Category: Life

family news, commentary on any other aspect of life

Vegetables s in a farmers’ market

Work Day

by eileentroemel, posted in Life, Writing

Today, I went to the retreat for all the assistants in our area. It was a good day. A few meetings in the morning and team building in the afternoon. It went well and was fun.

Unfortunately for me, I sat on folding chairs – comfortableish ones – all day. This didn’t do my sore back or my joints any good.

Heating pad has helped and I’ll take some tylenol to help. I did get to write for a bit and managed to get a little over 2000 words in my story. I laughed because this was supposed to be sexy and sassy with not a lot of plot. Basically, the sea monster saying hey you’re my mate. But the more I wrote, the more the characters surprised me. Apparently I’m building a world of sea monsters.

The story has taken a different turn than I expected. I’m at a little over 15K for words. I’ve got two plots in my head which I think I’ll be weaving around each other. I’m looking forward to where the characters take me.

Tomorrow, I have a list. I’ll attempt to finish it and then work on Saturday’s list because Saturday we’re likely to be canning. Vicki ordered cucumbers from our favorite vendor at the farmer’s market. We might also have zucchini and tomatoes to process. I hope we get more beets but we’ll see. No matter what, she’s going to the farmer’s market in the morning and we’ll work on canning the rest of the day. So my planned tasks need to get done before she gets back from the farmers’ market.

Ocean waves breaking on rocks on Vancouver Island in British Columbia Canada

Check Off My To do List

by eileentroemel, posted in Life, Writing

I slept late. My daughter woke me up at 7 asking if I wanted my smoothie and chatting with me. I said no and listened. I did get back to sleep. Somewhere around 9 or 9:30 I got up. This is so odd to me because even when I don’t get a lot of sleep I don’t generally sleep late.

For this time off, I actually did have plans for each day. I had book tasks I wanted to get done. I’ve worked each day on these. Today was setting up my books on Bookbub, Goodreads, Bookfunnel and other places. These are all smaller tasks which don’t take a lot of time but they do take time.

I talked to my arc readers and told them I had six books done and how did they want them. I talked with a friend about books and publishing. I edited a section of my daughter’s paper.

In addition to that I wrote 5400 words in Sacrificed to the Sea Monster. This is an Ava book so lots of sex scenes. I thought initially it would be more sex than plot but the characters have other ideas. Oh there’s sex – in and out of the ocean. However, the characters have hijacked my plans again (thank goodness) and we’ll see what kind of ride they take me on.

I’m hoping I can finish this one soonish and maybe put it out in between my other publications because I don’t have a lot of Ava’s stuff finished. I wouldn’t mind finishing two or three. To be honest, this one and two others pull at me so those are probably my next projects… but you never know. I’ve got two stories in the Reluctant Royals series which are working away in my brain….

Tomorrow is a work day. I have an all day meeting to go to. But when I come home, I’m diving back into my to do list and my writing.

Next?

by eileentroemel, posted in Life, Writing

Last night I didn’t sleep well at all. It made for a rough morning and me feeling tired all day. But I still got all my tasks done I had on my list on Asana. I have a long list for tomorrow but it’s all good.

Since I finished the short story for the anthology, I went looking for something new to work on. I don’t have any Ava books on my schedule for the next year so I went looking for one which might be close enough for me to finish soonish. Sacrificed to the Sea Monster is one I enjoyed writing before I got distracted. So I started reading it and I’ve managed to get 2600 done on it today. It gives me about 11,000 words in the story so far.

I enjoyed rereading what I’d written and still love the concept. I jumped in and started writing. It’s flowing well and I’m enjoying the story. Sex and the ocean – both underwater and above. How can you resist? They have gotten to know each other and are learning to accept each other.

Next is to develop the little safe harbor they have and develop their characters. The plot is necessary – yes even with it being a sex book plot is important. I have a little mythology and a bit of danger I plan to put in. At least as much as I plan.

Tomorrow I’ll be setting up books in Book Bub and Goodreads. I have some books2read links to create as well as a whole list of things to get done. I’m also hoping to have more time to write.

Tonight – I’m calling it good and attempting to get some sleep. My eyes are tired – really my whole body is tired. At least I managed to get some writing in before my brain crashed.

Short Story – Done!

by eileentroemel, posted in Life, Writing

All day I worked on setting up pre-orders, promotions, and a lot more. I think my brain exploded at some point. I kept telling myself – just get through all this stuff and tonight I’ll write.

So tonight I wrote. I wrote a lot. I finished the annihilate the ghost scene and the wrap it all up scene… In all I wrote over 4700 words! It’s done and sent to my beta readers. Hopefully they don’t tell me it’s horrible.

I’ve set it aside for right now. I will do a read through – probably tomorrow night – and then I’ll get down to the nitty gritty of editing. I’d love to leave it for a bit though so we’ll see.

In the end it’s a little over 17,500 words which is right in the middle of the range for the anthology. I can call this one done – at least for a couple days – before I hit the editing phase of it.

Overall, it’s been a very productive day but I’m hitting the bed and crashing for a few hours.

Short Story Progress?

by eileentroemel, posted in Life, Writing

Today I slept late and got up tired. It doesn’t help I was up until 3. It was a lazy ish day. We did breakfast. Vicki and I tried to watch the new Persuasion movie on Netflix. I don’t recommend it. We turned it off after 25 minutes.

We picked a better version of Persuasion and while we watched, I worked on writing stuff. I have this mental list of things I need to work on. Today I was to put my Ava (pen name) books on Bookfunnel so I could participate with more promotions. I got all of them on the site.

After dinner, I was alone and my brain was not on my short story. I did other things and putzed a bit. I settled in to write and got about 1500 words down. I’m up to just under 13K for a total. So I still have 7K of room.

I’m on the final scene. I sat here playing on my phone. I hadn’t any idea on how to start this scene. I played on my phone for a bit. Bash and I have a routine. At some point around 11 pm, he gets up and bugs me to go to the bathroom. He will pace from the living room to the hall. He’ll scamper back and forth. Sometimes he even meows at me. So I went to the bathroom and ran water in the sink for him. I sat there not thinking about anything in particular and then it came to me how to start this climatic scene.

I’m excited to write it but my brain is sluggish and my eyes are tired. I got the beginning of the scene written. I’m taking a break though because my brain just isn’t focused. So I’m headed to bed and hoping I can finish this tomorrow. It’s only the 8th of the month but I’d like to finish this now so I can give myself a break between writing and editing.

I have a list of things on my calendar for the next couple of days but I’m hoping to do both. Hopefully I can get a lot done over the next few days. For now, I think I’ll go to bed and hope to have more inspiration in the morning.

Still Life With Cherries And Peaches

Canning, Freezing, & Writing?

by eileentroemel, posted in Life, Writing

It’s been a busy day. Ken and Vicki went to the farmer’s market. They brought back lots of goodies. Ken took a trip on Tuesday to pick up more blueberries and peaches. Ken also picked the produce out of our garden.

This meant today we spent most of the day working in the kitchen. Ken cut up two watermelons and put the squares on cookie sheets to freeze. Once they were frozen, we put them in bags in the freezer.

He also diced up – with the new Ninja chopper – cucumbers to make dill relish. Last time we combined two steps and got SALTY relish. This time we did it the right way and got yummy dill relish. We also pickled onions, sliced cukes, and zucchini. We finely chopped some onions too to make onion relish.

I cut up the tomatoes and onions to make tomato juice. Vicki put it on the stove while we moved on from pickled things to sweet. By the time the tomatoes went through the sieve we had 3 pints of juice.

My sister and I cut up peaches for prep to be frozen. The trays will come out of the freezer tomorrow and the peach halves will go in freezer bags. We also pitted cherries to throw in the freezer.

Vicki picked up one of my favorite – yellow beets! These got boiled and then we peeled and diced (roughly) them. We got 5 pints of them. Vicki pulled more beets – purple this time – from our garden so we’ll have to prep them for canning too.

This is how we spent our day today. It was long and a lot of work. We experimented with a couple of things. We’ll try and see if we will actually eat or have to go back to the drawing board.

We took a break, watched some tv, and then Vicki and Ken went to bed. I worked on whittling down my email from over 500. I’m under 400 right now and hoping I can get rid of many more over the next week.

I talked to a friend tonight for hours. This was my writing time but I’m okay with it. I wrote before and after we spoke. I did pretty good tonight I added about 2000 words tonight. The way it’s going, I see two more chapters. I’m at about 11, 300 words which means I need to wrap it up in under 8,000 words. This might be possible… maybe.

The more I write the more ideas pop into my head. Tomorrow should be a quieter day for me. I have a few tasks on my list but I should have plenty of writing time – I hope. Maybe I’ll be able to sit down and finish it off. But we’ll see if I get sidetracked.

Short Story Progress

by eileentroemel, posted in Life, Writing

On the nights I work in the office, it’s difficult for me to write as I’m usually in a lot of pain so not a lot of movement over the last couple nights. I hoped to get more done tonight but I got side tracked (more on this later).

As I was talking with my youngest daughter today, I came up with an idea for the ending of this short story. I was telling her about the story and asking her about scary things. Ideas started popping in my head. I’ve jotted down a few – we’ll see how many actually make it into the story.

It was after 11:30 tonight when I started writing. The story is flowing now which is fantastic. So I look at my clock on my computer and say – What? When did it get to be 1:00 am? Doesn’t matter really.

The nice thing though is I got 1500 words done on the story. I’m at almost 9300 so halfway done with the story. I’m not sure I can write the rest in 10K so I might have to check with the organizer to see if she’s okay if I go over.

Sidetracked – well I joined Discord and have created a server on there. Tonight I worked on building the channels on the server. If you want to join me, I’m here – https://discord.gg/MQbG7UEZ

I’m still working on the channels but it’s coming along. On my website I have a page for stand alone novels, so I may create a list from there.

I’m not working for five days! On Asana I have a ton of tasks I want to work on. I actually hope to make at the very least a good dent into those before she’s done with me. I need to finish this story and start checking off items from my to do list.

Tomorrow we’re processing food from the gardens and farmer’s market. This will likely take up most of the day. I hope to write in the evening though.

Tiny Steps

by eileentroemel, posted in Life, Writing

Last night I got sucked into a non-writing project and spent my evening fussing with it and not writing. This was disappointing. I also didn’t sleep last night.

Tonight, well I had a rough day and I’m super tired (bad night isn’t helping). So I thought this won’t be a writing night – I’m too tired. But people left me alone, even the cat went away. So I wrote for a bit and got distracted by messages on messenger and conversations with my daughters (always a highlight in my day).

So officially I wrote just under 1000 words tonight bringing my total to 7800. It’s progress but I’m a little disappointed with how little I’ve progressed. The story is there. I need to just focus.

Part of my problem is it’s set in locations I know and other people will know so I want the description of them to be right. Tonight I spent a bit of time looking at pictures of a museum I plan to have as a setting instead of writing the setting. From the pictures, I think I can do a decent job describing it but it took time away from writing.

So tiny steps in my progress to finish this story….

Fruits displaying in the stall of a market

Summer Vacation is Done

by eileentroemel, posted in Life, Uncategorized

Since it’s 1 am it’s technically Monday so my vacation ended yesterday. I’d like to say I spent a leisurely day writing and being a bum. Instead we worked on cutting up watermelon, musk melon, pineapple, strawberries, cherries, peaches, and cucumbers.

The cucumbers became relish but we added too much salt so we’ll label it as salty and see if we can make tarter sauce with it. The fruits we froze a number of them so we can have them in winter for smoothies / slushies. Some were just cut up to have for nibbling on all week.

We picked from our herbs again. This time we managed to actually get them chopped up and put into ice cube trays to freeze. Those will go into ziplock bags for use over the winter as well.

Ken picked tomatoes and peas. Vicki picked potatoes. Can’t wait to enjoy all of those. We also have a lot more growing. It was a busy morning with all of us working to get the food processed and either in the freezer for winter or mixed into what we wanted for consumption this week.

We made homemade pizza for supper with leftovers for lunch this week. It was delicious. It was also the first time we made pizza dough in the breadmaker which was much easier on my hands.

Now all of that took me to about supper time. I spent a little time playing on my phone and being mindless. But after supper, everyone left me alone and I was supposed to write but an author friend sent me her book. I started it last night and instead of writing I had to finish the book. It was delightful. So I didn’t start writing until 10 pm.

Very unusual for me, I have an outline (very rough and only ideas jotted down) of how this short story should go. I had around 3100 yesterday when I finished writing. Tonight I managed to add an additional 1500. Now I’m being cautious because I think this will go into an anthology but there’s a short deadline. I think If I can get through a few more scenes by Friday I will commit to being in the anthology. But I want to see how far I get in the story before I give a firm yes to the organizer. I don’t want her to do more work if I can’t get it written by the deadline.

Overall, I had a good vacation. It was relaxing but I still accomplished tasks. I finished off manuscripts and got most of them to my formatter. She’s gotten them back to me. So I can upload as I need to and set up preorders.

I’ve got a story in my head which keeps returning so I may be starting a new one soon but we’ll see. I’d much rather finish off a couple of works in process.

Later today, I’ll be catching up on a week’s worth of emails and dealing with the demands of my job. The nice thing is, I feel relaxed and refreshed from having time off.

writing text, random text, text, paper, notebook, pen.

Summer Vacation Part 3

by eileentroemel, posted in Life, Writing

Yesterday I worked on getting Solana into blogs. Having different bloggers post about my books helps different people see my book. It also means I have to write something to go with. It might be a character interview or to answer specific questions. These take time to write so I got several done.

Then I worked on getting my books set up in Asana. Now I use this to schedule the different tasks I need to accomplish between now and the release date like editing steps, ordering graphics (or creating them) and marketing steps. I had seven books to set up. The nice thing is I lumped a number of those tasks on the same day despite the later release dates.

It makes it easier to do all the books at once like researching keywords rather than scattering those tasks over multiple days for the next year. This means I need to look at my calendar so I keep track of what’s on the agenda.

I planned to write last night but I had people around me until late. I read a book instead. I was up until about 1 am and enjoyed getting lost in the story. When it was done, I wanted to keep reading but of course the book was done.

My daughter has started making fruit smoothies in the morning. We’ve had a mix of cherries, strawberries, peaches, blueberries, banana. This is how we’ve been starting our day and it’s delicious and filling. We will probably put the fruits we need for smoothies into one freezer bag so we can grab and make very easily.

Today is a lot of meetings for me. I do an author talk in my Facebook and then a group of authors get together and chat about writing stuff after that. In between today, I need to peel and halve peaches so they can go in the freezer.

After dinner, I plan to send people off to their own spaces so I can write. Yesterday while having a conversation with someone I came up with a plot for the short story I am working on. It all just fell into place. I have an idea of what I want to write and how to solve the issues. It just clicked which is heavenly!