When life happens.

I realize I've not gotten back in here as soon as I'd planned. Where does time go? I know my days stay full with writing and creating and life. Someday I'll strike a balance that will prevent me from letting some things lapse while others roll along without incident. Yeah.. right! And if you find the solution before I do, please share.

My weekly column has been well-received so far. I'm getting great feedback from the community. Partly, I think, because it's about community. So I spend some of my 'free' time knocking on doors, introducing myself to business owners and others responsible for keeping Birch Tree MO in existence.

Aside from the weekly column, I've been able to add some feature stories to the paper. I've reported on local entertainment and crime news. I guess you could say my focus has been more on Non-Fiction than on Fiction in recent weeks. It's been an interesting change of pace.

But over the past couple of weeks I've found my love for fiction again. I entered four categories in the Ozark Creative Writers competition. One of the most challenging entries, and the most fun I've had in a long time, was to write a 500 word piece of sale-able fiction, without using the letter E. Have you ever tried to write a sentence without the word THE - let alone an entire flash fiction piece? I put Thesaurus.com through it's paces over the course of two days and came away with a story I'm happy with. We'll see how it does in competition.

I also entered the first chapter and a 5 pg synopsis of the Western Romance I've been playing with. I entered it in another category last year, sponsored by Western Author - Dusty Richards. I thought the chapter was good. But when it didn't place at all, I went to Dusty and asked if he'd do a critique on it for me. The one thing he found most lacking was INTERNALIZATION. I wasn't in my character's head enough. Okay. I can do that. But my biggest question was, Why in all these years of critique sessions has no one else ever pointed that out? I know I don't write a lot of it because it's the part I will skip over in a book. I love dialogue and it is my strength.

So with Dusty's critique in hand, I fine-tuned the first chapter yet again and submitted it in a different category. I'm anxious to see if it fairs any better. We'll know on October 8th when the awards are handed out.

I also had the pleasure of speaking to the Springfield Writers Guild on Saturday. I've known the current president for over fifteen years and this is the first time we've had the opportunity to work together. I was asked to give my Pitch workshop. With conferences still popping up through the end of October, I think some of them will have the opportunity to put the tips into practice. I wish them luck and would love to hear how they do.

I've been lining up more guest authors beginning in September and hope to fill the calendar out to keep the guests coming in this door through the end of the year.

As to my writing...

I'm writing every day on something. I'll try to be better at keeping you posted.

What are you writing today?

Busy Week

Good morning, everyone!

It's been a busy couple of weeks around here. As most of you know by now, when my husband comes home after being gone for three weeks, my world centers around him - at least for the first of the 3 he's home.

This time he brought a friend with him. Kassie has been a part of our lives since the day she was born.... she's now 14. But every couple of years she wants to come spend time with us. Having a teenager around the house wasn't really an issue. But I don't get to spend much time with her. When she comes down, I try to show her places she might not otherwise get to experience and she enjoys that.

The third week she was here, we also had the grandtoddler. Man, is that little girl growing. She'll be 4 in November. This time she was all about 'grandpa'.

So as you can tell, writing wasn't really part of my agenda. When you have the babies home, you just want to enjoy them.

By Tuesday, the house was all mine again and I had news in my email. I will be writing for our local newspaper on a weekly basis as a reporter for our small town - one of many small towns included in the paper's readership.

So I have lots of writing in my future. I won't be forgetting about the novels but short story competitions loom and now the weekly byline. As a result I need to reassess my GOALS. So give me a couple days and we'll get back to speed.

GOALS

I know most of you set New Year Resolutions or Goals about six weeks ago. So did I, in a way. I mentally decided in my head what I wanted from 2011. But I never wrote anything down. Which is odd because I've always been very GOAL oriented and a visual person.

When I sold Christmas Around the World, House of Lloyd, and UndercoverWear Daywear and Lingerie I always made a big poster to hang on my office wall. The poster would coordinate with whatever promotion the company was having at the time. I'd have a big graph or pie chart depicting what I needed in sales per month and how many bookings it would take (based on my previous sales figures) to reach my target. For me, although the commission was nice, it was always about the INCENTIVES.

My first incentive with Christmas Around the World was earning a 7' Blue Spruce artificial Christmas tree. Live trees always made me miserable during the holidays so artificial had to be my tree of choice. If it was going to be fake, it needed to at least LOOK the part. That was 25 years ago. We finally retired the tree this year.

My other top incentive was a White Fox fur coat from UndercoverWear. I worked really hard to earn the coat. Then my mom got sick and I had to cancel several shows to care for her. My supervisor knew how bad I wanted the coat. She worked to earn TWO. One of them she sold to me over the course of 4 months at $50 a month. She made a little extra money and I was still EARNING the coat. I still have the coat but it doesn't fit the same as it did 15 years ago :-D It will again, someday. That is another GOAL I have.

So how do I go about accomplishing my GOALS? By breaking them down into manageable steps.

Take the coat for instance. I intend to be back in it by next winter. Where I'm going to wear it in the Ozark mountains, I have no clue. But you can bet when I get down to size again, I'll find a place LOL To do that, I need to lose 1 pound per week. That isn't a lot of weight in the grand scheme of things. But we all know shedding pounds is never as easy as it sounds. So I'm watching my portions, trying to eat healthier and posting my thoughts on another blog... Living Through Weightloss because it is about LIVING through anything we set out to do.

But what about my writing GOALS?

There are several things I want to accomplish this year. So today I'm going to list them. Over the next few days/ weeks, I'll break them down and we'll talk about progress.

1 - Finish rough draft of Winter's Peace

2 - Finish rough draft of Autumn's Healing

3 - Finish rough draft of Death By Design

4 - Finish rough draft of Gangster's Lady

5 - Enter/ place in Arkansas Writers competition (multiple categories)

6 - Enter/ place in ORA competition

7 - Enter/ place in Ozark Creative Writers competition (multiple categories)

8 - Get staff position with Scrapbook News and Review

9 - Speak to at least one group or conference (I'm scheduled for 2!)

10- Win Nano

11- Polish one of the rough drafts.

12 - Publish at least 4 freelance articles in the craft and/ or historical travel genres.

That should keep me out of trouble, don't you think?

In my next post we'll break the top 5 down into manageable GOALS with a timeline to accomplish each.

I'm counting on you to keep me on track. I'm always happy to return the favor. Tell me what I can do to help you.

Write like your life depends on it - for a freelancer, it does!

Getting Back in a Big Way!

Good morning everyone!
It has been awhile since I've been here. I just felt the need to focus all of my attention on my granddaughter the last few days she would be living with me. She is now with her mom in Nashville. It's not that far away and I'll be seeing her in a few weeks, but man is the house QUIET!

It's been a good thing though. I've been back to writing solidly for over a week. I'm enjoying being back in touch with characters. For now I've been focusing on writing the recipe for an awesome burger recipe I developed for the Sutter Home Wine Build A Better Burger competition. Cross your fingers the preliminary judges think a Baja Burrito Burger with Sweet Red Wine and Chipotle Butter is worth being one of the 10 entries chosen. I'll know by August 21st (4 days before my anniversary) if I'm spending my 49th birthday (September 26th) in California... at the expense of Sutter Home Wine. Now wouldn't that be a nice way to spend a weekend!

I've also been working on contest entries for the www.ozarkcreativewriters.org conference. There are 21 different categories. I may choose to enter any number of the categories. The entries are due to be postmarked by August 25th. You still have time to jump in and participate with this great, intimate, multi-genre conference. I've been attending for 15 years. It's my mini business/vacation every October. I'd love to see more of you join us.

One of the entries has been polishing the first two chapters of my first Western Historical for the Oxbow Award sponsored by multi-award winning western author, Dusty Richards. Dusty just released his 100th book! Check out his site at... http://www.dustyrichards.com/ Author friend, Mike Blakely... www.mikeblakely.com encouraged me to write a western romance several years ago. Well, Mike, I'm finally giving it a shot. Thank you for the push.

Amongst all of this, I find out I have a shot of getting the first installment of my medical romance series in front of Harl. Mills and Boon Medical Romance Editor, Sheila Hodgson.... NEXT WEEK!

Nothing like jumping into the rapids after a long dry spell, is there?