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NaNoWriMo Is OvEr

NaNoWriMo is over! And I did it!! Some people wonder why I torture myself, ignore my family, shun the dog, let my house go to hell—well, more than it already is—and s-t-r-e-s-s for 30 days just to get some extra words down. Why? Because the things I learn about myself are priceless. I can actually

The check phase

After only getting in about 9000 words during the first half of November (way off the 25K needed to stay on track for NaNoWriMo), I decided to reevaluate my writing habits. The check phase of my own personal Plan, Do, Check, Act cycle for continuous improvement. Sure, I have excuses. I scheduled too many things,

This is a drill

There are no prizes for NaNoWriMo winners, so what do writers get out of it? Bragging rights, a 50,000-word novel that may or may not suck eggs, and a month of pulling out our hair, to start. It’s the drill–basic training for published life–because I’m sure NaNo is nothing compared to the pressure of fulfilling

Feelin’ groovy

For the last two weeks, I’ve been so focused on moving out of the house in Alabama, moving into the apartment in Virginia, and searching for a new house, that I’ve done very little writing. I have all of my excuses at the ready. How hard it is to focus when crammed into a hotel

Just keep swimming

I love watching my boys swim. After a two-year hiatus, they started training with a team five days a week in January, and today was their second swim meet. They’ve worked hard and we saw significant improvement over their first meet. The excitement on their faces when they realize that their discipline and hard work

Playing hooky

I’ve been playing hooky from serious writing this week. I need to make some plot decisions, but I was also starting to stress out a little too much. Normally, writing is fun. I love it. When it stopped being fun, I decided to take a few days off from my manuscript. I read a couple