A Christmas Scavenger Hunt

This year as self-therapy to learn how to enjoy Christmas, my two oldest daughters helped me set it up so the kids would wake up to something different. Something fun, something more than a pile of presents under a tree. Something that required teamwork, sillies, and a sense of adventure.

Happy Holidays!

Christmas is not normally my favorite time of year. In fact, I tend to try to avoid all holidays, not just ones with a guy in a suit who invades my house. It's not really possible to avoid, what with there being six kids and a husband around who seem to think these things are a big deal.

Writing Groups

Pretend for a moment that you want to be an author. To do that, you need to have written something. And for that thing you've written to get polished and pretty and understandable, it needs to be seen by someone other than you. That way you can fix the things you don't know are broken. One of the ways to do this is to join a writing group where you chop your newly written precious into chapter sized chunks and then submit them for critiques one week at a time.

Fear

Fear is a funny thing. It’s just an emotion. It’s that voice inside our heads, sometimes not even a voice. It’s a whisper. A niggling doubt. But sometimes it is claws twisting our insides into knots until we stop functioning. It can be paralyzing and completely destructive.

Playing with Fire

Today I looked at my manuscript, of which I have all of six chapters left to write to finish, and I couldn't make myself write. There are many other things playing through my mind right now. I want to figure out how to enjoy this upcoming Christmas season, I want to let go of things from childhood that haunt me every year come this time, I want to feel the magic. All kinds of things completely unrelated to a slave girl lost in space.

So, when I sat down at my computer today, I decided I wanted to play with fire. I pulled out my tablet, looked through the pictures my daughter has taken for yearbook, and sorted through some background patterns I downloaded from pareeerica and after a couple of hours messing with various brushes and tools in Photoshop, managed to create this.

Yeah, I won't be quitting my day job any time soon. I'm so out of practice, I don't even know what to say. But I had an itch, so I scratched it. (I'm not even sure why I'm sharing this picture... It's unfinished and un-something.)

Winner!!

 Awwww yeah! I did that right there. I can't even begin to describe my exploding sense of accomplishment. I did it! I set a goal and I actually did it! I wrote 50,000 words in a month.

I wrote through sinus infections and flu and kids being sick, and some major back pain. So, you know, I'm sure that those 50,000 words need LOTS of editing. But the fact that they were there, that my 19 year old daughter came over and wrote with me nearly every morning, and that we accomplished something... I mean, WOW!

I'm not just a stay-at-home mom who has a few Footzone clients. I wrote a sizeable chunk of something. I am on that journey of self-discovery, and I'm enjoying the process. How cool is that???

So here's my wish that whatever journey you're on is just as fabulous. That the downs don't last as long as the ups, and that you finish what you start, whatever it is, so long as you love it! :)

Yep, it's that time of the month.

I know it’s November. And not only should I be giving a NaNo update, but I should be posting about what I’m thankful for. And let me state for the record that there is much for which I am thankful. However, as it happened, Thanksgiving and Black Friday also landed right smack dab on the wrong days of the month for me this year. You know those two emotionally charged days where you're not sure you're going crazy or if you have PMS? Yeah. That made for a fabulous Thanksgiving experience this year, let me tell you.

Sometimes it’s awesome to be female. There are days when my job as a mom is so fantastically awesome, there are no words to describe it. My friends, my family, my experiences, my joys, my kids, my husband, all of these things can combine into a perfect whole once in a while that make life worth it. And then… well… then there are other times where it’s really not so awesome to be female. And by not awesome, I mean NOT awesome.

NaNo Update!

I have spent the last 13 days writing, writing, writing!

In the mornings I work on the prequel to the novel I started back in April. In the evenings, I work on the novel I started back in April. That makes total sense, right? Two books, one month. Wheee!

Writing, NaNoWriMo, Etc

I have been working like mad to finish my novel. It's not done yet. But I'm over halfway done. Starting Thursday, I will be participating in NaNoWriMo - my plan is to work on my current novel in the mornings and work on the prequel in the afternoons. I will only be tracking my word count for the prequel, but I'm pretty sure this will be do-able. It's my first year ever trying, so we'll see what happens.

Bacon and Jabba the Hutt

I leant my camera to a friend to take on a hiking trip. Due to some computer glitches, he left the pics on my camera so I could download them and then transfer them to him.

While looking through the 500+ photo's he took, I couldn't help the thoughts that were popping into my head. I begged and begged for permission to use his pics, and he went ahead and let me. (yay!)