Greetings from South Carolina!

 July has been a crazy month so far, and I am happy to be at my oldest son's house, looking forward to a week of spoiling grandchildren..

Sometimes you need a break. 

Don and I have needed a break for a bit now.  Last week kept us hopping dealing with various issues that cropped up and a trip to Lancaster, Pennsylvania to attend a convention.  

Sometimes life hits you upside the head not once, but multiple times.  I dealt with it by doing my best to deal with what came at us and praying.  A lot of praying.

Things appear to be settling down and I pray for a bit of calm in our lives - or at least as much calm as can exist when there are a even-year-old and five-year-old in the house.

Hoping your month brings you some rest and recharging.

Talk to you soon,

Laura

A mixed up kind of day...

 Today is filled with mixed feelings for me.

On the one hand, it is my younger sister's birthday.  Anita is a fun person, and very talented and kind.  For example, she can tap dance, while I have two left feet.  

When I started my column years ago, I would always call her and read it to her before sending it to the newspaper.  She helped me make it better and I always looked forward to these times.

I am happy to celebrate her birthday and wish her well.

On the other hand, this is also a sad day - it marks the fourth anniversary of my father's death.

My dad's death was unexpected.  He apparently threw a blood clot from his leg to his lungs or heart.  As a result, he suffered significant brain damage.

I had been in Jacksonville a few days when he first went into the hospital and things were uncertain.  My stepmother discontinued life support two days after I returned home, and I couldn't get there in time.

Anita was kind enough to text me throughout the process and let me know what was happening.  I was on a video call with my daughter-in-law Amanda when Dad passed.  Amanda told my grandchild Lavinia, who was three at the time, "Grandma is sad.  Can you give her hugs and kisses?"

That sweet child rained hugs and kisses on that phone.

So, if you see me today, I might be smiling at some memory I share with Anita. Or I might be sad as I reflect on the loss of my father.

Either way, a hug isn't wrong.

Blast from the past

 

The above picture is of my granddaughter Lavinia and her sweet mama from six (!) years ago.  Lavinia is dressed as a squirrel, her daddy's favorite animal.

Where did the time go?  That cute little squirrel is now six and in first grade.  She continues to be adorable and I love her and her brother so much.

I don't know what Lavinia and Matthias dressed as this year.  I look forward to seeing pictures.

The year is speeding to a close.  It will soon be time to evaluate my goals for 2025.  I look forward to sharing them with you.

Hope your Halloween was fun.  And that there was someone cute in your life.

I am blessed...

 As a writer who still has much to learn and many more words to write, I am blessed by the people around me who not only pay lip service to this venture, but actively support it.

Ask a writer how important it is to have a positive support system, and you'll probably be told it can make or break a writer.  Without support on the home front, it can be difficult to start or maintain a career.  If you keep getting negative input from those you are closest to, getting to the keyboard can be that much harder.

I'm fortunate to have people like my husband Don, who will ask me before he goes to bed if I've written my words for the day yet and will urge me to get to my office if I haven't.  He reads what I place in front of him and doesn't imply I'm a failure because I'm still not making a whole lot of money yet.  When I am discouraged, he will remind me that this is a marathon and to do what I know to do.

He even invests in my workshops and conventions because they are part of the learning process and the business of writing.  He's my personal cheerleader and I'm grateful to have him in my life.

My friends want me to succeed and cheer me on to get going and write more stuff for them to read.  I appreciate them and their patience.

Hopefully you have an excellent support system as you go after your passion.  I hope there are people in your life cheering you on and encouraging you to pursue your dreams.  May that be as true for you as it is for me.

Greetings from South Carolina!

 As I type this I'm sitting in my oldest son's home in South Carolina.  My husband Don and I are taking a few days to visit with him and his precious family.

There's his wife Amanda, who is the best daughter-in-law I could ask for.  She and John make us feel welcome and she does all kinds of sweet things to make us comfortable.  Just one example: even though she doesn't drink coffee, she bought a Keurig coffeemaker for me and her parents so we can have coffee when we're here.

Of course, there are the grandbabies, though "babies" is misleading.  Lavinia is six and has just completed kindergarten.  Her brother Matthias is four.  They are both adorable and the high point of our visit here, and certainly two of the most wonderful children in the world (yes, I am biased).

We've had a great time so far this trip.  While I intend to continue my writing streak while I'm here, I'm also letting myself have some down time.  We all need that occasionally.  I'm grateful to have the opportunity to spend such time with people I love.

I hope you also have a chance to rest and recharge at some point.  What works for you?

Happy Thanksgiving!

 Just a short note to wish all my readers a most wonderful Thanksgiving.  If you don't celebrate, I hope you have a great Thursday.

I am thankful to you for your reading and support.  I'm having a delightful time at my oldest son's house with his family, our youngest son, and my daughter-in-law's younger brother.  I hope you are having a great time with people you love today.

A Milestone Reached

 This is being posted late because I wanted to do my daily writing first.  Why was that important?

Today was a special day.  Today marked the 900th day in a row of writing for me.

That's 900 days of getting at least a few words down.  That's doing it despite fatigue, sickness, and grief.  That's squeezing it in when I've been busy and burning the midnight oil to finish a project.

It feels good to hit it.  For me, a streak is incredibly motivating.  The longer it goes, the harder it is to break.  I can look at the march of stars on my calendar and see that every day, I accomplished this one thing.

Will it last forever?  Who knows?  So far, Covid hasn't stopped it, a death in the family hasn't stopped it, my lack of discipline hasn't stopped it.  I'm not saying it can't be stopped.  But so far, it's healthy.

My next goal?  1,000 days, of course.  

What motivates you in your passion?

Sorry...

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving.  We enjoyed our time with our children, and especially our two grandchildren.  Lavinia is four and Matthias will turn three this month.  I'm wondering where the time went.

 If you're here looking for my short story "Black Deeds on a Black Friday," the week is up, and I've taken it down.  Thanks to all who read it and let me know what they thought.  

I'm currently working on a holiday collection I hope to get out the first half of this month.  I will keep you in the loop on it.  

I hope the season is treating you well.  What's your favorite part of this holiday season?

At the moment, I'm in Orlando, Florida doing some Disney time with a couple of friends.  Lots of fun, but of course I brought my laptop to write every day.  The streak is well over 800 days now (I don't recall what it is exactly) and I'm not planning on breaking it now.

See you in a couple of weeks!

Life Rolls

In an earlier post, I may have written about the concept of "life rolls."  These are events that happen in your life that can temporarily derail you.  They don't have to be bad - but they are often major.

On August 24th I was struck with not one but two major life rolls.  My dear mother-in-law, whom I had been taking care of for some time, passed away.

Within the hour we received news that our dog, Barney, had to be put to sleep.

One of these is bad.  Together?  I wept in someone's arms, saying I couldn't cope with it.  That I wasn't strong enough to deal with the weight of grief.

But I did.  And I am.  More or less.

I gave myself permission to drop everything, including the writing, for a time. The time was brief for some things (I only took one week off of my column that appears on Saturdays, but it was not due to pressure - I could have taken longer - but I wanted to see if I could still do it).

I worried that grief had broken writer brain.  I had a Romance Writing Workshop I was scheduled to go to in less than a month, and I wondered if I could still write decent fiction.  Perhaps it seems strange that I would worry about that, but I had a lot of trouble with writing after my father-in-law died.

I decided to go ahead and go to the workshop after the people giving it encouraged me to come.  There was a story assignment.  I wrote something for it, only getting stuck when it came to a title - and usually titles are the first thing I come up with.  But I put together a tale that had a beginning, middle, and end.

I went to the workshop.  I did most of the exercises assigned and wrote two more stories, as well as two novel sketches.  And to my relief, I discovered writing brain was not broken.  I could still produce good fiction.

And I only had one meltdown and one choked-up moment.  So that was a win too.

Now?  As one person put it, I'm finding my sea legs.  I am no longer a caregiver, so looking to fill that empty space in my life is what I'm working on.  It's not a straight line - grief appears to take weird turns and detours - and I'm still trying to find my way.

But I WILL find it. 

Next month I plan to tackle Nanowrimo, and hope to thrash out 50,000 words.  It feels daunting. But maybe, just maybe, I can do it.

If you're a praying person, pray for me as I walk this road.  If you don't pray, I'll take good thoughts.  If you've read this far, thank you.

Where is "Laura's Look?"

Back in May I announced that "Laura's Look 1998-2000," my first collection of columns, would be out by the end of the month.  Observant folk might notice we are now in July and there is no sign of the book.  The curious among you might even ask, "What gives?"

The short answer: Life happened.

The longer answer (feel free to skip):
At the end of April my mother-in-law, who lives with us, went to the hospital with three different infections - pneumonia, a urinary tract infection, and sepsis.  She was a week in the hospital, and then three weeks in a nursing home undergoing rehab.

Except for a brief hospital stay, since then she's been home.  And she isn't as strong as she was before, and needs more care.  This has fallen to me.

At some point in May I tossed my writing goals on the trash heap.  I just couldn't juggle everything.  I have had to scale back my goals and expectations for now while I figure out this new aspect of my life.

So, when is "Laura's Look 1998-2000" coming out?

Good question. My hope is the end of this month.  But it depends on life right now, which is not entirely in my control.

Thanks for being patient with me.  My hopes is you will find the book worth the wait.

On the Road

I am in Alexandria, Virginia as I type this.  I'm here with my husband, youngest son, and his wife.  Together (along with the kids' dog Hobbes) we plan to check out Washington DC for the next few days.

This is primarily a fun trip, though I might indulge in a little research in case I ever want to set a story in this area.  Today we explored Old Town in Alexandria, visiting a number of shops.

Tomorrow we'll head to DC proper.  I will try to post stuff as we go, but I might do a column on the trip so I will hold back some details for that.

Stay tuned!

Monday Musings: Nano, Day 23

Here's the thing: I'm not going to make 50k.

As I said last week, I'm not as upset about it as I could be.  This could well be my most productive month this year.  And I'm still interested in this project, even if my timeline is a mess (long story).

But making 50k would've been nice.

But while doing this, I've also managed to get a book to the proofing stage, which means it's almost ready to be launched.  Hopefully that's something I can report on next week.

While I plan to get a bunch of writing done this week, it's also about family.  I will be hosting Thanksgiving dinner.  We will have 8 people and 6 (yes, 6) dogs at our house.  Pray for us! <g>

And I hope all of you have a happy and safe Thanksgiving.

Moving right along...

The past few months have seen an upheaval in my life which I am still climbing out of.  My beloved father-in-law died after a long illness in March, and a lot of things, including my writing, was thrown into disorder.

I am very grateful for the number of friends who encouraged me, emailed me, sent cards, or just said a quick prayer for me during these months.  It is good to know how many people care.

Things are getting better.  I am slowly getting things back in order.  I've been writing on a regular basis again, not very much but it all adds up.  I epublished a new short story this weekend - "In the Bag."  It's a fun crime story that I hope you enjoy.

As I strive to get things back to normal I hope to do more with this blog then have it be a placeholder for my writing.  I'm sorry for the sporadic updates, and don't even know if anyone is still reading.  But as things return to, as a friend put it, "a new normal," I'm going to try to make this blog a part of that.

Thanks for reading.  Talk to you soon!