One of My Favorite Things

"One of the saddest lines in the world is, "Oh come now--be realistic...." 

I heard this a thousand times when I announced to friends and family that I wanted to be a writer.  

'...The best parts of this world were not fashioned by those who were realistic. They were fashioned by those who dared to look hard at their wishes and gave them horses to ride." Quoted from Richard Nelson Bolles.

This week I'm focusing my effort on entering manuscript #1, Chase and Alex's story, into a contest. I have a list of do's and don'ts and I'm checking it twice. 

Wish me luck.

Business Plan Part 2: What do you value?

Tomatoes: You're My Obsession

I'm obsessed with finding the perfect tomato. One that has time to ripen on the vine into luscious sunshine sweetness. 

What does my ideal day look like?

What does my ideal day look like?

Jennifer Lee asks this question in her book The Right Brain Business Plan. (You may recall that I mentioned it in my Left Brain vs. Right Brain and How I Keep Myself Sane blog post from July 22.)

So what does my ideal day look like? Writing, writing, writing and more writing. That's assuming I have a publishing contract and I need to write novels to satisfy the insatiable appetite of my readers like you. 

There's more to the story, however. Jennifer Lee asked me to visualize my perfect day, including smells and other sensory stimuli.

Cell phones: An Editorial

You don't have a cell phone?! Wait. What?

I get this response a lot.

Writing Studios

Pinned from CorbisImages.com

As many of you know, my writing desk is shoved over in the corner of our parlor. I often dream about a studio and often wonder if I would be more productive if I had a dedicated work space separate from the rest of the living space of our house. 

The Evolution of a Writing Style

How I write is an ever evolving process. The old school me put pen to paper for journal entries, starting in high school. Sometimes, it was a fancy, faux leather bound journal. Sometimes it was a spiral bound notebook. For a while there, I used those black and white marble composition notebooks. 

Does this happen to anyone else?

So, like, um, this always happens to me: I pour boiling water over a black tea bag hanging out in my favorite heavy duty mug (or dainty china cup and saucer, depending on my mood)

leaving it on the counter in the kitchen to steep. I sit down at my desk in our parlor and begin to write. I get so engrossed in the writing that I forget about my cup of tea, which stands on the counter, alone, lonely sentinel, forlorn and abandoned, not to mention cold. Undrinkable. In order to drink it, I must reheat the tea but get preoccupied with writing again because I'll be darned if I'm gonna stand there in the kitchen like a bump on a log and wait the one minute the tea is reheating in the microwave. 

Repeat three or four more times.

Is this a sign that I'm a good writer? Or just a knucklehead? Does anyone else do this?