Take Time to Eat the Flowers

Baxter enjoying the lilies--by eating them!

Have you ever had a time in your life when you're so busy there's no space to breathe? If not, why not?! How do you live? I'm asking because I need to know--this whole summer has been swamped--I'm mired in projects and behind on all of them. Next week is even busier as I'm camera person and editor for a film project.

How to find time to eat the lilies?

Big bits

This post is about a little of this and a tweak of that.

First up, a couple of good blog sites to visit today. Simon over at Constant Revision is having a great, fun and quirky contest. Elizabeth at Mystery Writing is Murder has some great links. And Michelle at Author Michelle McLean has a fun interview and contest with Shaun David Hutchinson.

Just three big bits that show how much there is on this great blogosphere of ours.

And a note about my infrequent posting recently and a thanks to all my readers who check back. Puck is growing every day, so I have less puppy-take-care-of time involved...and as soon as that happened, I became involved in a lovely little film project. I'm going to be camera and editing! Fun...but taking that precious time.

Meanwhile, there's a deadline looming for my w.i.p. and I need to decide if I need sleep for the next few months or what else I can do to give myself the time/energy/focus to get it all done?

Any suggestions? Please?

Jester's Folly, A review

I've just read a delightful short story by my friend, Aubrie Dionne over at Flutey Words: Jester's Folly, published by Gypsy Shadow Publishing. It's a 6300 word story in her CARNIVAL OF ILLUSIONS series. This is the first one I've read and now I want to read more of her stories.

It's always useful to see what another writer does right. Aubrie draws you into the world of the Carnival and her main character, immediately (can be difficult to do). Her main character is sympathetic while being unusual and her problems are great (good writing here). There's plenty of excellent action, an unexpected event and a satisfying ending rounds it all off. With a touch of a twist to boot!

What might be missing? Not to give it away, but one relationship seemed a little...too easily resolved. It's hard to have too much complexity and conflict in 6300 words, but I wanted a bit more struggle between two characters.

Overall, a fun engaging read.

Aubrie also writes novels--so my novelists out there, what do you think about writing both novels and short stories? I find doing so to be useful. But I have friends who find it only confusing, switching from one format to another.

FREEDOMS!

Puck is amazed at his first July Fourth!

And I'm grateful for the freedom to write, live and love!

If you're one of my readers in the States, how do you celebrate the Fourth?

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY EVERYONE!

Puck--My Other Excuse

For why I've been a bit absent over the last couple of weeks! Here's the first video of my new puppy--and one of the first videos I edited. It's fantastic, having a new puppy, but also time consuming, exhausting and distracting. Add to that a couple of writing deadlines...and well...some days it's been all I do to maintain the basics. Some days I've been in survival mode.

So I haven't written nearly as much as I've wanted to--insert guilt and shame here--but have also realized over the last couple of days that Puck won't be a puppy forever. And I'm learning an editing program. And I've found the back of my brain has been working on my w.i.p., now that I have a few moments to return to it.

I'm working on forgiving myself and not offering excuses, because what good do they do? But I had to post this one...because he's so cute!

My first edited video!

Here's what I've been doing recently instead of...much of everything else, save teaching exercise classes and playing with the new puppy. I'm learning an editing program for next weekend's i48--a local film festival in which you have 48 hours to produce a 3-6 minute film.



What have I learned so far from this besides how to use the program? Writing counts. I didn't bother to script any of this footage as it was all "practice," I just did the exercises. But even a little scripting would have helped the entire process. Saved me time and effort. Writing's often the most important part.

Our i48 film will be scripted!

WriTueWedNoMo

The grin on my face is no lie--away from the distractions of everyday life, I'm writing!

As Kathy of Well Placed Words mentioned in her latest post, a couple of weeks ago she and I headed up north for a two day writing marathon.

 Here's Kathy on the way home, snow in May!

 How did it go? Fantastic for me, I achieved my goal of a rough draft of an outline for my new w.i.p.Both Kathy and I focused and accomplished a ton in a couple of days. What have I gotten done since then? Um...not so much. Where we were, there was little to do except write, walk the dog, write, eat lunch, write...you get the idea. No Internet service, no e-mail, no snail mail, most people knew were gone, so few calls. No TV, either. No laundry, no dinner to cook, no house to clean. No teaching exercise classes, my other job. Gone were the excuses and distractions of everyday life.

Kathy's dog, who didn't do any writing (that we know of).

 And now all those lovely "reasons" for my not sitting down hour after hour have returned--with the problem of being behind in all of them. It was only two days for heaven's sake! My mom always said, "If you're gone for two days, might as well be gone for two weeks" and she was right. With prep work and catching up, it takes time, energy and focus. And oh, how I miss my writing marathon time. But I can't take two days out of every week to drive north to McCall to stay in Kathy's friend's cabin to write.

So, what to do? One thing I've determined is to "Do it first" as Margie Lawson so wisely says. I haven't yet--I returned to a couple of major distractions, but I'm setting my intention here.

One glorious distraction: Puck, my new puppy who arrives here soon, at 4 weeks.

What else? Lists always help me--unless I can't find the list! I'll admit I'm still scrambling for other ways to be focused and effective, whether it's writing my new w.i.p. or shopping my current novel or paper training Puck. Readers, ideas? Please?