Summertime...and it's almost back to school already!

When the back-to-school commercials start in full force, I get sad. Summer is always too short, I always pack way too much in, have a great time and am not quite ready to go back. But, hey, it's a job and the pups and I have to eat and keep a roof over our head, right? Definitely not complaining...just a little whining.

And once again, this blog has been a little bare lately. As has my writing. Why is that? *shrugs* It's summertime, I should have plenty of time to write. And I do write...a little. Nothing near where I want to be, where I'd like to be. I think I need to put myself on a pretty tight schedule to finish this rewrite and do at least one revision/edit before passing it along to a couple of beta readers. But I am reading my arse off, so I suppose that's something! So many good books out there...I want to read them all!

School starts in a couple of weeks and between then and now I need to:

Recover from sinus surgery. Man, the surgery is not too terrible (beyond the not being able to breathe through your nose for a long while) but the recovery is slow going. Today was particularly brutal as I had to get some of the packing in my sinuses removed. And, yes, I'm one of the 11% that passes out (or comes close, anyway) when things muck about in my sinuses. Oh, and I get to go back next week to get more packing and my splints out. Yay.

Write curriculum for my brand-spankin'-new Journalism classes. I'm excited about this but it's going to take a serious amount of time because, even though this is my "guinea pig" year, I want to get it as "right" as possible. 

Put my classroom together. Right now, the classroom is packed up in 14 boxes stored in the brand-new school's gym and cluttering up my parents' basement. Luckily with high school, stuff doesn't need to be cutsie and not every wall has to be decorated. But I like it...and I have to be in it 8 hours a day so there you go.

Come up with a strategy to incorporate both yearbook and newspaper production into my Journalism II classes, which are very small at the moment (as happens at brand-new schools), and still be able to hit our deadlines.

Busy, busy! (heh, this is what happens when you put stuff off because you don't want to acknowledge the imminent demise of summer break.)

Hey, is anyone participating in WriteOnCon August 14th and 15th? Even though work starts the 15th and I'll probably be at school for at least part of the 14th, I'm still going to participate as much as I can including entering the 450-word contest they've got going on.

How do you stay focused?

How DO you stay focused? I'm in serious unfocusedness-land, people. I mean, I really like my YA Romantic Suspense (that's the genre I've decided it is...but that might change. Again.) but there are TWO other plots just a knock-knock-knocking on my brain and I'm having a very hard time focusing on these rewrites.

Credit

On the plus side, I've turned into a procrastination genius. In some ways, this is actually good. I'm catching up on reviewing all those lovely NetGalley stories I've read...finally posting them and getting them archived so it doesn't look like I have eleventy-billion novels to review. I've hit the dentist, the doctor, the vet, have my sinus surgery scheduled (yahoo? A week's recovery will be no fun but at least I'll be able to breathe!), all my reviews for the past year have been sent on to the respective publishers (something I've been meaning to do for the last six months), and I've read all my magazines (I told you about the massive pile I get...now it's ready to go to Mom).


How do you handle it when you get unfocused--and yet you REALLY want to get something done? Because I do want to get through these rewrites. When I get through the rewrites, I can get through revisions. When I get through the revision, I can do a quick edit and send it on to some beta readers while looking for crit partners (anyone up for exchanging manuscripts? I lurve y'all...). Once I get it through that process and another revision/edit, I can start querying agents. So, there's a plan in place but my brain is just not cooperating.


Am I scared? Maybe that's it. The last time I finished a novel and sent out queries, my dream agent asked for a partial but then sent a very sweet rejection. I mean, rejection does scare me. But I've failed before and, if I do fail again (despite my investing 2-3 years of my life in this project), I'll pick myself up and keep on writing and trying. 


I'm a late-bloomer as it is. Despite writing (golf magazine, nonfiction) and wanting to write (fiction) since I was a teen, I'd never finished a novel until I was in my late 30's. Before I got deep into social media and found an incredibly supportive writing community, I never thought I could actually finish a novel. Carcasses of my attempts lay scattered behind me...false starts, unconnected scenes but never an entire novel. *sigh*

Okay, if you say so,  Avengers! Credit

Enough babbling and back to my original question: how do you stay focused? Or get refocused? 

Operation Get Fit: Research

Call me a nerd but when I need information, I go read something. And, because I'm working on the whole "Get Fit" thing, I found a couple books that may or may not help me. Now, I get a ton of magazines (I have a serious problem, y'all) including Health, Shape, Fitness, Women's Health, Glamour...and a pile more (they cycle their way through me to Mom to all of Mom's friends--at least they're well-used, right?) so I know to take anything I read--published or on the interwebs--with a huge grain of salt. But not too much salt, because that's bad for your blood pressure.

DROP DEAD HEALTHY: One Man's Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection by A.J. Jacobs


I bought this one was actually more for "fun" than anything--I didn't expect to learn too much from "one person's quest to become the healthiest man in the world," according to the blurb. Anyway, Jacobs went through an absurd amount of trouble for this quest. He consulted with tons of experts (who pretty much told him what we already know--eat healthfully, exercise, get enough sleep) and tried a boatload of diets including raw food and extreme chewing (did you even know there was such a thing? I didn't.). He tried a bunch of exercise programs including using his treadmill desk almost constantly (he walked somewhere close to 1k miles or something ridiculous like that!). It was quite interesting.

SIX WEEKS TO SKINNY JEANS: BLAST FAT, FIRM YOUR BUTT, AND LOSE TWO JEANS SIZES by Amy Cotta


Yeah, right. (For disclosure's sake, I did get this one from NetGalley for review--it's not one I'd ever buy myself!) This book didn't offer me anything that I hadn't already digested from last month's Women's Health. Again, it's all about choosing the right foods (she puts way too many on the "restricted" list. I'm more of a "if you want it, take a little but don't binge" mindset and don't really trust those who tell me I can't have things like granola). The NetGalley edition didn't have the exercises but again, they sounded like the ones you can find every month in Shape or Fitness. And that first round of "diet"? Way too restrictive. One question in the book was something like, "Why do I feel sluggish the first week?" and she says it's because the person's body is getting used to a new way of eating. Um. No, thanks.

EAT AND RUN: MY UNLIKELY JOURNEY TO ULTRAMARATHON GREATNESS by Scott Jurek and Steve Friedman


Another NetGalley get because I'd love to be able to call myself a runner someday. Not an ultramarathoner--those people are cray-cray! One hundred and thirty-five miles through Death Valley? No thank you! But this was a very interesting read because it started with Scott Jurek's life and motivations for getting into running. I do enjoy an interesting biography! Anyway, he's also a vegan and he shares a bunch of recipes throughout the book of things he eats to fuel his body--something that's incredibly important, especially when you're running races that are over 50 miles long (eep--can you imagine?!?). I'm too much of a carnivore to turn totally vegan but some of the recipes sounded pretty good (I'd probably tweak them so they were more vegetarian than vegan but that's just me).


It all boils down to eating as healthfully as possible, getting your exercise on, and making good lifestyle choices. Now, let's hope that works! Heh.


Read anything interesting lately?

When the story goes all wibbly-wobbly

For even the most dedicated of plotters, stories sometimes take unexpected turns. A secondary character becomes key to the plot. A third-person point of view gets up close and personal, morphing into first person. A setting moves across the pond.

A twisty path. Credit.

Unexpected can be good or it can take you so far off course that you barely recognize the original story. Then you have the choice of either going back, deleting and following your original course or taking the new path that appears before you.

What to do...what to do...


With one novel--which is now hidden deep in the trunk--I stuck to my guns and stuck with the plot, deleting those little plot bunnies that appeared and left a mess all over everything.


But with my current story, I'm going with the flow. My main character's love interest has become more than just a summer fling--he's an integral part of the story and even has his own voice now, which changed the POV of the story from third person limited to third person omniscient. I've never written anything in omniscient before and am struggling with how to corral the voices, how to transition between my characters...it's a challenge. But, because I think this is going to work out even better than originally planned (if I can get a hold of this squirmy POV, that is), I'm hanging in there.




What about you--do you follow those turns or do you go where the wind takes you?

Operation Get Fit: It's the little wins that count

Last Operation Get Fit post I was down, depressed, and sad. And thank you so much for reading my whine, commenting, and propping me back up and sending me toddling off, better attitude in hand. You all are fabulous.


While my weight still hasn't changed (come on, seriously?!? not even an ounce? maybe the scale is broken...or not), I'm determined to keep going and to stay positive by focusing on baby steps to lifelong success. You know, sometimes, it's the little wins that count.

TOP TEN LITTLE WINS OF THE PAST TWO WEEKS:

1) Didn't gain any weight while at chi-chi resort on "working vacation"

Credit

2) Run/walking an hour on the beach goes about fifty-million times faster than when on a treadmill
3) Bought myself an adorable hot pink purse that was seriously on sale (hey, I deserved it!)
4) Finally have a summer routine that's working for me--and it includes daily exercise
5) Made a kick-ass run/walk playlist (with Call Me, Maybe of course! Cheesy is good.)
6) Up to running 20 minutes (15 min and 5 min) out of my 45 min. workout. This is WAAY up from the three minutes I started with last month
7) No longer out of breath walking up the five flights of stairs to the YMCA's equipment room. (Sadists.)
8) Get to watch Supernatural while pounding out my 45 minute treadmill routine. Woot for Sam and Dean! (Though I'm not exactly sure what season we're in. Might have to look that up. Eh. Who cares. They're adorable.)
9) Haven't *needed* my mid-afternoon nap, which means I'm finally caught up on my sleep. I sure do enjoy a good nap, though.
10) I can touch my toes now. Flexibility FTW! 


Any little wins for y'all lately?