Perspective

 If I were to ask you what you defined as success in your life/career, what would you say?

I was recently challenged to consider this as an assignment for an online workshop I'm taking.  What did I consider a successful writing career?

I named a few things, like making more money, getting more stuff out for people to buy, and doing more publishing-related things.  

When I was done with the list, I admit I felt discouraged.  

Understand that I consider May of 2005 the start of my fiction writing career (my column started June of 1998, about seven years prior).  That means I've been at this almost twenty years.

Somehow I thought I'd be farther along than I am now.  I do not make a great deal of money with my writing.  While I've published a number of novels and short stories, I could be doing more in that area.  

Granted, I was a caregiver to a greater or lesser extent for thirteen of those years.  We have often had young people stay with us while they try to get on their feet so they didn't have to live on the street.  I feel these things are important and do not regret my investment in them.  But it did affect the writing.

When I said this to a fellow writer, she reminded me that I helped people.  She also made me look and see that my writing has had positive effects on readers (Please, if an author's writing has had a positive impact on you, take a minute and let them know. You will make their day).  I had to admit that, yes, my writing had done so.  

My column continues after nearly twenty-seven years.  That means I'm doing something right.  People still read it and comment on it and I truly appreciate all the feedback I get, positive and negative.

And I haven't given up.  Some people would look at all that time and decide writing wasn't for them.  I've been at this long enough to know that when it comes to writing, the true failure isn't rejections or lack of sales - the true failure is to stop writing.  I'm not willing to do that.

So, if you look at your life and think you've failed, maybe you just need a different perspective.  Ask a friend about it.  It might be you've been more successful than you realize.

Some observations...

 I'm taking a writing course that addresses the concept of writer's block. My latest assignment involved taking stock of what I've written and what is published/sold.

I discovered that I've written over 200 short stories since I started my path to fiction writing in 2005.  This doesn't include the number of Star Trek stories I wrote for the Strange New Worlds contest.  It also doesn't include the eleven short stories I've started and not finished.  43 or 44 of those short stories are for sale, either as stand-alones or in collections.

This doesn't include the none novellas (7,500+ words) I've written, one of which sold.

I have published six novels, with a seventh on the way.  I also have cowritten six novels in a fantasy series, with a seventh on the way.

That's a lot of words.  I need to update this site with everything for sale.

I need to do something with the stories and novels gathering virtual dust on my hard drive.  I have more than enough short fiction to create a number of collections.  

It is sort of exciting to see what I can do this year.  I didn't publish anything last year, something I do not wish to repeat.  So, stay tuned.  I hope to have great news coming soon.

Belated Happy New Year!

 Happy 2025!  I hope your year is filled with accomplishments and good things.

I wrote 712,515 words in 2024.  Not my best year, but certainly not my worst.

Now I am gearing up for 2025 and the things I hope to accomplish.  Not just in writing and publishing - I want to lose weight and drink more water as well.

One thing that will happen in 2025 is the second volume of HERitage.  The Kickstarter begins in February - click here to go to the preview page.

Have a great beginning of the year!

Happy New Year!

 I know, I haven't posted this month.  It has been a difficult month.  My husband wound up in the hospital with influenza and pneumonia, and gave me the flu as well.  We're both fine now, still trying to get back to normal.

Christmas found us on the road, meeting a need from afar.  We got to our stockings at 8:30-9 pm that night.  Hope your Christmas was less eventful and more fun.

I'm currently going over end of year stuff for my writing.  I will talk about that more in January.

Just wanted to say I hope whatever you celebrate was/is special.  And that you have a happy (and safe) New Year!

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.

Some observations...

 Lately I've been looking at how I spend my time when it comes to writing and writing-related projects.  I do this with an eye to make some changes that will benefit my struggling career.

For a long time now, my goal has been to write "before bedtime."  While this sounds good in theory, I discovered I was putting off the writing later and later in the evening.  Because of fatigue, it meant I didn't write as much because I was too tired.

There was a time this wasn't an issue.  However, age has crept up on me and I have to accept I am no longer in my twenties or thirties.  While I can still stay up late, there is no guarantee I will have a lot of brain to work with.

I made the decision to switch the goal to writing before dinner instead of bedtime.  This means I still don't have to write first thing in the day (I am still not a morning person) but I do have to produce words in the afternoon, a good time for me to write brainwise.

It's not perfect yet but I'm discovering I write more and like it better when I pull it off.  There may come a time I back the time up some, but I'm trying this for now.

As for the rest, I know I need to set aside time for writing-related work.  That I might be able to do earlier in the day.  The trick is to set a time period I can work with.

For now, I might have to set up the time the night before, depending on my schedule for the following day.  I will try that and see if I get more done.

Hope May started off well for you.  Talk to you later this month!

Preparing for the Holidays

 As I type this,  there are six days until Christmas.  Am I ready?  Cue hysterical laughter here.

I did manage to get Christmas cards out yesterday, which is too late to arrive on time, but my family is accustomed to my being fashionably late for the holidays.

I'm trying not to stress out about it.  I'm dealing with some deadlines that are coming up, and I'm trying not to stress out about that either.  

My goal for the rest of the year is to get as much writing and reading done as possible.  I'm 22,000 words away from hitting 200,000 words for the year.  Can I write 22k words between now and January 1st?  I'm about to find out.

Hoping you aren't stressing out this holiday season.  And that if you have goals for the end of the year, you meet them.

The First Half of the Year is Done...

 Where did the time go?  It feels like the past six months have flown by without stopping to catch its breath.  Yet here we are, the beginning of July.

Looking at my writing stats for the year so far, I managed to eke out 100,484 words.  That number could be better - I wanted to be at 150,000 by now - but it's still a respectable number for me.

Notice I said, "for me."  Not for you, not for Stephen King, not for any other writer.  Comparing myself to others on this and other aspects of writing would simply make me crazy and discouraged.  

I am going to try to push it some the second half of the year.  While I have trips planned, none are of the magnitude of the Hawaiian cruise.  I can goose the writing a little bit and get more done.

As far as the publishing side of things, I've gotten out a short story collection and two novels, one of which is book 5 of a series I cowrite with fellow author Azure Avians.  I'm sort of on track with this, wanting to get seven things published this year.  I'm currently working on a project for another column collection and have a couple of books I'd like to get published before the end of the year.

What goals do you have looking at the rest of 2023?

By the way, I will be attending Shore Leave in Hunt Valley, Maryland this upcoming weekend.  Below is my schedule for the panels I will participate in.  If you're in the area, I'd love to see you.

Finding My Groove

 One bad thing about being on vacation for almost two weeks is I've lost my writing groove.  While I managed to write every day, it continued to be less than five hundred words more often than not.

It didn't help this week I got two pieces of bad news that impacted my mood and writing.  One night I started to cry from fatigue and sadness.  I had people to get me through it, and I did eke out a few words that night.  

I also have a number of things I need to get done.  It's sometimes hard to pick what to do from all the choices.  I hope I can pick one and focus - just a matter of which one.

Let me finish this blog post by wishing all dads a Happy Father's Day.  Wish I could call my dad and talk to him.  Make sure you call yours.

Behind on so many levels...

My normal schedule of things has me posting on this blog on the 1st and 15th of every month.  Unfortunately, real life did not conform to my schedule, and so this post is a day late.

It's not the only thing that has me running like crazy to catch up.  In my last post I said I was going to do my Kickstarter this month.  After much reflection on how much work is left to be done, I've decided to postpone it until June.  I want it to be good, and that's more important than it being done in April.

I'm also a judge for a writing contest and need to step up my reading speed if I'm to get all of the entries read in time.  The coordinator graciously extended the deadline (we got three additional books on short notice) so I'm taking advantage of that.

I get frustrated when I fall behind.  Part of my problem is that there is SO MUCH to do that I get paralyzed trying to pick one thing from all of it.  At that point, none of it gets done.  Plus, I have ADD (look, squirrel!) and it causes me to get easily distracted.

I'd love to hear from you how you deal with falling behind.  What do you do when you have a huge list of things to do to make sure SOMETHING gets done?  How do you know when to work on catching up and when to simply reschedule?  I'm curious.

That's it for now.  I'll see you in May!

Grandbabies, Publications, and Writing Streaks

 Lots to talk about today.  

1) First, I had a WONDERFUL time in South Carolina near the end of March visiting my grandchildren.  Lavinia is going to be 5 in a few days and Matthias is 3.  They and their parents love having us visit and we made some good memories.

2) My latest novel Death on the Air is now available as an ebook and will soon be in print.  You can purchase the ebook from your favorite site by clicking here  (if your site isn't listed, let me know and I'll make sure it's included).  Here's a look at the cover:

3) On March 25th I hit a milestone - my 1,000th day in a row of writing.  That means I've made new words every day for nearly three years now.  It feels like quite the achievement, and now I'm looking to see if I can bump it even higher.

I'm hoping to launch my first Kickstarter this month.  Stay tuned for more information.

Hope you have a amazing April!

Getting Rid of "Only"

 In some ways, February was a challenging month.  It was busy, I started the month with a nasty cough (thank you, pine pollen), and in general wasn't feeling at the top of my game.

My column still went out every week.  I still wrote every day, even if it wasn't a lot.  In the end I wrote 12,226 words in February.

Talking with a couple of fellow writers, I bemoaned that I'd "only" written around twelve thousand words.

Carolyn, one of the writers, encouraged me to change my thinking.  She framed it like this: despite having a difficult month, I succeeded in writing over twelve thousand words.

That gave me pause.  Looking at it that way, it wasn't a failure on my part, but something to celebrate.  Feeling good about the writing increases the chance I'll do it.  

"Only" was a weight that held me back from what I'd truly accomplished.

So, despite a difficult month, I wrote every day, my column went out every week, and I wrote over twelve thousand words.  (I also have a book out to my copyeditor - look for Death on the Air later this month)

If you, like me, find yourself saying, "I only did..." see if you can reframe it.  Turn it into a positive.

You'll be amazed at how it helps your attitude.

Random stuff...

 First off, you should know that as I am an honorary groundhog (having been born on Groundhog's Day) and did NOT see my shadow.  Early spring is my prediction.

I have been working on various projects this month, but things seem to be moving slowly for some reason.  I'd developed a cough at the end of January/beginning of February which slowed me down a little but it's pretty much gone.  I'd hoped to have Death on the Air to my copyeditor by now, but no such luck.

But I've still written every day - sometimes not much, but it counts.  My streak is at 962 days right now, which means I'll probably hit 1,000 days sometime in March.

While I catch up on my work, there's still time for you to check out my friend Matt Buchman's Kickstarter for Thrill Ride Magazine..  It ends on the 21st, so don't delay.  Go here and see all the goodies he's offering.

2023 Goals (So Far)

 As I mentioned in a previous post, I want to share with you some things coming up this year.  These are based on goals I've set and hope to accomplish in 2023.

I want to continue my writing streak of getting words done every day.  So far I've managed to do so even though there were times it was tough.  Right now the streak stands at 947 days - 1,000 isn't that far away.

My friend Karen and I figured out there are SEVEN projects I want to publish.  I don't know if I can get them all out this year, but there are some that are a priority.  Three I know for sure will be out by the end of June are as follows:

-- Sorcery and Steel: Tempest.  Co-written with Azure Avians, this is the fifth book in our fantasy series.  I'm in the midst of writing the last chapter now, and we plan to have copies available for Shore Leave in July.

-- Laura's Look x100.  This year marks the 25th year of my column "Laura's Look."  I'm celebrating with a Kickstarter in April for a book that will include 100 of my columns that have been published over the years.  I'm looking at a June release for this, so stay tuned.

-- Death on the Air.  This is a Christian suspense novel.  A Christian radio talk show host gets a disturbing call on her show - a man confesses to a murder.  As events transpire, she learns there are more deaths to come - one of them hers.  I'm hoping to get this out the end of this month or beginning of March.

Hope you have a lovely February.  I'll talk to you again soon.

Happy New Year!

 I hope your year got off to a decent start today.  

I took a look over my accomplishments in writing in 2022.  I wrote a total of 246,529 words.  Not the 300k I was aiming for but it still counts as my second-best year ever writing.  So I'm counting that as a win.

I wrote 15 short stories and a novel in 2022.  I sold 3 of the short stories and published one.  I also published a collection .

Getting things sent and published is a weakness for me.  It's something I want to work on in 2023, as well as continuing to make new words.

In the weeks and months ahead, I'll try to share with you what I'm doing in these areas.  The next big thing on my list is a Fantasy Caper workshop in Vegas that starts a week from tomorrow.  I'm having fun writing a story for the workshop.

May 2023 be an improvement over 2022.  Thanks for walking this road with me.

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?

Life after Ian

 This will be a bit more personal than usual.  Hurricane Ian gave us a glancing blow on Wednesday night, which was more than enough to produce howling winds, downed trees, and uprooting my two rosebushes.  It also killed power to our house, never a great thing.

Fortunately, my husband Don, a physician, has access to the doctor's lounge at one of the local hospitals.  The hospital has both Internet and power and I'm taking advantage of both as I post my bimonthly blog.  

Thanks to this access, I've been able to keep up my writing streak, which is currently over 800 days.  It's comforting to be able to write even in the mild chaos our lives are in at the moment.

If you were in Ian's path, I pray you are okay.  If you weren't, please continue to pray for those of us who were.  

Are you receiving my newsletter?  If not, I'd love it if you did.  Check out the left-hand side of this page to sign up and receive a FREE short story as a way of saying thanks.

To show you some of what Ian did, I've included two pictures of my poor rosebushes.  I'm hoping we can save them.

Until next time.  Be safe, everyone!

141

 So I've spent this past week going over my inventory on my hard drive.  I tried to figure out how much fiction I have that hasn't been published or sold.

I knew it would be a lot.  I wrote 52 short stories last year.  I've been remiss in sending stories out or publishing.  I was prepared for a number over 100.

But even then I wasn't prepared for what I came up with.  According to my calculations, I have around 141 short stories sitting on my hard drive.

141.  That's a lot of fiction.  

Obviously, they're not doing much good sitting on my hard drive.  So I'm making plans to up my game.  Sending things to magazine and anthology markets is a priority.  Self-publishing is also a consideration.

Wish me luck on this journey.

A Milestone

 Today marks a special day in my writing journey.  

Today is the 500th day in a row that I've written either fiction or creative non-fiction (column is one example).

To my knowledge, this is the longest writing streak I've ever maintained.  It has meant writing when I was tired, writing when I was grieving, writing when I wasn't feeling well, and even writing when I just plain didn't feel like it.

I've written on vacation.  I've written well past midnight some days.  I've written during the day.  I've written when I wasn't sure what the story I started would be about.  I've written when other things tried to tempt me away from the keyboard.

Currently my minimum word count for a day is 500 words.  Beginning next year I plan to up that to 750 words.  Later in 2022 my goal is 1000 words a day.  Baby steps.  But I'm getting there.

Along with this I've been writing a short story a week.  I'm up to 45 short stories done - the goal is 52, or one year's worth.  Seven to go.  I think I might pull it off.

But I admit I'm proud of that 500.  It represents a lot of words.  A lot of exercising my creative brain.  And while it hasn't always been easy, it's been fun.  And I've learned a lot from it.

So now?  Let's aim for 600.  Wish me luck.

Wow. It's Been Too Long

 It's been a while since I posted.  A lot as gone on.  Some good, some bad.  2020 was definitely one of those years.  

And here we are with over half of 2021 gone.  I need to make this blog more of a priority.  I hope you all would appreciate that.

So...here's some writing news to share.

1. On June 29th, 2020, I decided I would try to write every day.  Some days it was hard to pull that off (one day I only managed 69 words).  But I kept up with it, and last month passed the one-year anniversary of writing every day.  

The benefit of a streak is it presses you to keep it up the longer it gets.  Not sure how long this will last, but I wouldn't be against several years.

2. At the beginning of 2021, I started the challenge of writing a short story a week for a year.  Last Sunday I finished story #30.  

This is harder than writing every day.  Some weeks I had a real problem coming up with a story.  There have been Sundays I've burned the midnight oil to finish.  And I'm sure some of these stories are better than others.  But I haven't given up.  I'm more than halfway done.  And I'm determined to pull it off.

3. Five of the short stories I wrote were put into a short story collection titled FIVE FEMALE GUMSHOES.  The collection contains five stories, each featuring a female private investigator.  

I'm pleased with this collection.  If you want an ebook, here's a link to check out: https://books2read.com/u/31KPX7

And here's a peek at the cover...

I'll let you know when it's available in print.  That means I'll be posting again (hopefully) soon.  Thanks for your patience!