For years I have read romances and they are my favorite to read. I can remember thinking as a teenager, and even as an adult sometimes, that I'd love to write one but had no clue how to or for that matter any desire to do so. Today, I not only read books but I also have been doing a lot of writing. I've been working on both my fiction book as well as Mari's story. I've learned so much in the last couple of years. I understand better what to do and not to do. What has helped is reading … [Read more...]
Day 108: Aunt Boo’s House
My grandpa passed away exactly one year and one month to the day after my daughter passed away on August 16, 2009. Since I can remember Grandpa told me stories about his time in the Navy in World War II. When he went to basic and his job school (which is the equivalent of AIT in the Army), everyone put down there preference of where they wanted to be stationed. They could either choose the East Coast or The Pacific in Hawaii. Since he was from the west coast he choose The Pacific and since … [Read more...]
Memorial Day
This is a little late as far as posting when it was Memorial Day. Right now I am sitting in our temporary home while we start to the process of looking for a place to live. My husband and I got into Anchorage, Alaska just over 24 hours ago. We've been so excited to move here. The journey was long as we traveled both across the country by car and then a very long ferry boat ride. When my precious daughter passed away almost five years ago Memorial Day took on a whole new meaning for me. … [Read more...]
Day 107: A Love Story
Great loves of our life. Depending on the person, there can be many great loves or only a few to maybe only just one. For me, my first great love is for my Heavenly Father in heaven. It is through Him all things are possible. My next great love is for my husband Keith. In my childhood there were many kinds of abuse that happened to me and as a result shaped who I am today, or at least partly shaped. I don't have the greatest self-esteem. I have issues with letting go of control. I don't … [Read more...]
Day 106: Odd Notes
In life we all have our times where we will either jot down a quick note or store something away in the corners of our minds for later use. As writers I think it is even more important to write down those sudden thoughts that come to us. It's in those thoughts that the true magic of our writing comes out. Our hidden story ideas that get written in the page. I still remember the day about three months after Mari died where I had all these thoughts floating around in my head beginning to be … [Read more...]
Day 105: PERFECTION!
I don't think there is a single person out there who wouldn't want to do something and know they did it perfectly. The thing is we are human and we will never be perfect. As parents we try our very best to be the best parent we can. We want to raise our kids to one day be adults and be as successful Aa they can be. But no matter how hard we try we will never be perfect at it. We will make mistakes along the way. We will doubt ourselves. We have to learn from both our own mistakes but also from … [Read more...]
Day 104: Writing Your Own Front Yard
Think about this for a moment. When we write or talk about things do we use our past experiences during those times or do we just guess and hope what we say make sense to others. Personally, I think the best comes from the things we have personally experienced. For example, how could someone write about loss and how it feels if they have never been through any kind of loss. There are different types of loss. Losing a job. Losing a pet. Losing a friend or even just the friendship itself. … [Read more...]
Day 103: Closing the Gap
In our own world as we are learning to write down what has formed in our heads, whether a story idea or a journal entry, we all have a place where we start and somehow learn to close the gap to where we want to be. I still remember the first night I sat down to start writing the story idea that came to me. I wrote a little bit of it and then read it to my hubby. It was listening to his reader perspective and how in his experience of reading that he helped me to better the story I had come up … [Read more...]
Day 102: Five Things Writers Can Learn from Cats
1. Stay focused. As writers it's important to stay focused on our writing to make it the best we can. When we don't we end up with a mess and more likely than not have to go back and either do some major edits or to rewrite it all. No fun at all. So staying fucused is paramount to making the writing successful. 2. Retain mystery. It's important to keep the story a mystery so the reader will continue to keep the reader engrossed in the story otherwise they would lose interest. 3. Hunt … [Read more...]
Day 101: Waiting for the Train
We all have our ways of writing. Some write on a computer. Some write on paper. Some write in a journal. Some write on post-it notes. We each have our own unique way of doing things. When we do sit down to write do we allow ourselves to get into the moment to really take off like a freight train and everything flows smoothly out or are we trying to force something that may not be right for what is being written, especially writing a book. So far I'm the latter. If I'm feeling the story I'm … [Read more...]
