 1st Book

We're up to 5 in our little group - a nice number to start with. The Prince is the first book selected (Most 1st place votes). Here's a link to the Cliff's Notes guide to The Prince. Let's plan on reading chapters 1-2 this week. Which day works best for a Zoom Meeting? Vote at this link. We can start our meetings next week, if that works for everyone. Cranberry3 - I don't have your email yet - could you contact me at lfox368806-at-yahoo?

Thinking About Starting an Online Book Club

With a focus on History, Politics, and Foundational Writings.

I was reading something less important, and more trendy today - Don Trump's latest book, Liberal Privilege. For a political book, issued in the year of an election (and, therefore, best understood as a piece of campaign literature), it's not bad. Easy to read, a little heavy on colloquialisms, but - funny in the right places, more than a little snide and snarky - actually a delightfully refreshing piece of lightweight lit.

And, that's intentional. The Jr. is not trying to self-publish an enduring philosophical tome. He's making a case for his Dad's re-election, and, as he is getting a heftier slice of the profits, also collecting compensation for his time spent writing it.

Mostly, though, I was not planning to include books such as that, but those books we'd always WANTED to read, when we had the time.

Which, many of us do, now.

I planned on using Zoom or similar technology to run the meetings - your choice whether to use computer, tablet, or phone to call it in.

So, I'm setting up a poll with some choices for the first book (all will be available either free, Project Gutenberg, Amazon Prime/library, or at a nominal cost).

Poll here.

How Petty Can a Person Get?

 Pretty Petty.

A former White House reporter is OUTRAGED that a mere immigrant should change part of the Presidential residence without his express permission!

Even Al Jareeza basically said, "Dude, that's anti-immigrant!"

What happened?

Melania Trump took some initiative to make some changes to the Rose Garden. In doing so, she went back to the design of the 1962 planting. Is it great? Horrible?

You decide. I think it looks like a more formal, classic monotoned garden. It has tightly manicured bushes, some trees are gone, and the flowers are lower and more controlled.

For the record, I like it. The former garden was fine, but I think this is an improvement, and well within her responsibilities.

Below are the pictures.

The first is the After version. The second is the Before version.

No Longer Doing IWSG

I got back to it after missing it for 2 months, only to find that I'd been kicked off. Apparently, I either hadn't read the rules - or, more likely, skimmed them and ignored most of the boilerplate - and failed to live up to the mandate that any writer missing 2 of the round-robin blog hops was dropped.

I'm not mad, just disappointed. I doubt that I will make the effort, at this time, to get back on. I have a LOT on my plate - as, who does not?

So, I'm going to concentrate on more urgent matters:

• Plowing away at the Pruning the Planet book. I'm more than 1/2-way through it, and have been revising on the way, so it may need little more than some tweaking at the end.
• Keeping up my journal - not only for notes and writing practice, but, more importantly, keeping track of my efforts, noting praise-worthy events, working out the details of planning my day, and helping me to know what day it is.
• Preparing to take the AHIP again (insurance agent test). I didn't quite make a passing grade on the first try. It's a VERY tough test, and I say that as one who has taken many tests. I have two more attempts, and then that's it for the year - can't sell for 2021. The stakes are VERY high.
• Getting ready to return home. I've been staying with my brother for a few weeks, to assist him with home matters and just providing another pair of eyes on his health. He's doing well, and I'm confident that he will be fine when I leave.
• Organizing my life, once I return. I need to establish routines for housework, bill payment, and exercise - three things I tend to let slide.

IWSG Question - August 2020

August 5 question - Quote: "Although I have written a short story collection, the form found me and not the other way around. Don't write short stories, novels or poems. Just write your truth and your stories will mold into the shapes they need to be."
Have you ever written a piece that became a form, or even a genre, you hadn't planned on writing in? Or do you choose a form/genre in advance?

Most of my short stories have started with vaguely remembered dreams. The usual sequence goes like this:

• Wake up from a vivid dream
• Get out of bed, and write down notes on what I can remember
• Go back to bed
• In the morning, look over my notes. If it sparks something interesting, continue fleshing out the story. Otherwise, set it aside until the next wakeful night.
• Repeat until the basic framework is written.

At that point, if the story is viable, I finish it. As I didn't consciously plan the story, they often cover genres I don't normally read or write about. My first short story was a Noir-type, the second a modern update of a well-known story, and the one I'm writing now is science fiction (I plan to enter the Dark Matter anthology contest - wish me luck!)

Short stories are the perfect vehicle to experiment with form or genre - if you screw 'em up, you haven't wasted much time on the effort. and, I'm of the belief that ALL writing - even those projects that never get finished - teach the writer some technique or piece of craft that he/she/xe needed. Practice is never wasted; you have learned something on every session, even if it's what NOT to do again.

IWSG Monthly Question - May 2020

May 6 question - Do you have any rituals that you use when you need help getting into the ZONE? Care to share?

Apparently, one of the important pre-writing preps is to write. By that, I mean journaling and blogging, Apparently, it's related to the length of the writing - short links to other sites, random comments on Facebook, and even journaling that is limited to a few sentences - don't seem to trigger the urge to write.

But, once I begin serious and lengthy journaling, extended blogging posts, or longer posts on FB, boom! I break into The Zone.

After several days of longer writing, last night I woke to an idea - of a Bookstore at the Edge of the Galaxy. I got up, started writing, and only went back to bed after I'd written the intro, and mapped out the rest of the story. I didn't want to forget the ideas, and made sure that I would be able to come back to it.

It only took about an hour to make more progress than I had in months.

OMZ, the relief! I've been spinning my wheels the entire time we've been in shutdown. I blamed myself for sloth, my husband for being underfoot, and the local coffee shops for not being available (I've always done my best writing with coffee and a sweet, plugged into the shop's network, and blissfully NOT surrounded by housework that needed to be done).

What I hadn't realized was that I could jump-start my writing by taking some relatively easy steps in that process. I'm writing this now, not only to make a suggestion that might help others, but to make those steps concrete, in case I get stuck again.

I'm Finally Writing Again

It started slowly. I reviewed my WIP, began journaling daily - more or less. I wrote in that journal for longer and longer periods of time, and began flexing those writer muscles.

Last night, I woke up, and had an idea for a short story. I got out of bed, wrote the beginning, and made enough notes on the rest that I would be able to get back to it later.

Finally. Finally. Finally.

I've gotten back in the groove again. I'm not fiddling around with reading, blogs, and wasting time sleeping. I have a purpose, and one that is worthwhile.

Life is good.

April IWSG Post

April 1 question - The IWSG’s focus is on our writers. Each month, from all over the globe, we are a united group sharing our insecurities, our troubles, and our pain. So, in this time when our world is in crisis with the covid-19 pandemic, our optional question this month is: how are things in your world?

They are improving - a lot. One side effect of the enforced Stay at Home mandate is that my husband is underfoot - and, that's both good, and bad.

The Good.

Husband's tackling cleanup and organizing projects that he has put off for decades.

Yes, I wrote DECADES.

So, some of the detritus of our home is being cleared out. He still has the tendency of wanting to shove the crap into an "organized" space, like the attic (no, it's not organized), rather than throw the stuff out. But, there is improvement.

And, I'm cleaning up my own messes. As well as some of his (and, I'm mum on just exactly what happened to the unneeded clutter - it's POSSIBLE that some of it accidentally ended up in the garbage).

The Bad.

He's underfoot - a lot. And, he considers any time spent on the computer as "wasting time" and "sticking my face into technology" - which, when the technology is MINE, is a bad thing.

His tech favs are, of course, needful and worthy.

I haven't killed him yet, but I have made a lot of notes on ways to kill your husband without detection. If he dies - for any reason - my browser trail is likely to sent me to the slammer.

March 2020 IWSG

The March Question:

Other than the obvious holiday traditions, have you ever included any personal or family traditions/customs in your stories?

This is a complicated question. Surely, I've infused my stories with my traditions/customs. That's a natural part of telling stories. And, as an American of Irish descent, telling stories - long, winding, part truth/part truthyish tales - is in my genetic heritage.

My mother was the source of much of that tradition, as she'd known family members not long in this country. She even passed on some Gaelic (mostly endearments and names of various entities, such as the Banshees). I was that kid who hung around on the fringes of adult conversation and stories. I picked up politics, gossip, and family stories - a LOT of family stories.

I've just recently finished a fantasy story, available here. It blends stories my mother told me and a few dreams, transplanting Irish folklore into modern America. If successful, I hope to expand it into a full-length novel in the future.

Work Update - Feb. 23, 2020

I've been down for the count since last fall. I've been either sick or injured most of that time. My respiratory problems have cleared up (probably mostly because my husband is in better shape, and we're no longer passing infections back and forth).

But my knee problems remain. It's complicated. I have osteoarthritis in knees and hip (that's the wear & tear kind). I am recovering from a badly sprained right knee, that left me barely able to hobble to and from the bathroom for the last week, with a brace and a cane. I'm much improved, and, in the last 24 hours, have graduated to an few hours of moving to a chair and sitting, and being able to manage basic cooking on the stovetop and toaster. And making coffee. Beautiful, beautiful coffee.

Long term, I was diagnosed two weeks ago with Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA). My mother had it. She was confined to a wheelchair, after about 10 years of pain, for the last 15 years of her life.

My first reaction was - No. Just, no. I couldn't imagine my life so circumscribed.

After looking into it, I'm less fearful. RA treatment has come a long way. They have multiple medications that treat the disease, including the more recent biologic therapies (Humira, Embrel, etc.).

I am hopeful that I'll be able to use voice dictation to manage writing and reduce the stress on my wrist joints.

The above sentence was written, as is this one, with the use of the built-in microphone on my MacBook. Going to be experimenting with this function over the next few weeks. It may make it easier for me to get work done on my books.

Dying With my Books on

No, that wasn't a typo. It was inspired by this post, from Kristine Kathryn Rusch.

I'm still on the road to getting my first full book out. I've written - and published - a few short stories. But my first book, written in a frenzy during NaNoWriMo, remains in a not-polished state. I liked it, but wanted to make it better, and knew that I could not do it justice just yet.

So, I started another book - one that, as I edit the first half for continuity issues - really excites me. I like the character development, the dialogue, and the plot. I've been nearly halted on it for over 2 months, due to just awful knee issues that have kept me from doing much of anything, and have left me badly sleep-deprived.

I came to a decision today - no matter how I feel, no matter how scattered my thoughts, I need to suck it up and finish the book. I've been doing a lot of blog reading and writing for the last couple of months - just had no energy for more.

I have no idea how I'm going to manage this. I just know I have to do it. So, I'll likely not be doing too much blogging - maybe 2-3 times a week, if that. The Republic will just have to manage, until I get that book finished.

And, to be honest, although it's entertaining, politics, at this time, is less scary than it's been for a long time. After seeing Trump manage that Impeachment debacle, I've decided to have some confidence in him.

I'll periodically update here about my progress - perhaps, once a week.

February Entry to IWSG Blog Hop

I regularly see works of art featured at Ace of Spades blog, and at Woodpile Report.

Both blogs generally show traditional paintings, often of old masters (including those of other countries and by women). When they explain the meaning behind the composition, the choice of colors, and other parts of the paintings, I know that I have missed a vital part of my education.

In photos, although I take my own, they seldom measure up to those of truly expert photographers. My focus, and my training, is on using words to express myself.

Still, I do appreciate the works. I've long enjoyed the moody, nighttime paintings of Edward Hopper.

I've worked the night shift. I know how the craving for human contact rises in the dark. At those times, the urge to confess and connect is nearly irresistible. For that reason, I wrote:

Guilty Coffee

Click on the link to see the summary - if you'd like to download it, the price is set by the reader (99 cents or less). Don't feel obligated to pay anything.

Lazy Days and Lazy Nights

I've been physically lazy for the last month - I picked up a respiratory infection, then my knee joints acted up (they are quite disobedient!). The last couple of days is the first time I've felt like doing anything but laying around and reading.

And, I do mean anything - I've not even been writing. Just sleepy and miserable.

But, today, I feel - if not really well - then, at least, much better. So, I spent the morning clearing out the detritus of life (bills, email, cleaning, etc.), and will get on the road, after I finish this and clean up myself.

The coronavirus scare has lead me to get back to Pruning the Planet - a bioterrorism novel that has been in the works since last summer. I printed out the WIP so far, and I'm truly excited about it. With some work, it may be finished and ready to publish before summer begins.

Although it's not a GOOD thing, the news about the Coronavirus outbreak has given me a lot of research links, and a book about the national plan for fighting outbreaks (hint: it's inadequate and out of date) - Three Seconds to Midnight. The book is jam-packed with scientific details of the kind that will be very helpful in my book.

#IWSGPit Entry

I didn't post one. My WIP is incomplete (although, as I looked at a printed draft yesterday, looking good, although needing some tightening), and only completed work will qualify. Oh, well, I'll try again at a future opportunity.

I took a day off. I need to get to the gym, and Senior Yoga is in the early afternoon. I'm feeling cautiously hopeful about my progress. I've been hitting all my daily step goals (if I'm still doing well by the weekend, I'm gonna up my goals).

Right now, I'm in a good mix of sub work, insurance work, and writing. The thing holding me up is the times when DH is home, and he wants company. Hard to say, No, I'd rather sit at my laptop and interact with imaginary people.

But, sometimes, that's just what I want to do.

FINALLY Getting Back to the Novel!

I've been stalled for some time. Work pressures, visiting over the holidays, personal stuff like organizing, cleaning, preparing our taxes - all of those took my focus off the important things.

But, on Saturday, I printed out my WIP, and stuffed it into my bag today. I was subbing, and I was pretty sure that I would find a few minutes to do some editing and planning.

Which, it turned out, I did. I'm now looking at page 53, and the work so far has fired me up with hope. It's seldom that I think, Dang! This is good!

I'm doing that now. I'm sure I'll be up and down a few times again before it's finished, but, for the first time in a long time, I can begin to see the end.

I've taken the time to make some cards up of characters/places in the book. Hopefully, this will help me keep on track and not get twisted up in a tangled mess.

If I can just manage to get some quiet time (the last class of the day is the noisy one - there's always ONE class that just gets on your nerves), I'll feel as though it was all worth it - both work on the book, and money made by subbing.

Spending the time on the Insecure Writers Support Group website has been a big help to me in getting back on track.

New Start to Writing in the New Year

I have been writing for some time - mostly blogging, although also some short stories. My longer work has been bogged down for a long time.

I decided to join up with the Insecure Writers Support Group. I've received some good advice on that site, and thought it a good thing to return the favor by supporting them.

Here's the site.