WHERE DO I START?

This is not the time to apologize for not being here for all of you. But...Life has had its ups and downs, the muses have been playing games with my heart and soul, and sometimes we all feel like running away from home. Enough said. I am here and, hopefully, will do a better job of keeping my readers updated, informed, having fun with, and hoping to let you into, not only my life, work, and dreams, but offer a little knowledge from someone who has been playing this creative game a long time.
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When I was five I had already learned to read and was the youngest child at the nearby County Library to be given her own library card. By age ten, I had read everything in our small school library, could only go to that County Library every two weeks, so decided I'd create my own "books" and stories. That love for creating other lives has clung to me for more years than I want to admit.

Every time I think I have nothing to write about, in my memory I recall growing up in that small Texas town. I remember taking pencil in my teeth, Red Chief Tablet tucked in my waistband, and my climb to the top of a favorite mulberry tree. It was a great writing room--a place where no younger siblings could bother me and I could hide from Mama calling me to do chores. There are stories upon stories in those childhood memories.

What is your favorite place to go for peace and relaxation? Where would be the perfect spot for you to "hide" in order to write without interference? I sometimes take my notebook--or just a spiral notebook--and walk several blocks from my home to Jack's Pond. During many summers we have taken two weeks, driven 350 miles north, and camped on the Kern River where Ray fishes and I write. Along Bull Frog Creek, with the soft sound of water falling over the rocks, the muse opens up and pours forth all manner of creativity. I work on my stories already started. Or I soak up those sounds and sights around me--emotions that then seep out of my pen or laptop in poetry form. A peaceful place can allow you the right to freely compose whatever your heart dictates.

Look around you, or change your location. Listen to the world in that special place, or shut it out entirely. Close your eyes and soak up the atmosphere, or dream of worlds beckoning from your imagination. Never forget there is a time and a place for you muse to open up, and there is always something to write about.
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I'm working on a novella, "Badge of Honor," written from a prompt given to my creative writing class. Sometimes my muse grabs one of those starters and runs with it. Carmela Rojas has just slipped away from her former fellow Agents into the night to pick up evidence she has hidden. I know she is going to meet up with a murderer. Does she save herself? Or does she get the help she desperately needs?

MY, HOW TIME FLIES

I look at this blog and can't believe how long it has been since I wrote here. I have no excuse except that life and writing responsibilities have eaten up the days and weeks. Ray's healing from surgery has taken more time, and medication, than we thought. I am so happy to announce the surgery was a success, he can see better without glasses than he could with them before (at least in his left eye; the other one needs new glasses and is driving him nuts!), and we are very impressed with the surgeon who performed (with God's direction) this miracle.

I did find time to send out a few contest entries and won a third place in one, had a poem accepted for an annual anthology out of San Diego, and have managed to complete another quilt story for the collection of inspirational stories I am slowly building.

Today I attended the NCAP Book Exposition at Oceanside Library. There were not only author speakers, but college instructors, translators, publishers, agents, and printing company reps. It was an outstanding day of learning and sharing and networking. I also sold five books which certainly helped my ego and boosted my conficence about this book.

I still have to work on a list to mail my letters to offering a lecture or workshop in exchange for the right to sell books. The letters are ready and dated so I must get busy. I also have Press Releases to get out. This publicity/promotion is a lot of work.

Never think word-of-mouth doesn't go a long way. My daughter lives in Florida and went into a Books-a-Million Bookstore to "see if your book was on the shelf", knowing it wouldn't be. She talked up the book so much, the store buyer ordered ten to put on the shelves. That's the way to go, gal.

Tomorrow is Sunday--a day I can leisurely read the Sunday morning paper. Then I have to put away the book signing "stuff" until the next one appears. I'm trying to keep us on a low-carb regime and have found preparation takes quite a lot of time; we blew it today because of my long commitment but tomorrow we will be back on track.
I need to find some time to do that promotion work--after I have a long walk.

Monday is free. Tuesday Ray does a presentation for Veteran's Day ceremony at the Escondido Sr. Center; then I must come home and back a birthday cake for Vici, my neighbor who will turn 92. Wednesday is Veteran's Day ceremony at the wall where Ray's name appears, then home for her birthday celebration at 3. Hope she likes strawberry cake.

I think the rest of the week is free, so maybe I will have time to really write something fun.

CHUNKS OF TIME

As I mentioned several blogs ago, I've been under the knife for skin cancers. That good-for-you antibiotics make me fuzzy headed. It's really very disconcerting. Here I have this large chunk of time--free time to work on that book I've been trying to restart and complete--and I'm wiped out. Brain doesn't work for extended periods of writing. Concentration is woozy. Terrible!

That doesn't mean I won't get anything done. It will be less than I usually plan. I have a schedule every day where I set aside at least two hours to write. Because of my busy life and scheduled teaching gigs, the chunk of time set aside is not the same each day. But I attempt to get those hours in.

Experts say we should create a time to write, the same as we set aside time to eat and sleep. Yes, there are some people who equate being able to write with the needs of daily living. I think I might be one of them but I do manage to snack at the computer and that is done without a schedule or any will power. It's not the best way to sustain myself.

I often have deadlines set by someone outside my usual schedule--editors, publishers, Homeowners Board I serve on, or lesson plans for my classes. I schedule those. Around them, I still mamage to make time to work on that unfinished novel, create an outline for a new short story, try to understand all the requirements of a POD publisher for my latest book, and all the other ideas flitting thourgh my head.

Those chunks of time are needed by all of us who write. Take advantage of them--make time for them--create that schedule to include them. Once you make the alloted time a part of your writing life, it will be routine to claim those chunks of time.