A Balanced Life

I think we all would like to have a more balanced life. Maybe you would like a little encouragement, a few suggestions on what you can do that might help you find that balance. Here's a few I've used when I'm out of sorts or feel like my life is really out of kilter.

Write a funny poem.
Try on hats.
Go to the zoo or a wild animal park.
Go to a park and swing with the kids.
Splash through a puddle.
Tend your garden.
Play special CD's.
Eat off your best dishes.
Try a new hairstyle.
Listen to the wind through the trees.
Get up early enough to see the sunrise.
Visit art galleries, make notes, write a poem about subject.
Bath by candlelight.
Take a long walk.
Pray or meditate.
Make those cards you've been saying you'd do.
Write a letter to someone you've been neglecting.
Call a friend who needs to hear your voice.


Tonight we went out an gazed at the largest moon in over 100 years; if that won't give you a good feeling, I don't know what will.

NEW BEGINNINGS

With my last novel in the publisher's hands, I am waiting for those corrections/rewrites that will come if we write anything and have it accepted. In the meantime, I am doing what all authors are urged to do when they have their last book accepted. I'm beginning another book.

The publisher has asked me to begin work on the second book of what she feels should be a series (I had written it with that in mind; what a coincidence, huh?) I've been working on it--have a title, a brief outline of the main plot and conclusion and the first two chapters. But there is where I am stuck. I don't feel this beginning is as strong as my last book. Maybe the first chapter should be another chapter, or this chapter should actually be a prologue. Maybe I need to begin this book with a zinger of a hook and not ease readers into the story as I did "Aunt Lutie's Blue Moon Cafe."

I know that this book will again be a romantic/suspense. I know there will be a fire; I'm not sure if there will be a murder or not. Two of my characters will definitely get married; the main characters will become officially engaged. Married? I think that will be the ending "hook" to carry readers into the next book in the series. There's the possiblity a child will be kidnapped. Not by a pervert, that's for sure, but for a sort of extortion. Which will be the blackest moment? That I need to know before I get too far along.

Recently I read an old article on writing romance. The author recommended outlining four major plot pivots (I definitely have two, maybe three of those in my head), and approximately ten minor or small ones. That recommendation means I need to know what are pivotal and what are minor scene plots. When I get that figured out and know pretty well where I want them to show up in my book, the real work will begin. Filling in all those gaps--that hard-to-write middle part.

So, in the next two weeks while I have some free time, I have vowed to get those major and minor plots figured out--and seriously do some real writing.