A Time For Everything

This was the view from the dining room of the rental house we stayed in for the retreat. It rained Thursday afternoon and drizzled or rained most of Friday. We don't complain much about that in Texas in January because we always need rain in Texas no matter the time of year. But Saturday and Sunday were bright and sunny though chilly. But--January.

My goal for the weekend was to plot out the next anthology entry, write its synopsis, and come up with a title. While plotting is still a skill I feel insufficient at and need to work on, I still need to do it. So...I used one of my favorite tools after utilizing various other ones prior to the weekend and came away with decent story arc. I also wrote a new synopsis based on the plot points I came up with. As for the title...well, those are trickier. And sometimes (most times for me) the book needs to be written before the title becomes clear. And it's not written, so titling fell by the wayside.

* * * * *

In other news, I hadn't realized how anxious I was about my writers group meeting until I was staring down the barrel at it. As president, I run the meeting, so I was worried about the conversation in terms of what's going on with our parent organization getting heated and out of hand.

I mean--no one had sent angry emails asking us (the board on behalf of the chapter) to protest or make demands or anything of that nature, and I tried to send out periodic reports so they knew the board was aware and following the goings on. But you never know. The one person who I was unknowingly worried about the most didn't attend the meeting, so there was that whoosh of relief at not seeing her.

On the other hand, several other members expressed their appreciation for the board's lack of a knee-jerk reaction and that our first priority was our members and our group. So a very big WHEW for me.

* * * * *

Today I'm back to work and business as usual, both from a writing perspective--up early to exercise and write--and from a day job perspective.

Have a great week.

Lookie what I got this weekend! As I mentioned Friday, I had writers group on Saturday. After close to a dozen years, I'm finally a published author and, as per our little incentive program, I received a jumbo pencil with each book's info written on it. I took four home because those were birthed last year. Book 5's pencil stays in the boots until next December. It's sort of a visual as the year goes on to see how prolific the group is a whole. Here are my pencils!!

It's been a good week and it's writers group tomorrow, so I'm especially excited for the weekend.

Workouts are going great, and I'm just about completely this side of 130lbs! Saturday, while I'm at writers group, will be a "cheat" day and I'll enjoy some delicious slighty-but-not-terribly off plan food. Maybe even some delicious carbs in the form of an enchilada...that's sounding mighty tasty at the moment.

In other writers group news, the contest I coordinate is winding down. I just about have all the scores back for round one. Round two judging will be quick and easy in comparison to round one because five books to cycle through for each category, not 15, 20, or 25+. I've run this contest for all four years now, and I really need to train someone to take over for me just in case I can't do it anymore for whatever reason. It's hard to get people to volunteer though. It's a long-term event and for about the first quarter of each year it can chew up to an hour or so a day.

In other random news, the Stars won last night, but I think they're finally too far out of the running for even a wild card slot unless some freaky injuries happen to the four teams ahead of them.

Speaking of the Stars and hockey...I'm going to a game next Friday! It's DD's birthday next week and her friend is taking her to the game and they kindly invited me to tag along. Needless to say, I'm tickled and excited to be going and I hope hope hope they can pull off a win for me. They lost the two games I attended. :( DD says it's pretty awesome when they win, so keep your fingers crossed for them and for me.
That hot hockey boy there on the right, Tyler Seguin, scored a goal and assisted on another, earning himself two points last night!

And that is all for me, my friends. HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!!!

Yep, it's writers group weekend and I'm very excited to spend the day with some of my very best pals...

And tomorrow is writers group meeting! I get to hang out with my writer peeps.

Can't wait.





Have a great weekend.

This past Saturday was my writers group meeting and I always look forward to gathering with my chapter mates during the meeting and then with my critique group afterward. The meeting after the meeting. Technically we're not a critique group anymore since we no longer critique for each other. But we still meet and catch up and support each other and brainstorm and just hang out. We've decided we're now a sisterhood and a support group. And it's good to have that. I leave feeling buoyed up for the upcoming month.

But back to the inspiration...

Two weeks ago, I mentioned my return to writing and my intention to submit to an online e-publisher rather than self publish as I feel that the editing experience would be good for my writing. So I'd chosen a publisher to target despite reading several books whose editors either failed to do their job or weren't very good in the grammar and punctuation departments. Since I'm strong in those areas, I decided to move forward anyway.

Also for the last week or so, there's been discussion on our chapter forum regarding a certain path to publishing success, and a friend of mine gave up her day job within sixty to ninety days of publishing her first four books. Of course, it took her nine months of preparation to get to the point of publication.

It begs the question, can I do that too??

I can try and I have nothing to lose right?? Well, except the costs of editing and cover art...but I can use proofing money to pay for that.

Between the plan now being called Liliana Nirvana in some corners and some other info from one of my writing sisters, I have a good chance.

Since I have sooo many books this {} close to being finished, it's not necessarily going to take me nine months to dive into the self-publishing pool. My biggest problem seems to be knowing what I want on the covers. Ugh... I'll need help from one of my other publishing sisters who does all her own covers.

The original (Liliana path to success) plan is to publish four books all at once and then have one ready to go sixty days later and ostensibly sixty days after that and sixty days after that and so on.

I'm going to alter the plan slightly as I have a set of three inter-related books and then another set of two related books. Of the five books, four are part of that almost/pretty much finished stage, leaving only one book to be written, edited, and cover are created to get the ball rolling.

And after talking to another of my writing sisters, I'm considering submitting my novelette to her e-publisher. She has nothing but great things to say about her experience and her editors. And they also accept short works although their minimum work count is higher than the other e-publisher.

So lots of decisions to be made, like my target publishing date. Due dates for various books to be finished and edited. Cover art designs to be considered.

The most important decision is making the decision to take time to write. There are a lot of distractions at home, so I'm going to try writing in the library. My branch is open late two days a week, so after work Monday and Thursday, I'm grabbing my laptop, iPod, and headphones and heading to the library. I also have time to write on Tuesdays while Sonshine supposedly has PT for an hour or so. No point in driving home, so I take my laptop and work. I've actually done that the last couple of weeks...and it's been good.

So I have some work to do--reviewing each piece of work, finishing what needs to be finished, sending off to beta readers, contracting or creating cover art, and setting deadlines...

Any words of advice?

Let the temptation begin!

I'll be spending the whole day with my writer friends, but that also means being tantalized by the delicious smells of the two restaurants we hang out at.

Wish me luck at resisting the really bad things...

Hope your weekend will be just as fun but without the temptations. :)

And happy birthday to my mother-in-law!

And here's what I came up with, because sometimes you can't plan these too far in advance!

First off, I had a fabulous weekend. Dinner Friday evening with best selling author Jodi Thomas and several other writer group friends. I had good interesting and just plain heart warming conversations with my friends Michelle and Regina.

Saturday was writers group day, board meeting and regular meeting, followed by a trip to a local Barnes and Noble for Jodi Thomas's book signing as well as visiting with my closest writing peeps. We brainstormed a bit and chatted a lot.

After aaaalllllll of that excitement, I traveled across DFW to my friend Angi's house and waited for our other friend Jan, along with her hubby and son, to arrive in town from Wichita, Kansas. Once they arrived we did more visiting and laughing, as well as eating and just had a generally grand ol' time.

Sunday I grocery shopped and did some laundry, but otherwise relaxed and enjoyed the gorgeous weather. I put no pressure on myself to accomplish anything else. I did a little weeding, though. Not because I had to, but because I just wanted to be outside and because I wanted a few less weeds. :) I also ended up replanting my surviving azalea. One finally died, but the other was doing okay. I decided to transplant it into a pot and put it where I could see it and give it a little extra TLC.






After grocery shopping, I scrolled through FB as I'm wont to do of a morning and saw a post about the top five regrets of the dying. I clicked through to read it and it just seemed to reinforce my new life's philosophies. Namely, be eccentric now, the only one responsible for your happiness is you, and today is special.

So this weekend I wore my blue feather boa to dinner and to my writers group meeting. I was so happy and silly that people were teasing me that there must have been something more in my morning tea than just tea. And I enjoyed the conversation and time with friends.

How was your weekend?? Did you have fun and live life to the fullest?

It's Friday, thank goodness. It's been a long two days. We've had a temporary technician in the office while our one employee and DH are both out of town. The guy is very nice, but he talks slow and he thinks I care about what he's doing. I know that's mean and snarky, but it's the truth. You're the IT guy, just do it and leave me out of it.

And he's sharing my space with me, which makes Jen an unhappy camper. I'm used to and enjoy my solitude. I listen to my music and once my work's done, I do what I want. Well, I don't really feel comfortable spending the day watching TV while he's here, so I've had to find other, less obvious ways of keeping busy.

And I got one--my first real proof reading gig!!! I'm so thrilled. It's for an author multi-published with Harlequin. Oh, my gosh--how exciting is that!!! I also waiting to hear back from another gal, but I don't know if I will. My theorys are, either she's just super busy or when I confirmed the cost, she flinched. That's okay. I'm pretty inexpensive as far as my research has shown, but it's still not cheap. We'll see I guess.

But the week's almost over. And this weekend is going to a non-stop whirlwind of events.

In addition to turning around a 324 page manuscript by Monday, the weekend will be filled up with a writing retreat at my dear friend Angi Morgan's house. Except I can't stay the whole weekend because it's also my annual JAG weekend and Sonshine's band banquet is Saturday night. It's also writers group weekend. I'm tired just thinking about all that driving! And we have construction everywhere right now. UGH!!!

Tonight, I head to Angi's house. Tomorrow, we car pool to our writers meeting and back to Angi's house. I have to leave there around five to get home in time to haul Sonshine to a birthday party he can only attend for 45 minutes, and then he and I will head over to the school for the banquet. (I might have skipped it, except the band director's retiring this year.) Then Sunday morning early, after I do my grocery shopping, I'll be heading eastward again to have breakfast with my JAG friends and spend the day seeing folks I haven't seen since last year at this time, and others I haven't seen in several years.


I hope you have an awesome spring weekend as well.

Catch you on Monday with all the details and pictures!

Sonshine has no school today and is here in the office with me. One of his Christmas gifts was a WOW game pack add-on and can only played here at the office. We don't have a family PC at home large enough or powerful enough for the game. (My laptop doesn't even have a disc drive of any sort.)

Saturday's writers group meeting was fantastic with the romance reader savvy Sara Reyes from FreshFiction.com.

Sunday's dip back into writing went reasonably well. I was able to add just over 350 words (goal was 300). Of course quite a few of the old words got tweaked or deleted altogether, but that was inevitable and a part of revisions.

Also, the house is tidy...I've been working on it over the last week or so, and having a clean house makes the writing easier because I don't keep thinking I should be cleaning rather than writing. :)

And now it's Monday again and I'm back at work.

How was your weekend?

One of my personal events is to attend my writers group holiday party. This is a time of visiting. We've gone to a no speaker policy since it's a time to visit and have fun. Having to listen to a speaker when you want to visit is unfair to the speaker.

We do have plenty to keep us busy, though, aside from the visiting. We officially announce our election results. The results are usually a foregone conclusion since we've only ever had one person run for any board position in the nine years I've been a member.

We also hand out some awards. At each meeting, members log the number of pages edited and revised since the previous meeting. Then the president (me this year) tallies up the totals and we recognize the published and pre-published members who have recorded the most written and revised pages for the year. They each receive a certificate and a $25 VISA gift card.

In addition, we present someone with the Yellow Rose Award. This is for someone whose gone above and beyond and given that bit of extra effort towards the good of the chapter. They also receive a $25 gift card as well as some yellow roses, a certificate, and a special commemorative gift. This year, a rose ribbon pin.

A new program we started this year was to recognize members who sold books throughout the year. When at a meeting you announced a book sale (or two or three) you were at some point presented with a jumbo sized pencil with the book title, publisher and month written on it. Now, you didn't get to keep the pencil--it went into a pair of boots and was displayed at every meeting. It was cool to watch the number of pencils grow and we quickly had way more pencils than the boots could actually hold. Today, we'll hand out the pencils so those authors can have another (aside from the books themselves) physical manifestation of what they accomplished this year.


On that note, I gotta go get ready for the festivities.

Do you attend many holiday parties?

Well, we're about halfway through the month and several more items will be crossed off my TO DO list...

Tonight is Sonshine's band banquet. I'm looking forward to it and I wonder if Sonshine will get anything this year. Last year's award was a surprise. I probably should have gotten something for the band director, but what? I had an idea, but there wasn't enough time to execute. Plus she's moving in June so I don't really want to give her more things she has to pack. Ah, well...maybe next year when she retires.

Tomorrow is writer meeting day--chapter board meeting, chapter general meeting, and critique partner meeting. Yep, it's going to be a long, busy day, but that's okay.

Today should be a nice quiet day and I'm hoping to get some writing done. I need today's words and an equal number left towards tomorrow's words.

And that is about all I have to say for the day, except...

Have a great weekend!!

It's too hot right now to be excited about much of anything. The heat drains one's energy pretty quickly if you have to be out in it. Luckily I only have to be out in it a few times a day for very short stretches.

But while I took a break from walking Monday because my legs ached so bad, I did get back to it last night. I'm walking three full blocks at a brisk rate in about 20/23 minutes. My calves still burn from the inclines so I'm not ready to add another block quite yet, though I'd like to be doing at least thirty minutes.

My back yard is dry, dry, dry. It hurts to look at it. When the weeds are dead, you know there's a drought. I may actually have to start watering, at least the front and the sides which are still mostly green. I started watering my trees out front (a pine, a magnolia, and a mimosa) as they were just starting to look droopy. It may just be my imagination, but they look more perky to me.

The old shed was torn down and hauled off yesterday. Now we need to replace the rotted floor and wait for the new one to be built.

My lawn mower is at the shop. It's been there for like three weeks now. The guy called the day after I dropped it off to ask if it was still under warranty, which I'm pretty sure it wasn't, because he didn't want to proceed until he knew how he was getting paid. I told him I'd look for the receipt just in case and call him back. I called the following day and told him I couldn't find the receipt (and got a lecture about saving my receipts) and that I'd pay for the repairs. So when I called yesterday and it still wasn't done and he told me it was because he didn't want to do work when he wasn't going to get paid, I was a bit peeved. I've been without a mower for almost a month. Needless to say, my yards need to be mowed. I reminded him a bit impatiently that I'd already told him I would pay for it. "Oh, I'm sorry, my fault." GRRRRRR.

I downloaded a bunch of free books to my Kindle last night so reviews may be coming soon. I'm currently reading "After the Fire" by Kathryn Shay. So far, so good. It's kept me reading, not wanting to put it down. Though I do, cuz sleep is sacred. But I was up early reading some more. There's some language, but it's cops and firemen, so I think it's realistic. No sex so far, and I'm not sure of the heat rating, so we'll see how that pans out. We're following a fire fighting family--three siblings are smoke eaters, two are not. The story revolves around the three who are. There's a lot of tension in the family because of it. The dad was also a fireman and died in the line of duty, so the two siblings who aren't fire fighters can't understand or relate to the others. I'm guessing by the end of the book, there'll be some resolution there. After a big fire where a lot of fire fighters died, the three siblings reassess their lives and try to make right what they've allowed to go pear-shaped. So when I'm done today or tomorrow, I'll let you know how it turned out.

Big day on Saturday for writing meetings--board meeting, general meeting, critique group. Oh, boy. But I'm looking forward to it. Mostly. Not the board meeting though. There was a little kerfaffle this past week. I know one of the parties will be at the board meeting, not sure about the other. So we'll see. The general meeting will be boring. It's not a topic I'm too interested in right now, seeing as how I'm not planning a traditional route to publishing. The critique meeting will be...interesting. Our group hasn't quite defined how things are going to work. I'm trying to get a consensus, but I'm not sure if that's going to work. If we can't hash it out this weekend, as co-founder, I'll make the decision.

Well, marching band boy has to be at school soon and I have to get him there, so I'm signing off!

Stay cool, stay hydrated!

It was quite a lovely weekend, actually. Even with having a disagreement with a person who drives my completely barmy every time our paths cross.

So Friday evening was quiet with just DD and I, as the boys plus sonshine's friend went into the office for a while. DD and I watched some more Grey's Anatomy.

Saturday was a fairly long day . . . I had my regular writers meeting, plus we had a board meeting prior to that, so my good friend and critique partner picked me up and we headed for the board meeting. It went as expected. The president probably hates me by now and probably dreads dealing with me. I've become that person. That person who likes to make waves. And for someone who doesn't like waves, it's irritating and scary and distressing. I know, 'cause I don't like the waves either. BUT I was on the board for five years, except for last year when I had to step down for the year, and I *know* what things prior to last year that were decided. I was even president for two of those five years, so I *know* the bylaws, I know the policy manual. I read them both over and over and over and over even before I was actually elected. I studied Roberts Rules of Order often during my tenure on how to conduct meetings. (Not that I always did such a great job there.) So I'm not just that person because I'm not usually that person, but I'm the only one on the board who was involved in the recent history of the board. I provide the continuity.

Well, enough of that--that wasn't the good part. :) The good part is that I submitted a scene to be critiqued for pacing and action tags during the meeting. And my scene was chosen. First, too. And I got some really lovely feedback on it which really meant a lot. For someone to read the scene--a random scene from the middle of the story--and get a major component of the plot just based on what they read was really amazing to me. And as I said, the kind and constructive comments really pleased me and made me feel all warm an fuzzy inside. :)

On to the next phase of my day . . . more peace and quiet with a bit of laundry. Until the boys came home and then . . . my son had to get ready for the military ball! Yep, his first formal, bow tie and all. And his date was the only one with any kind of corsage. He thinks it didn't matter, but I'm pretty sure it was noticed by a lot of other girls. I do have pictures, I just don't know the easy way to get them off my camera. I need cords. When I get cords, you will have pics.

On Sunday afternoon, DD, sonshine and I went to the Kimball Art Museum. DD had to go for a project for her art appreciation class and boyo and I tagged along. The museum was much smaller that I expected, which was good, as my knees were aching even form the little walking we had to do. We passed the Imax theater on the way and discovered "Tornado Alley" will be playing there through the fall. So we've made a date for three weeks hence to see the film and visit another museum.