Writing – Page 6 – Eileen Troemel

Analysis is Good

April 10, 2019March 30, 2019 by eileentroemel, posted in Tips for Authors, Writing

With your rough draft done, the next steps are all sort of intermixed. There are a number of steps you need to do before you even go to an editor. I know you’re saying but isn’t that what I pay the editor to do? Editors are expensive. The cleaner your manuscript the better.

First steps for me are a spell check, search for commonly overused words (I have a list), and reading through. These are big steps (mostly) that take time.

First thing – do a spell check. Take the time to look up the rules / errors your word processing file shows you. FYI – the word processor is not always right.

There are a bunch of websites which will help you analyze your writing – some for free and some cost. Grammarly https://app.grammarly.com/ is the one most often discussed. I’ve used it peripherally. It seems acceptable though I think you need to have a good knowledge of grammar to know whether you should accept or reject the appropriate corrections. It works very like MS Word’s spell / grammar check.

Analyze My Writing is another site http://www.analyzemywriting.com/ You copy and paste your writing sample into their software and click on different buttons like basic text statistics, common words and phrases; readability; lexical density; passive voice; and cloze test. The most useful of which is the passive voice. I’ve not used this a lot but when I tried the common words and phrases it didn’t work.

Slick Write is another such site https://www.slickwrite.com This one intrigues me. I’ve played with it a little bit. Across the top it has features; structure; quotes; vocabulary which all give analysis but along the side it has another set of tools all of which help you analyze your writing.

Another option to look at is to find what words you use the most – frequency of words or phrases appear in your document. Write Words out of the UK has a tool http://www.writewords.org.uk/word_count.asp You paste in your text and press a button and it tells you. Now obviously words like the, a, and are going to be more frequent. In general, you don’t want to use the same words to describe things. Now if you have a character who has a catch phrase – like “Sweet potatoes” obviously you’ll take that into account.

Once you have this analysis on your writing, you use it in editing to improve your writing. Rarely do I catch the words I overuse when I’m writing my rough draft – it’s always during the editing phase.

When I do my searches for overused words, I highlight them (I use Word and you can search and replace words with highlighted words) so when I do my paper edit I can reword (hopefully) to reduce the number of times I use my list.

For my first novel, I didn’t have that list of words. In fact, I didn’t know any of this so my first novel could use a rewrite. This is meant to give you a leg up to use a tool like those I talk about above (and there are MANY more) to help you produce a better book.

I’ve been self-publishing for four years. When I read my first books, I sort of cringe because my editing procedures were not as good or as well developed. Even now, I’m looking at the tools above and thinking I should add in one or maybe two of these to see what the different sites catch. It probably needs to be one of my steps I do habitually.

The last step is a read through. I have to have mine on paper. I can do a read through on the computer but I find I don’t catch as much. With it on paper, I take more time, catch more things, and rewrite more. This is what works for me. Maybe you read better on your phone or the computer. Maybe you have to do a headstand… okay maybe not. My point is you have to do what works for you. Find out when you are most edit conscious and how you can catch those quirks you don’t like in your writing.

If you have a writing question you want answered or discussed, use the contact form to let me know.

Fast or S l o w

April 3, 2019March 30, 2019 by eileentroemel, posted in Tips for Authors, Writing

Pacing – what is it and why is it important? It’s how fast your scenes read. I know you’re going to say – I can’t control how fast someone reads. My response is – to some extent you can. Passive / active voice play a part but so does sentence structure and length. Here’s a good article on it with the typical 5 points to fix everything. Even though I’m not a fan of those types of articles, this one does give some good points. https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/5-ways-to-pace-your-story/

Long sentences and longer words slow down your pace. Here’s an example of what I mean:

After Sam did stretches, she stepped onto the track and loped around getting into a rhythm.

After Sam stretched, she ran easily finding her rhythm.

The first sentence is sort of meandering and slows the pace down. The second sentence is quicker.

The same can be said for dialog. Dialog makes a scene go fast. So if you’re characters are talking and the scene is too quick, you can slow it down. Sample:

“We need to be careful,” she said.

“I know,” he said. “But we have to help Joey.”

“He’s always in trouble,” she said.

“This time is bad,” he said.

“I don’t like it,” she said.

“I know,” he said.

“But you still want to help him,” she said.

Now that reads pretty quick. Short sentences and little description means the scene is going to read fast. Now if you want to slow it down you can make the sentences longer or you can add description.

“We need to be careful,” she said putting a hand on his arm. She gazed up into his dark eyes, saw the worry in his frown.

“I know,” he said patting her hand. He looked out the window as he considered her words. “But we have to help Joey.”

“It’s Joey, you know he’s always in trouble,” she said. Moving to the closet to grab their jackets.

“I know he is but this time, I think, it’s bad,” he said taking his brown jacket and slinging it around his wide shoulders.

“I don’t like it,” she said pausing before putting on her black leather jacket.

“I know,” he said taking her jacket and holding it for her to slide her arms in.

“But you still want to help him,” she said looking over her shoulder at him.

The second adds details and description while slowing the pace down. The difficulty is finding the balance between the fast pace you may want and being able to get all the description in that you need.

This is where you make an effort to have more active voice (if not all) than passive voice. You have to ask questions like – do we need to know that she’s wearing a black leather jacket? Is it important to the story?

It may sound ridiculous but it’s looking at every word to determine if each word and each detail is needed. There’s a middle ground between the longer and slower pace. You can have some quick dialog and then throw in the details which are needed before going back to the faster paced dialog.

It is all dependent on the mood you’re trying to build. If it’s a tense moment leading to a fight / action scene, you may want to pick up the pace. If it’s not you can stretch it out a little.

Do you need black leather jacket? Maybe later you use that black leather jacket to identify her in a crowd or among the injured or ??? If you need it, add it. If not, you could maybe just say leather jacket or just jacket. Only you as the author can make that decision.

If you have a writing question you want answered or discussed, use the contact form to let me know.

Passive Vs Active

March 27, 2019March 30, 2019 by eileentroemel, posted in Tips for Authors, Writing

My grammar nerd is showing so be warned – grammar heavy post.

According to Dictionary.com passive voice is one of the two voices of verbs. A verb is in the passive voice when the subject of the sentence is acted on by the verb.

Again according to Dictionary.com, active voice is one of the two voices of verbs. When the verb of a sentence is in the active voice, the subject is doing the acting.

Does that make sense? Maybe or maybe not. Do you know what a subject is? So this takes me back to grammar school but the subject of the sentence is the person place, thing or idea doing something.

Simple sentences

I went to the store – I is the subject

Samantha hit a homerun – Samantha is the subject

These two simple sentences are both in active voice. The subject – I or Samantha – is doing the action.

Passive voice typically involves the BE verb. There are so many of these and I’m not going to bore you with what the names for each are but here are the different forms – be, being, been, am, is, are, was, were. If you see these words, the sentence is typically passive

I could give you all sorts of examples of passive voice vs active voice but I’m not a teacher and don’t want to put you to sleep. Let me just say my go to place for explaining grammar type things is Purdue OWL Here’s a link to one of their pages on passive voice https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/academic_writing/active_and_passive_voice/active_versus_passive_voice.html

What I will say is when you’re writing – or more to the point editing – passive voice slows your pace down and isn’t good for certain types of scenes. Are you going to be able to get rid of all the passive voice in your story – probably not. But in key scenes – like fight scenes – it’s best to keep the passive voice to a minimum.

Why? Because it’s more direct. It adds to your writing to keep it in active voice. The pace is faster – particularly in fight or battle scenes. When you write in passive voice, you slow things down.

Passive voice – The sword was expertly wielded by the warrior.

Active voice – The warrior expertly wielded her sword.

In passive voice, you slow down and the pace is slower like this:

The sword was expertly wielded by the warrior. Long swipes were made by her as the enemy approached. The enemy was killed by the warrior.

Now in active voice the pace is faster:

The warrior expertly wielded the sword. She made long swipes with her sword as the enemy approached. She killed the enemy.

As the eye follows along, the reader is (hopefully) gasping with excitement as the warrior steps into battle.

There are times for passive voice. If you have a really fast paced scene and you need it to slow down a little, you can use passive voice to slow it down.

The more you remove the passive voice, the better the story will read, the more on edge your reader will be.

If you have a writing question you want answered or discussed, use the contact form to let me know.

Who? From Where?

March 20, 2019March 30, 2019 by eileentroemel, posted in Tips for Authors, Writing

Francesco Petrungaro [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)]

What is the point of view (POV) and why does it matter? POV is who is telling your story. When you’re writing your story, you need to decide which POV you will use.

This is an area where I want to make sure I’m giving you the right information and it’s already out there so here’s my source: https://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-point-of-view.html

1^st person The main character is telling the story. You use words like I, me, my or we if you are doing plural.

2^nd person The writer has the narrator speak to the reader. You use words like you, your, and yours. This is commonly used in business writing, technical writing, speeches, song lyrics, and advertising

3^rd person The writer has a narrator telling the story and uses words like he, she, it, or they. The point of view can be either omniscient where the reader knows what all the characters are doing or it can be limited to having the reader only know what is happening to one specific character.

No one can tell you what POV to write in. It really depends on how all knowing you want your reader to be and how intimate you want your story to be. First person tends to be up close and personal. The author has to be creative in gathering information because you can’t give any information except what the main character actually experiences. If the main character isn’t part of the action scene, how do you inform your reader about it and how do you incorporate other action? You have to come up with ways. Is the character someone people will confide in? Can they bump into another character to have that character say – did you know, see, hear? This takes a lot of thought and care.

Another thing to consider is how the person talks about themselves. There are definitely drawbacks in how the character will talk and express themselves than if you have a little more distance like with third person. Here’s an example of first person

He touched my thigh while moving closer. His arm slipped around my shoulders. I leaned in to let him know I was interested. His body heat hit me first. I felt my stomach tighten and my nipples harden with his arms around me. His lips brushed against my cheek. Lame but then… oh hmmm, he found that spot. Yup that did it. Made my toes curl and my womanhood beg. He found the spot behind my ear which turned me to putty. Did I want him to know this? We had been at odds but now, if he kept kissing me, touching me, I’d forget about it all and strip him naked to have my way or let him have his way with me.

In this section you get the female’s point of view and all the thoughts rushing through her head. Only the author can decide if first person works for you. For the sake of full disclosure, I am not a fan of first person. I think you get too much of the one character and not enough of the other characters. It has its place but I’m not a fan and struggle when I read first person books.

Third person puts a little distance between the reader and the characters. It allows the author to offer up multiple perspectives. You can get both the male and female’s POV in the scene above or someone else’s if they happen to be watching.

As for 2^nd person, I’ve never seen this in a fictional novel. I have seen it in self-help books, articles, and other business writing. I’m not sure you could write a love scene in second person but it would be an interesting to see a sample if someone did it.

One thing you should consider doing – research in the genre you want to write in. If the genre is strictly first person, you should probably write in first person. If it varies, you get to pick. In reality you get to pick but you may stand out in the genre. Whether this is good or not, depends on the quality of the story and writing.

If you have a writing question you want answered or discussed, use the contact form to let me know.

How Many Words?

March 13, 2019March 30, 2019 by eileentroemel, posted in Tips for Authors, Writing

You’ve got your rough draft done! You’ve done your happy dance but freeze as you suddenly realize it’s only…. You fill in the number of words…. 40,000, 150,000, or 3,813 words long. Is this a novel? Is it too long? Too short? What length should a novel or novella or novelette or short story be?

According to Wikipedia and other sources here’s typical word count:

Short story – under 7,500
Novelette – 7,500 to 17,499
Novella – 17,500 to 39,999
Novel – 40,000 and up

Other sources included a sub heading for flash fiction being under 1,000 (or 1,200 or 1,500).

Writer’s Digest categorizes them as follows:

Short story – 1,500 to 30,000
Novella – 30,000 to 50,000
Novel – 55,000 to 300,000

(What happens if your writing is between 50K and 55K? Apparently it falls into no novel’s land?)

IAPWE (lots of letters for International Association of Professional Writers & Editors) states “There’s no universal standard for the different classifications.” Their suggested word counts match Wikipedia.

Take a deep breath and relax. It’s a rough draft, you don’t have a final word count. Believe me when I tell you this is the start – and only the start – of what your final will look like.

Here’s an article which breaks down by genre the typical length. https://manuscriptagency.com.au/word-count-by-genre-how-long-should-my-book-be/

Things to consider:

If you’ve written 10,000 words and wanted a novel, you’re not done. You’ve gotten through the first act (if this were a play). You need to ask yourself – is there more to the story? Are their places I can expand while improving the story? You definitely don’t want to just add filler. Don’t ever just start adding adjectives to increase the word count. Your blue plush sofa shouldn’t suddenly be a blue plush three seated sofa. Empty filler loses readers and gets you bad reviews. So can you add more without it being empty filler? Or is this it?

Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images on Pixabay

There’s nothing wrong with 10K being a damn good 10K story. If this is it, congratulations you’ve got a rough draft for a short story. You are ready for the next step.

If there is more, get a snack and wade back in. Your characters have more to whisper in your ear about their story.

What genre are you writing in? IAPWE suggests looking for organizations which represent your genre and see what they recommend for word length. Scifi tends to be longer – over 100K while romance is more likely to be shorter – 50K to 100K.

It never hurts to do research. Research the publishers who are prominent in the genre you’re writing in. Look for their submission guidelines. Be aware – just because your novel is in their word count guidelines there’s no guarantee you’ll get published. But their requirements can give you a goal to strive for.

If you’ve written a romance that is 125K words long, you many need to cut scenes. No you won’t actually bleed to death if you cut scenes – it will only feel like it.

Does this mean a scifi novel can’t be 60K long? Nope. But if you try submitting to a traditional publisher, they are likely to reject it out of hand. If you self-publish, readers may not be willing to pay as much. These are not key at this stage but they are things to think about as you move forward.

Obviously the key is to get a good story written. The rough draft is the starting point it is not your ending point. You have LOTS of steps to work through before you’re done.

If you have a writing question you want answered or discussed, use the contact form to let me know.

So You Want to Be a Writer

March 6, 2019March 30, 2019 by eileentroemel, posted in Tips for Authors, Writing

Aha! You have a great idea for a book – novel or nonfiction. You KNOW it will be a best seller. How do you get started?

The really short and somewhat snarky answer to this question is write! That doesn’t really help. You can search any bookseller to find how to books. The reality is put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, and start writing.

If you go to a writer’s group – online or in person – there will be all sorts of options people will throw at you.

I think the most common question is are you a pantser or a plotter? Your response like mine is probably – huh? Plotter is a writer who plots out their books. This could be as easy as creating a general outline or as complicated as details to the minutest level for each chapter and scene.

A pantser – which is what I am mostly – comes from the saying – fly by the seat of your pants. Meaning – you write as you go. There isn’t a lot of outlining or planning. You sit down and put your story on paper / computer. Every time I try to outline anything, I get sidetracked. I’ve outlined and then written. It never ends up like the outline. My characters don’t like to play inside the box any more than I do.

Ultimately, only you can decide how you write best. If you sit down to write and stare at the blank page and end up with a blank mind – maybe you need to do an outline. If you have so many ideas but no direction, maybe an outline would help. Only YOU can make that decision.

This leads to the next question – are you writing in sequence? Or are you writing scenes and putting them in order later? I’m very much a linear writer. When I have to add or rearrange scenes it throws me for a loop. However, it is again up to you.

One author I know has scenes written for several books. He gets ideas for his plot and gets the scenes down on paper. Then he goes back and connects the dots from scene to scene.

This is again a decision only you as the author can make. If the opening scene intimidates you, skip to write a scene you do see in your head. Eventually you’ll have to write the opening scene but if you aren’t finding it to start, move forward and write other scenes.

Here are some other things to consider:

Don’t worry about grammar, sentence structure, spelling, or any of the other dos and don’ts people throw out in books, blogs, and writer’s groups.

The reality is you are creating a rough draft. The only thing you need to worry about is getting the story written. Get words on the page and move on. Rough drafts suck and are usually not readable.

Don’t worry about word counts. Some authors set goals of writing 500 words a day or 1000 / 100 / 300 / 279 or some other random number.

If that works for them – fabulous. If it work for you – fabulous. If it doesn’t work, you are creating a barrier between you and the story. In reality you likely are working a day job. If you set a goal of 1000 words a day and have a crappy day, you aren’t going to meet that goal. Then the next day you’re behind so you feel like you have to write both day’s goals. It can be counterproductive. For me, I write when I feel it. I’ve written a novel in four days. It was ROUGH, needed more scenes and a lot of refining and editing but the general book was done in four days. Novels start around 45 – 50K depending on the genre. If I divide those 50K by 4 days I wrote something like 12.5K a day. Possible – I remember being really tired and really driven by the story.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, there are times it’s taken me years to write a novel. I’d write a little 100 word scene and be stumped. I put it away and come back to it when the next scene came to me. I’m not a goal oriented person. If you are, set realistic goals and be flexible. Otherwise you end up with barriers to writing.

Tense / POV – some genres are typically written in a particular tense / POV. For example contemporary paranormal is typically written in first person present tense. If you’re going to market your book in this genre, typically you should write the way the readers expect the genre to be written.

Having said this, if you hate that – write it your way. I am not a big fan of first person and almost always write in third person. I’ve not written a contemporary paranormal novel. If I decide to write in that genre, I’d have to consider writing in a POV I’m not fond of and a tense I don’t normally write in.

You’re the author, the creator of the whole world in the book. Tell your story your way. The rest can be figured in editing. The most important thing is to write. It doesn’t matter if you set up a work space with a lucky bobble head (creepy but okay) or use your phone to do the rough draft (talk to text can be really helpful) or write it out long hand in a spiral or pad of paper. Find your groove, write, write, write, write, write…. Did I mention you should WRITE? How you do it is all up to you.

Write your words, your way and tell a good story. Everything else can be worked out in editing.

Nine of Eleven

December 31, 2018January 4, 2019 by eileentroemel, posted in Life

Today I went with one of my nieces craft shopping. I used gift cards and holiday cash to make all of my purchases! The other great thing is everything I bought was on sale – everything. So not only did I get great deals and the materials I wanted but I didn’t spend a penny out of my own account. Thank you to my faculty at my job, one family member, and a friend. They made this relaxing day completely possible!

Joanns has a great sale on and I stocked up on crochet cotton. I can’t lie – the $1 a skein made me nearly clean out their display of the colors they had. Then I hit the aisles to look for yarn for two blankets, one scarf and other crochet cotton (also on sale) which had different colors. The per ounce price (yes I figured out for each of the brands on sale) for the $1 per skein was FABULOUS. I got most of what I wanted – though I never get enough yarn.

My niece and I had a lovely day together, spending time and chatting. We went to Burnie’s rock shop as well. It was crowded and busy and yet we both managed to find items to purchase.

I have an afghan nearly done for her and I was hoping to surprise her with it today but at 12:30 last night I gave it up and said nope… too much left to do. I’ll keep working on it and hope to get it done in the next week or two.

Aside from her blanket, I’m going to be at the Whitewater library on January 19, so I plan to make a few small things which can hopefully fill up my table and make some sales. At this point, I’m thinking coasters and dishcloths but I want to consult my list to see if I can come up with other things.

While at Joann’s today, I picked up pins to use for blocking several pairs of earrings, bracelets and a bookmark. Once they’ve dried, I’ll have to find buttons for the bracelets and those can come with me to the sale as well.

I feel like I’m getting caught up. Tomorrow I plan to work on crochet patterns – publishing and posting. I’ve got a long list of them to work on so I’m hoping to get a large chunk of them done. I have new patterns which include two leaflets (meaning multiple patterns) to publish. I have three groups of patterns I’ve not posted on Ravelry and need to get those up there. This is the task which takes the longest. I’m hoping to get through all of them before I go back to work so the next two day I think will be taken up with those.

I’m winding down on my days off. I feel good about the progress I’ve made with projects. Before this time off, I always felt like I was falling further and further behind. Now I feel caught up and ready to move forward.

If I manage to get through the crochet patterns, I think I’m going to work on the short story I had professionally edited – it was so mangled from all the different version, I needed to help with it.

I’m at the end of my day and feel really good. It was good to get one on one with my niece and to shop for things I love. Now I get to play with all of it, making things for others who will hopefully really appreciate the goodies.

Five of Eleven

December 26, 2018January 4, 2019 by eileentroemel, posted in Life

I can’t believe my time off is almost half over. Where did the time go? I know where it went – lots of holiday things but I’ve still managed to be productive.

All the crocheting I needed to get done, I finished on Sunday! I was very pleased to finish the slippers Sunday instead of Monday – pushing the deadline of needing them done by Christmas. Last night I watched a new show while I crocheted. Wynonna Earp – I thought it was going to be an old time western from the female perspective. Nope. It’s a modern paranormal show based on the descendant of Wyatt Earp. It was enthralling. There are definitely lots of twists and turns. I’m binging the first season so tonight when I work on the afghan I’ve got going, I’ll be watching it.

Writing – I’ve been working on updating a bunch of stuff. It’s been a very productive time which I’m seeing the end of the tunnel for this project.

Today I’m alone in my house. I can’t remember the last time I was alone in my house for a full day. I’m enjoying it. I’ve gotten through the massive number of emails, worked on my website (ongoing) and hope to finish the project today.

In addition, I’ve made phone calls for my daughter and corresponded with our insurance and a variety of other people.

I’ve got a sale going on Smashwords! Free books include Wayfarer, Defenders of the People, and a short story collection Grandma’s Doilies. The rest of the Wayfarer and Defenders series are 25% off along with Murder Next Door, Dragon Lord’s Mate, Draconian Peace and Quick & Easy Throws. Jute & Cotton Baskets, Rise of the Ancients, Moon Affirmations, Secret Past, and the three Moments in poetry books are all 50% off.

Ava Taylor also has items on sale on Smashwords! She has Sibling Rivalry & Three Races for free. Exploring Desires, Prospecting, Prisoner 849, Snowbound, Her Captain and Courtesan are all 25% off.

I’ve been trying to stay off social media because again – needed a break but with this sale, I need to be posting at least once a day about it. Even during the holidays, I don’t stop working because it’s important I keep engaging people.

I went to my family Christmas. While there, I delivered items to people. I also got orders for more stuff. The good thing about this – I’m going to Joann’s over the weekend. I’m really looking forward to shopping with my niece. It will be a nice outing for the two of us. I hope I can find the colors of the items I want. Joann’s has a sale going on for which I’ve gotten a flyer which I’ll be taking with me. The fabulous thing – I have two gift cards for $125 so none of what I buy I’ll be paying for! I get to feed my obsession without paying for my obsession.

Our immediate family is doing Christmas on Saturday! We normally do ours early and I’m not sure I like the late thing but the girls are all going to be together. I think it will be good. We’ll video chat. There are several things I want to see the girls open and hope they like.

Until then, I have a long to do list… too long to list here.

First of Eleven

December 22, 2018January 4, 2019 by eileentroemel, posted in Life

Last night we went car shopping with our middle daughter. Now we’re waiting to hear from the dealership. In the meanwhile, grocery shopping, breakfast, and other errands have been done by Ken and Vicki. While I worked on the computer. I got blog tours posted, checkbook caught up and email dealt with.

There’s a dozen other things which need to get done today so it’s going to be busy day. We’ll be going to a variety of stores and finish up the errands.

I have four projects I need to take pictures of so I can work on publishing. I also need to look over the other crochet items I’ve been waiting to distribute until I got a yeah or nay from the publisher. We’re passed the issue they were made for so it’s time to publish and distribute.

By the end of tomorrow I hope to have all the crochet stuff photographed and measured. I still need to make one crochet item before Tuesday. I’ll be working on that over the next couple days.

Other than that I have a ton of writing things I want to get done. I finished the first round of edits on Wild Magic 2 but it needs at least one more big edit before I can work on fine tuning it. I feel like I need to add in a few scenes which will help the relationships develop and the story to flow better.

I’ve got a third of a short story edited. This is the mangled one – poor little story – and I need to get the rest of it edited. I had a friend edit it professionally because it was so mangled and I’d looked at it too much. Now I’d like to finish it off. Everyone keeps telling me it needs to be a book – I’m resistant but did add several paragraphs to the first third of the book so I’ll see how that goes.

Aside from that, I’ve got crochet patterns to publish. I have a long list of writing projects I am in the middle of so want to work on those. I never know until I sit down to work which one will get my attention.

For Sanity’s Sake

December 19, 2018January 4, 2019 by eileentroemel, posted in Life

I’ve got three more days of work before I have eleven off. I swear someone has slowed time just to torment me. I really want it to be Friday so I can get started with the time off.

With a long long long list of stuff to do, I cannot decide what I want to do first. There are commitments for the holidays but I’m hoping to be able to have a couple days to do only what I want to do. Let’s be real – write. I want to work on writing.

I’ve got Wild Magic 2 in the edit phase which I need to enter the edits I’ve done on the computer. Do a read through and then probably print out and edit again.

Seven Sisters – working title – is also in the works. I want to finish writing this so I can move it to the editing pile. Sequels are pushing at me. One is a longer one which will take time but the other will take a little more plotting out – maybe. Generally I don’t plot things out because I never end up where I’ve plotted things.

As well as the writing projects, I have piles and piles of photo albums I need to work through in order to get them online for the family. I’m talking hundreds I think and probably thousands of photos. I will not be scanning every single photo but I do want to get the family pictures and a sampling of mom’s photography. After the albums are done, we have the same amount of slides which we will have to deal with.

Now I know all of that won’t get done over my time off but I want to make a start. I’m hoping I can make a dent and do a few a weekend or something like that. I’ll have to set up a system.

The holidays are approaching. I’m not interested. I don’t know any other way to say it. When I think of the holidays it makes me sad. This leads to grumpy. I’m trying not to think about it but… In a good year I have issues at the holidays and this has not been a good year.

I’ve been working on Christmas gifts / holiday items for crocheting. I got a number of them done but I have two skeins of yarn I want to make up – mostly because I have a bunch of crochet patterns which I want to publish and these skeins will fit nicely with them. I also think I have people who may want them.

Now if they don’t take them, I will be doing a City Market at the Whitewater Library (I hope) in January (and possibly other months). I can always put them on the table to sell for that event. I think though they will get snapped up before then. I have one more pair of slippers to get done before Christmas day. I need a break from them though as I did a bunch. I find them tedious and annoying. For some reason, I can usually only do about half a slipper at each sitting.

Right now I have to get pictures of two projects – can’t talk about the one as it’s a gift. Once I get those pictures, I need to ship the one out. The other gift will be hand delivered. I LOVE how the two projects turned out and can’t wait to share the patterns.