At first, I wasn’t even going to post this for my latest Art Every Day Month piece; it didn’t exactly turn out the way I wanted, mostly because I chose the absolute wrong colour as the background. (I must admit, I did really love the swirls before I coloured in the background!).

But then I thought to myself:

Did I enjoy making this?

Absolutely! I started it on Tuesday, and in my spare moments, would pick a colour and add more blobs or shapes. I really love “painting” with these new gel pens of mine.

And isn’t that the point of AEDM? To have fun being creative?

At this point, my inner me was starting to sound just a tad sappy, but that’s okay. She has a good point. Making this mandala made the deadlines fade. I had fun. It was soothing. Meditative.

And anyway, I’m so through with the self-judgment thing. This post is proof.

Organic blob.

Tags: aedm, Art

It’s Day 6 of NaNoWriMo, and I’m now at around 5700 words. A little behind in terms of reaching the 50,000 word goal but I’m okay with that. My own personal goal is to take the time to sit down and write a part of my novel - anything - every single day this month.

But even in this short space of time, I’ve learned a lot about my own writing.

1. I never realized this before, but I’m a bit of a perfectionist during the drafting process. It’s only now, when my focus is on my word count, that I’m really seeing this. I expect my words to be near perfect as I’m writing them, and when something doesn’t sound right, there’s a very strong urge to stop writing and start editing.
2. For this particular novel, I don’t know some of my characters well enough. Especially one of my main characters - I’m realizing he’s more of a cardboard-y character when compared with some of my other characters. I haven’t done enough on the character front, so I’ll have to find some time to work more on just the character profiles.
3. Having one wooden character has been hurting all of the dialogue scenes I have where that character is involved.
4. The more I practice just pressing on, skipping over bumps and obstacles, the easier it does get to keep on writing. As long as I keep telling myself, I’m going to go back over everything anyway, I can keep writing. My suspicion is that at the end of November, what I’ll have is a plumped out “outline” of my book that I’ll then be able to fill out into a novel.

The process has been enlightening so far, and I’m feeling very hopeful. My problem with writing has always been completion - if the NaNoWriMo method works for me, I will likely continue using it: set a goal to write out the entire book at a breathless pace, without worrying about various problems that crop up, and then go back and edit, even rewrite if necessary. Getting to completion, even if it’s a 50,000 word extremely plump “outline”, will be exciting enough on its own.

Another reason I’ve been able to just gallop ahead, ignoring all the obstacles in my way, is because of the “scenes method”, using Liquid Story Binder, that I picked up from my friend Ann-Kat. She’s actually written a tutorial on how she’s using LSB to work on her novel for NaNoWriMo - this is more or less what I’ve been doing, and it works. I was lucky enough to pick up LSB a while back when it was on Giveaway of the Day; I find that it’s organic and flexible enough for me to use without feeling restricted into a set process.

You can get Liquid Story Binder for a 30-day free trial, and doing NaNoWriMo with it will be more than enough to let you get a feel for the software and put it through its paces. If you’re already using LSB, check out Ann-Kat’s tutorial - her scenes method is basically a very flexible way of sort-of-outlining your book, so that you get the best of both worlds: absolute flexibility but a little bit of a map.

Tags: NaNoWriMo, Writing

What better day than today to play Three Beautiful Things?

1. The brilliance of the chance for change.

2. The power of this breath of hope.

3. The eloquence of a new day, birth to a new era.

Life truly is just so incredible, isn’t it?

Tags: 3BT, Life, Spirit

I finally snagged the Halloween pictures from Ward’s camera - not that we had very many! This Halloween told the tale of a little boy reluctant to actually wear his costume. We pleaded and we begged, and he finally consented to wear his cape and witch’s hat. Here he is, sans wand and not looking very costume-y:

As soon as we finished taking pictures, he took the cape off. He liked the hat, though.

It was a gorgeous, warm night. We got out, and Dylan marvelled at our lit pumpkin. We started walking, and he was very interested in each house we went to. But after we hit five houses, he said, “I want to go to three more houses, and then I want to go home.”

He is a little boy who has very firm opinions. After we went to the sixth house, he said, “Now we’re going to go to two more houses, and then we’re going to go home.”

And then: “Now we’ll go to one more house, and then we go home.”

And finally: “Okay, let’s go home now.”

But he did have a good time. And he remembered to say “thank you” every time. Plus he really enjoyed ringing the doorbells.

Tags: Family, holidays

This is my first completed “piece” for Art Every Day Month (AEDM). I enjoyed making this - it’s done with gel pens, and this new batch of gel pens flows very thick and inky; it almost feels like painting with pens! So I might actually try and complete one a day, instead of working on one throughout several days.

About five or six years ago, I actually filled up a little Italian paper blank book with these gel pen mandalas. I created one every day for about three or four months straight. It became almost a meditative experience, and in my quest for balance this month, doing something similar seems like the perfect thing for AEDM!

Mandala No. 1

Tags: aedm, Art, mandala

I just signed up for NaBloPoMo for this month, and now I’m looking at all the reasons why.

Reason No. 1: this is a hectic hectic month for me, filled with loads of work. And whenever I have a month like this, the trick is to achieve balance. Blogging balances me out, because it adds fun back into the equation.

Reason No. 2: I didn’t quite make it through October with daily posts for Blogtoberfest and I really want to do it this month.

Reason No. 3: I can’t do this next month because of Disney, not to mention Christmas. Thanksgiving in October really broke off my blogging “stride”, and I’m sure Christmas will be the same. And we’re going to be in Disney shortly after (we’ll be celebrating New Year’s there!).

Personally, though, Reason No. 1 is more than enough for me. Balance, balance, balance!

Tags: blogging, fun, holidays, Life

I’m writing this with a happy heart (and fully in the spirit of procrastination, of course. November is my Procrastination month, you know). I am so thankful for technically inclined friends, especially Ann-Kat, who answered my call for help - as in, help! I can’t seem to enter my word count at NaNoWriMo!

Since I happen to be very proud of my 2676 words to date, this was an extremely important issue. I sent my email call for help, and Ann-Kat answered with the answer - I have to enter the info in the “Novel Info” section of the site, since there are some glitches still.

Ah.

So I did. And now I feel so much better.

Tags: friends, NaNoWriMo, Writing

Yesterday, as part of my major procrastination plan, I got my husband to drop Dylan and I off at Chapters while he went and did the groceries. Having Dylan with me is supposed to stop me from plunging into another major book-buying binge, but what can I say? I’m very resourceful.

Plus the Thomas the Tank train table is located in the children’s section, right by all the sale-priced children’s and young adult books.

So I came home with two bags full of sale-priced hardcover children’s and young adults’ books, including a number of children’s fantasy novels - one of my favorite genres. Since I just recently finished The Mysterious Benedict Society I’ve been hungering for similar books, including the sequel, of course (which I didn’t get yesterday, since I was too busy plowing through all the sale books).

Since these books were released as hardcovers some time ago, most of them are now available as paperbacks. But I figure these will sit nicely on my bookshelves.

My to-be-read pile now includes:

The Riddles of Epsilon, by Christine Morton-Shaw: Jessica has moved to a remote island with her parents, and encounters both a ghost-like energy as well as three locked boxes. The story involves a boy named Sebastian who lived 100 years ago; back then he unearthed dangers which now also threaten Jess and her family.

Excerpt from the jacket: “Jess has a talent for solving puzzles, riddles, and codes. She is confronted with a series of riddles that she must unlock in order to save her mother from a dark and ancient threat. Jess is guided by the creepy presence in the cottage. The mysterious guide is called Epsilon, but is he a guide from the bright side or the dark?”

I’m really looking forward to this one; it sounds like it has all the ingredients that I like in a children’s fantasy.

I Am the Messenger, by Markus Zusak: Ed Kennedy is a cab driver who inadvertently stops a bank robbery. He begins receiving aces in the mail:

Chosen to care, [Ed] makes his way through town helping and hurting (when necessary) until only one question remains.

Who’s behind Ed’s mission?

This plot alone was enough to make me add the book to my growing stack of books to buy yesterday.

Gideon the Cutpurse, by Linda Buckley-Archer: This is the first of the Gideon trilogy - I just checked Amazon and the other two in the trilogy are The Time Travelers and The Time Thief. I’ve actually seen the Time Thief around a few times but never felt drawn to it, so maybe after I read this first book, I may pick these other two up, too.

Here’s the excerpt from the jacket: “An encounter with an anti-gravity machine catapults Peter Schock and Kate Dyer back to the 18th century and sets in motion a calamitous chain of events. … Stranded in another time and forced to chase the Tar Man to his lair, Peter and Kate find a friend and guide in reformed cutpurse, Gideon Seymour …”

I’m not usually fond of historicals, but this is as much a fantasy as it is a historical. I’m pretty sure I’m going to enjoy this one.

Children Of The Lamp: The Akhenaten Adventure by P.B. Kerr: I wasn’t as sure of this one, but I couldn’t resist: two children, John and Philippa, discover that they are descendents of a long line of djinn. It’s an interesting premise, so I’m looking forward to seeing how the story reads. The sequel was also on sale - Blue Djinn of Babylon - and I couldn’t resist that one either. So hopefully the series is a good one!

Here’s an excerpt from the jacket blurb: Luckily (and luck does have something to do with it), the twins are introduced to their eccentric djinn-uncle Nimrod, who will teach them how to harness their newly found power. And not a moment too soon! Because John and Philippa are about to embark on a search to locate a monstrous looking (but supposed to be dead) pharoah named Akhenaten, and his tomb, which may hold seventy lost djinn.

So there’s much excitement promised. It will be interesting to see how this one goes.

Skulduggery Pleasant, by Derek Landy: Okay, so tell me, how on earth could I resist this one? “Meet Skulduggery Plesant, ace detective, snappy dresser, razor-tongued wit, crackerjack sorcerer and walking, talking, fire-throwing skeleton -
as well as ally, protector and mentor of Stephanie Edgley, a very unusual and darkly talented twelve-year-old.”

Checking Amazon just now, it looks like there are two sequels so far, so if I enjoy this one, there’s more to come.

The Game Of Sunken Places, by M.T. Anderson: This one looked like fun. Two boys, Brian and Gregory, receive an invitation to stay at their Uncle Max’s mansion. Uncle Max is a distant relation, and from the sounds of it, just plain weird. And the mansion is even weirder. Inside the attic, the boys find the Game of Sunken Places.

Jacket blurb excerpt (these things sway me to buy, all the time): “Is the Game of Sunken Places an ordinary board game? Hardly! The Game of Sunken Places looks like a board game. And most of the time it acts like a board game. But from the moment Brian and Gregory start playing, they are caught up in an adventure that goes far beyond the board. Soon the boys are dealing with attitudinal trolls, warring kingdoms, and some very starchy britches.”

So there you have it. This is actually only about half of the books I picked up - overnight, my to-be-read pile has swelled in size. Actually, though, that’s the way it always happens around here.

Of course, I’m in deadline crunch right now, so what I’ve just done is increase the temptation to procrastinate. I also have a tendency to do this, too …

Reviews will be forthcoming, some here, some at my new book review blog.

Tags: Reading, The Sunday Salon, To Be Read

Sometimes I amaze myself with the things I can accomplish when I’m in full procrastination mode.

I got my new book review site up yesterday, and in the process fell in love with this new Wordpress theme, which really wasn’t suitable for the new site. But the theme kept nudging me all afternoon, so I finally gave in and uploaded and implemented it.

I think I’ve worked out most of the kinks, although I’m going to leave the integration of the Flickr feed in the sidebar for now. And I have to figure out how to get my images centered again. But I think I’ll leave it for now - I’ve got more deadlines to get through, another NaNoWriMo session tonight, and need to work on my mandala for Art Every Day Month!

Tags: design, Life

… and I had been worried I wouldn’t start today. But I did. And I have to say, I’m very surprised by one thing.

When something “sticky” comes up, some passage or phrase or action that isn’t working out right, I’m not stopping and trying to fix it. I’m just ploughing through the thing, going to the next sentence or paragraph.

I never realized how much easier it is to do it like this. Not stopping to fix anything, but just keeping on with the writing. I know I’ll be going back later anyway, and right now the whole point to me is to get those words down.

I only wrote 1411 words today, but that’s a pretty good start. I stopped because the 1411 words brought me to the end of my first scene. I didn’t feel ready to start on my second scene. But I did feel ready to write down more scenes. I’m not too sure in what order they fall, but at least I know they’re there to be written.

I think this will work for me. It definitely feels good!

It’s also Art Every Day Month, and my idea is to work on a mandala a week. With all the business of deadlines this month, it’s good to know I’ll keep on writing and art-ing.

Tags: Art, NaNoWriMo, Writing