Some Good News

This past week, we finally sold our house in Ohio! We actually got a contract on it a month ago, but we knew not to count on it until closing. That happened Wednesday, so we are now free and clear of it–and its bills!

The other good thing is that I finally made a writing goal. More on that below.

What I’ve Been Reading

This is a book I’ve been waiting to see published for a long time: Torn Between Worlds by Linda Chalk. Linda is a writing friend, and her book is pretty unique: a Native American historical romance where it’s the heroine who’s a Native American. Except in a way, she isn’t–brought up by white settlers from a very young age, she knows nothing of her heritage. She gets a chance at finding it when she joins a wagon train to California. The story is set in 1848 and covers the journey on the Oregon Trail, along with Lydia’s many discoveries, starting with the sexy trail boss Joe. I really enjoyed the historical detail that really brought this story alive–highly recommended!

What I’ve Been Writing

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My goal this week was small–only 1000 words–but that did the trick. I met that goal, and also completed the next week of my online workshop on Secondary Plotlines. I also got a book about one of the time periods in my WIP, and started reading that.

This week, I’m going to keep my writing goal small, as I still don’t know where this book is going and that slows me down. So I’ll go for 250 words/day, for five days, or a total of 1250 words. I also want to read my research book, and complete another week of my online workshop.

What about you–what good things are happening in your life right now? Have you read any good books lately? How are you doing with whatever goals you might have, whether writing or otherwise? Please share in the comments–I love to hear from you!

Jennette Marie Powell writes stories about ordinary people in ordinary places, who do extraordinary things and learn that those ordinary places are anything but. In her Saturn Society novels, unwilling time travelers do what they must to make things right... and change more than they expect. You can find her books at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Kobo, iTunes, and more.

An Eventful Week

…to follow and uneventful one, of course! Mostly this was travel–no wait, it was all travel. I had to go to Ohio for work, so that pretty much consumed my week, and as you might guess, no writing got done.

Work went well, and my teammates and I accomplished what we’d planned to do during my visit, so that was good! I got to spend a couple of evenings with my parents, one with friends, and also got to see my daughter and her partner. So overall a great time! It just didn’t leave much time for anything else–and that’s OK.

What I’ve Been Reading

I finished a novel before I left, The Babbling Brook Naked Poker Club, Book 4 by Ann Warner. This is a cute, cozy mystery series about people who live in a retirement community. In this book, the main characters are handed several valuable pieces of artwork that were stolen in an infamous heist decades before, and now must return it while avoiding being charged with the crime themselves. A fun and delightful installment in a series I really enjoy! Highly recommended!

 

What I’ve Been Writing

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Ummm…. nothing. Just too much going on this week. I also didn’t have a chance to watch any workshop videos, so that too is a big fat zero. I don’t regret it because family and friends are more important, and I don’t get to see them often, since our move. But this is a new week, and I’m going to fall back on the same goals: for the writing, make a list of 20 things that could happen in each of the next three scenes; for the learning, I want to watch the first week’s videos and do the assignment for a WMG Publishing online workshop in Secondary Plotlines. Actually getting into the writing will be a bonus.

What about you–ever have one of those weeks where you make no progress? Have you done any traveling lately? How are you doing on whatever goals you’re working toward, whether writing or otherwise? Please share in the comments–I’d love to hear from you!

Jennette Marie Powell writes stories about ordinary people in ordinary places, who do extraordinary things and learn that those ordinary places are anything but. In her Saturn Society novels, unwilling time travelers do what they must to make things right... and change more than they expect. You can find her books at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Kobo, iTunes, and more.

Unpacking Copyright

This week around the house, I finally got around to unpacking some lingering boxes. Three of these were in the master closet, along with a garbage bag full of my husband’s clothes (that he obviously hasn’t really missed, but oh well…). DH installed the final closet organizer and shelves, so I did the unpacking.

What’s surprising is the amount of empty shelf space, along with half of a clothing rail. The rail will be filled when we bring up our extra coats from the basement, but the shelves? I guess I did a better job of decluttering before the move than I thought!

The other thing DH did was to tidy up and hang pictures in this little nook off of the great room. On the right is the door into our bedroom. I finally unpacked the several boxes of books there, and filled the bookshelf, and DH hung his family memorial items. I’m happy with how it turned out! There are still plenty of projects, but getting these done is a good feeling.

Learning about Copyright

This year, I set a goal to learn something about copyright once a month. Copyright is so important to writers, as it’s what gives our work value and enables us to make money from it, by preventing others from doing so without our permission (legally, at least). But there is so much nuance to it, and so many details.

A couple years ago for Christmas, I received The Copyright Handbook, by Stephen Fishman. I already knew the basics, like the fact that we have a copyright in our work as soon as it’s committed to paper, hard drive, or whatever other fixed form, and that holding a copyright does not require registration. I re-read Chapter One, which is a good reinforcement of the basics. On one level, I knew that it’s not required to put a copyright notice on the material for it to be copyrighted, but what I wasn’t clear on was that this isn’t even required by a publisher. The notice is more to reinforce the fact that it’s copyrighted to anyone who might be thinking of infringing, and deter those who might otherwise not realize the material is copyrighted. I also learned that the disclaimers that are inserted by publishers are mostly a tradition (and reinforcement to those who might unwittingly use the material otherwise), but not a requirement, though they were historically. The words “all rights reserved” were never a requirement except in Brazil and Honduras.

If infringement does occur, the author is likely to get a better settlement if the material bears a copyright notice. Without the notice, the infringer might owe a lesser settlement due to the possibility that they could have thought the material was in the public domain (i.e., not copyrighted).

What I’ve Been Reading

I’m still reading the final book in that fantasy box set, which is actually six short novels. That box set has been quite the deal, at $ .99, and has given me many hours of entertainment! I’m really enjoying the current book.

In nonfiction, I read Playing with Fire by Scott Rieckens. One thing I love about reading personal finance blogs is reading about the author’s journey out of debt and/or to being financially independent. Playing with Fire is such a story, about when the author realized he and his wife wouldn’t be able to retire until they were over 70, due to their paycheck-to-paycheck, luxurious lifestyle, and goes over the changes they made to get out of that cycle and work toward the life the really wanted. Recommended!

What I’ve Been Writing

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I met my writing goal this week of 450 words/day for five days, and a total of 2250 words. Actually, I exceeded it a little, and got over 2400 words, so that tells me I’m good to bump up my goal again! So this week, I’m going to shoot for 500 words/day, for five days, and a total of 2500 words.

I met my learning goals this time too, by learning something about copyright as noted above, and I also completed Week 4’s videos and assignment for the WMG Publishing “Teams in Fiction” workshop. This week, I want to complete the videos and assignment for Week 5.

What about you–have you unpacked anything interesting lately? What have you read recently? And how are you doing on whatever goals you might have, whether writing-related or otherwise? I’d love to hear from you–please share in the comments!

Jennette Marie Powell writes stories about ordinary people in ordinary places, who do extraordinary things and learn that those ordinary places are anything but. In her Saturn Society novels, unwilling time travelers do what they must to make things right... and change more than they expect. You can find her books at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Kobo, iTunes, and more.

Rain, Rain, Go Away

Today is the first day in a week that we’ve had dry weather. It has rained since Monday, only stopping on Thursday and Friday to switch to snow. Our driveway’s a mess, and I’ve had migraines all week, thanks to the weather. And yes, we’re still getting water in the basement, now in different places than before. DH has already been in contact with the waterproofing company, and the owner says they’ll be back out to work on it once it stops raining on a workday (it’s supposed to start back up tomorrow).

I can’t complain too much–our basement water is just some seepage through the walls. But our area got over 5″ of rain in two days, and some people have had their homes flooded. DH is out on the tractor fixing the driveway now, I don’t have a headache now, and we have a lot to be grateful for.

The freeze we had a couple weeks ago didn’t hurt our wild daffodils

What I’ve Been Reading

Fellowship, by Lynette M. Burrows. This is a prequel to her debut novel, My Soul to Keep, set in the same alternate-history, dystopian world, about four newly-orphaned kids on the run in Appalachia. I loved the first book, and loved this one too–the characters are engaging, and the theocratic U.S. in an alternate 1960’s fascinates me. Highly recommended! I’m looking forward to the next book in the series!

What I’ve Been Writing

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Once again, I did not make my goal (sigh). The headaches are part of it–I just haven’t felt like doing much. I did manage to write four days this week, and got about 1800 words in–so not a total bust. But I am also again at a stuck point. This time, it’s a need for research. I have characters in three different time periods, and two different places, neither of which is Dayton, Ohio. So it’s time to do some research and figure out what could happen next in these time periods and other places. So this week’s goal is to research at least 15 minutes a day or until I figure things out, and to get 1000 new words, whether that’s 200 words five days, 500 words two days, or something in between.

I did meet my learning goal, and finished the WMG Publishing workshop on Teams in Fiction. Definitely helpful, and a topic I’d never given much thought to before. I am going to take a week off of workshops while I focus on my research, then will probably jump into another one next week.

What about you–how’s the weather where you are? Has it impacted what you do? Have you read any good books lately? And how are you doing on whatever goals you might have, whether writing or otherwise? Please share in the comments–I’d love to hear from you!

Jennette Marie Powell writes stories about ordinary people in ordinary places, who do extraordinary things and learn that those ordinary places are anything but. In her Saturn Society novels, unwilling time travelers do what they must to make things right... and change more than they expect. You can find her books at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Kobo, iTunes, and more.

My Brain is Full

My supervisor at work says this after a long training session, and I think it’s particularly appropriate this week for a lot of people. So many extra things to do and things to think about with the holidays approaching is enough in itself, but add to that the other various things in life people are dealing with, it’s sometimes hard to be creative.

In some cases, it’s a lack of time, but for me, it’s mental bandwidth. We got some major news on the business that owns the property across the street, which necessitated a neighborhood meeting, a lot of back-and-forth, and took up some mental space. Ultimately, it’s good news, probably among the best we could have hoped for: the business managers have finally come to the realization that this location isn’t suitable for something on the scale they’re planning, which has changed and grown throughout the year. We’re still skeptical, and suspect it’s as much because they haven’t been able to attain the investment they need, but we don’t really care how they spin it as it’s a positive outcome. They tell us the land will still be developed, but in accordance with the existing zoning, so we’re fine with that. It will be interesting to see what form that takes.

What I’ve Been Reading

I finally started back into some fiction this week, after finishing another non-fiction book: The Chaos Cure, by Marla Cilley, aka FlyLady. I Flylady’s plan for getting rid of clutter and keeping my house clean back in the early 2000s when I was laid off, and it helped. While a few of the habits stuck (mostly, making my bed and cleaning out the sink every day), most didn’t, though I did go through a big declutter in 2016 after we decided we were really going to move. I do still think her plan is helpful, and have slowly gotten back into it, in a modified fashion–after all, she encourages us to make her system our own. So I was interested to see what her latest book was all about.

It’s not about her plan–that’s covered in her first book, Sink Reflections. The Chaos Cure is more of a series of tips and “hacks,” many of which I was already doing. It was a quick, easy read, and written in her casual, fun style so it was worth a look. I don’t have the brain to think of them right now, but I picked up a few new things to try as well.

What I’ve Been Writing

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This has been another week where I keep telling myself “any progress is good.” While I didn’t quite make my goal of writing five days and a total of 1,250 words, I did manage to get in three days for almost 1,000 words. The story is getting more and more convoluted, so that’s not helping either. But that’s part of the deal when you write time travel.

This week, I’m going to keep trying for that 250 words, five days. Luckily, I’m mostly ready for the holidays, with only stocking stuffers left to shop for and everything else due to come in this week (I do as much as possible online). It also helps that we kept the holidays simple this year, but who knows what else will come up!

How about you–do you know that “brain is full” feeling? Are you ready for the holidays, if you celebrate? How are you doing on whatever goals you might have, whether writing or otherwise? Please share in the comments–I’d love to hear from you!

Jennette Marie Powell writes stories about ordinary people in ordinary places, who do extraordinary things and learn that those ordinary places are anything but. In her Saturn Society novels, unwilling time travelers do what they must to make things right... and change more than they expect. You can find her books at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Kobo, iTunes, and more.

Figuring it Out

This was another week where it felt like I didn’t accomplish much, though I actually did. Not any significant work on the house on my part, though DH did some work on the grounds, mostly bush hogging to clear out the meadows where the deer hang out. I did do a cooking day yesterday though, so we should be good for meals pretty much through Christmas. Win!

Last week I mentioned that I needed to do the “write everything you know about your story” exercise. I did that, three times. As in, it took me three sessions to write everything I knew (and there’s still more). It helped, but didn’t, in and of itself, reveal what to write for the next scene.

So I pulled out another old trick I’d almost forgotten: Twenty Answers. In this one, you ask a question (usually, “what happens next?” or “what will this character do?”) then write twenty possibly answers, no matter how obvious, stupid, implausible, or mundane. Yep, including things like “everyone decides to just go home” or “aliens arrive and kidnap everyone.” The first few answers will usually be the obvious/mundane ones. You may be forced to write something ridiculous just to come up with those last few answers, but in between are usually a few gems. I didn’t even get to twenty yet and already see a few possibilities for the next scene. While I don’t know what will happen beyond that, I can get going again.

What I’ve Been Reading

The Fates Trilogy by Kristine Grayson. I read this earlier this summer, and what a fun read! I would consider these contemporary fantasy with some romance. In these books, the three Fates are real, and they’ve been fired from their jobs, and replaced by Zeus’ teenage daughters who have no clue what they’re doing. They must figure out how to make things right and help humans who also have special power also find love, while helping them. Highly recommended!

What I’ve Been Writing

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See above. This week’s going to be busy with the holiday and houseguests, and I’m also not 100% unstuck, so I’m going to drop back to 100 words a day, for five days. I also want to finish the online workshop I started back before we moved.

What have you been up to lately? Read any good books recently? How are you doing with whatever goals you’re working on, whether writing related or otherwise? Please share in the comments–I’d love to hear from you! And if you’re in the US, have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Jennette Marie Powell writes stories about ordinary people in ordinary places, who do extraordinary things and learn that those ordinary places are anything but. In her Saturn Society novels, unwilling time travelers do what they must to make things right... and change more than they expect. You can find her books at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Kobo, iTunes, and more.

Overdue Update

Anyone who’s read this blog recently (this past year) can probably guess why I’ve been absent for the past several weeks. Yes! My brain has been stuck on house-house-house-apartments-house-house-apartments-house-house…

We’ve been to Tennessee twice since I last blogged, and there’s been a lot of progress on the house. All three people who read this are probably looking for pictures, so who am I to disappoint them?

The exterior painting is mostly done, with the exception of the porch posts and deck railings, and a few spots of trim. Also, the builder finally got rid of the big dumpster in front so I can finally get a decent photo:

    

They’ve mostly been working inside this past month. They have stained the beams, installed the tongue-and-groove ceiling in the great room, master bedroom, and my office, and have put up most of the window and door trim. Ahhh, the smell of Minwax in the evening…

When we were there in early May, our daughter and her partner joined us. It was the first time they’d been to the property, and they loved it! We went for a hike around the land. There is an old, fallen-down farmhouse on the other side of the ridge from where we’re building, and our daughter found the outhouse that went with it. She also found wild roses along our driveway, and there were wild strawberries growing on the other side of the ridge. Fun discoveries!

A lot more had been done when DH and I returned last week. Kitchen cabinets were in, and so were the built-ins for my office!

     

And in case you’re wondering, no, our entire house is not being painted mauve. That’s the primer (which was weird to me, as I’ve always seen white primer).

In addition to the house stuff, there’s also been some big changes in our real estate investments (aka my retirement). We sold the 16-unit building we owned here in Ohio, which leaves us owning only our house here. We then bought two small complexes in Tennessee, one with 10 units, the other with 13. There is a lot of paperwork involved in both selling and buying, and I’m the one who handles that, so… apartments have been very much on my mind. It helps that the new buildings came with property management in place, and they look like they really  have their act together, so once I get online banking and a few bill payments set up, our work with these should be minimal.

We’ve also started working on our current house, getting it ready to sell. My husband’s been patching walls and painting, and we’ve started to pack away personal items and get rid of clutter. We’ve already taken a load of outdoor stuff to Tennessee, and will take more once the house is under lock and key.

What I’ve Been Reading: Of course I’ve still been reading! I can’t go to sleep at night without reading first, kind of like how Beavis and Butthead can’t sleep without TV (thumbs up if you get that one!). I’m too lazy to link them all or find covers, so I’ll just list them. There were a couple of additional non fiction books I started but did not finish, that are not listed here. I highly recommend all of the books below!

  1. Soldier’s Duty by Patty Jansen. Third in her Return of the Arghyrians science fiction series, which I really enjoyed.
  2. Writing with Chronic Illness by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. I found this one really helpful in seeing how someone else has dealt with this and still manages to produce a lot.
  3. Heir’s Revenge by Patty Jansen. Fourth and final book in the Return of the Arghyrians series.
  4. “Savannah’s Destiny” by Stacy McKitrick. A fun, entertaining short story that meshes her Bitten by Love vampire romances, and her Ghostly Encounters paranormal contemporary romances.
  5. Growing as a Professional Artist by Leah Cutter. Came as part of a writers bundle I bought. Some good tips on dealing with being a introvert and having needs that are different than most people (creating art).
  6. Atomic Habits by James Clear. Details why and how we form habits, and how we can control which new ones we form (and get rid of bad ones).

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What I’ve Been Writing: Uhhhhhh… not much. I started about a month ago with a greatly-reduced goal of 100 words/day, five days/week. I hit that for a couple of weeks, then hit a snag in the WIP. It was too easy to just set it aside, especially when the latest Tennessee trip came up and apartments took over my brain. I have still been thinking about my WIP though, and I think I see a way through the hangup, so I’m going to try getting back to the WIP. Since the new house, and all the stuff to do at the old one is still taking up a lot of my brainspace, I’m going to start back in with my easy goal of 100 words/day, for five days.

What’s been going on with you, or in your life? Do you sometimes feel that your brain is too full to be creative? How are you doing with whatever goals you might have? Please share in the comments–I’d love to hear from you!

Jennette Marie Powell writes stories about ordinary people in ordinary places, who do extraordinary things and learn that those ordinary places are anything but. In her Saturn Society novels, unwilling time travelers do what they must to make things right... and change more than they expect. You can find her books at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Kobo, iTunes, and more.

Round 1 Wrap-up

Hard to believe we’re halfway through March already! Even harder to believe that it’s only three days until spring – it was snowing buckets here earlier today!

This weeks has been relatively uneventful, which is not a bad thing. No news from Tennessee on the house. As far as the unwanted neighbor business goes, they just closed on the purchase of a large, adjoining lot. The landowner claims he’s going to turn it into gardens, but no one believes him at this point. It doesn’t change anything as far as his zoning change request, except that if he still wants the change, they’ll have to re-apply at this point. So we’re still in a wait and see mode there.

What I’ve Been Reading: Finally finished my novel last week, The Longview Chronicles: The Complete Saga by Holly Lisle. It took a long time because it was actually a boxed set of six books that started with a novella, and each one got longer. Book 5 was definitely a full-length novel, and not a short one either (at least it didn’t feel short). But, it was well worth it. This is set in her Settled Space universe, a series I love. While it’s an independent story, it links to the prior two books in the series, Hunting the Corrigan’s Blood and Warpaint. The main characters from those novels appeared in the fifth book, which I had not expected and was a great surprise since I love them. However, it was probably more enjoyable since I’d read those books. This series is space opera at its best–fantastic worldbuilding of a dystopian society, and characters fighting to make a difference. I will note that this series is very dark, and contains graphic violence, so be aware if that’s not your thing. It’s normally not mine, but it’s completely appropriate for these stories, and I doubt they’d pack the emotional punch they do without it. Highly recommended!

What I’ve Been Writing: I didn’t quite make my goal this week, which was to write five days, for a total of 2500 words. I had a couple days where I just didn’t feel like writing, so I only got four days in. I got 2015 words out of those however, so I’ll consider that a “failing to success” as it’s still not bad and moves me forward. I am getting a good feel for this new WIP, and completed the first scene.

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Which brings me to my quarterly goals, or ROW80 Round 1 Wrap-up. I know it’s not quite the end of the quarter, but ROW80 is only 80 days, so it ends on Thursday and this is my last post before then. My goals were to finish Time’s Guardian, my last WIP, and start on my new one. I did both of those. I have about 3600 words in on my new book, which is hmm…. far short of the 40,000 I’d hoped for! So what happened? Well, the first book ended up taking a little over 18,000 words to finish–a good bit more than the 5,000 I expected! I also went through a revision, which took waaaaay longer than I thought it would–pretty much the whole month of February. And ramping up to the 5k/week also took longer than I expected.

But still, that 22,000 words is more writing, done more quickly, than I’ve accomplished in years, so I’ll consider that “failing to success.” And I still have a chance to hit my BHAG (Bit Hairy Audacious Goal) of writing 150,000 words this year.

I also had a goal to complete two online workshops, although I didn’t mention it in my 2019 Goals Post back in December. That goal I met.

This week I have a few things going on, so I’m going to shoot for what I did this week: four days, at 500 words/day, for a total of 2,000 words. And, keep up with the online workshop I started yesterday.

What about you–what’s been going on in your life? Read any good books lately? And how have you been doing on whatever goals you might have, whether writing or otherwise? Please share in the comments–I’d love to hear from you!

Jennette Marie Powell writes stories about ordinary people in ordinary places, who do extraordinary things and learn that those ordinary places are anything but. In her Saturn Society novels, unwilling time travelers do what they must to make things right... and change more than they expect. You can find her books at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Kobo, iTunes, and more.

Finished the Book!

It was thisclose, and I got it done! Now I am doing a read-through before sending it to my editor. More later in this post…

In Tennessee, things continue to escalate with the proposed new business, and our neighbors are meeting as I write this to strategize about some public meetings coming up. One of our neighbors rented a high-quality drone and took aerial photos of the grading, clearing, modification of a stream, and other environmental damages the owner has already done, all without permits. Unfortunately, from what I hear the typical MO in that area is to grade/clear/build first and ask forgiveness later. But while getting photos of the property in question, our neighbor also took some very cool pictures of our house.

He also took some video, and we could see the guys installing siding on the side of the house where the breezeway is. Cool! All the windows are in except for the trapezoids on top, and all the doors are in except for the front. They have been finishing up the siding and building the breezeway this past week. And no, our driveway is not as crazy-steep as it looks in the photo on the right. It’s steep, but not that bad!

What I’ve Been Reading: I not only finished writing my current book, but I also finished reading two books. For fiction, I read an anthology of short stories: Fiction River: Hard Choices, edited by Dean Wesley Smith. There were three of the twenty stories I skipped that just weren’t to my liking, one of which was in present tense (which I hate). Interestingly enough, there were two other present tense stories in the anthology, but they were so well-written it didn’t bother me enough to skip them! And two of the stories I didn’t like were in past. Just goes to show these things are always a matter of taste.

In nonfiction, I finished a book I bought and started probably three months ago, Find Your Focus Zone, by Lucy J. Palladino. I’m not sure why this book took me so long to read, unless it was because I mostly read it on the treadmill, and I split that time up by also watching workshop videos. It gave a lot of interesting psychological background on why we have trouble staying on task, and offered some techniques to deal with it. It was published in 2007 so was outdated. Most noticeable was the absence of any discussion on social media, but the techniques and background in the book about email and web surfing apply to that just fine. I’m not sure how much use I’ll get out of it, but it was worth a read.

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What I’ve Been Writing: My goal this week was to write 5,000 words or finish the book. I met that goal! It only took about 2,000 words to finish the book, and thank goodness, as that thing clocked in at 155,000 words! My next longest book, Time’s Fugitive, is 143,000 words. So yes, I have some cutting to do. I also had all kinds of other writing-related stuff I wanted to work on this week, and none of that got done, mostly because I’ve been too wrapped up in Tennessee drama, and I’m watching Facebook like it’s a train wreck. Social media is normally not a problem for me because I just don’t get on it, but I need to keep up with this and contribute in any way I can from 300 miles away.

Anyway, back to writing: my goals for this week are to finish the read-through, and to send out a newsletter. I keep putting off the latter, and I need to get on it. I have TONS of books that I don’t want to move, and who better to give them to than my readers?

How about you–any cool surprises in your life recently? Any surprises at all? Have you read any good books lately? How are you doing with whatever goals you might be working on, writing or otherwise? Please share in the comments–I’d love to hear from you!

Jennette Marie Powell writes stories about ordinary people in ordinary places, who do extraordinary things and learn that those ordinary places are anything but. In her Saturn Society novels, unwilling time travelers do what they must to make things right... and change more than they expect. You can find her books at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Kobo, iTunes, and more.

 

Where Did the Week Go?

This has been one of those weeks where it doesn’t look like I got much done, but I feel like I was busy all week.

Some of it was holiday stuff – a get-together with friends, a little shopping.

I also met my writing goal – barely. It helped a lot that I took the busyness of December into account and set a very modest goal. But otherwise, I can’t figure out where the week went.

Fortunately, the same cannot be said in Tennessee. We didn’t expect much to be happening, especially since the builder didn’t text or call with an update like he usually does. However, my husband got a text from our next-door neighbor: “Your house is going up really fast!

Our response was, “Huh?”

She went over there and took photos yesterday in the rain. Our builder’s crew has has had a busy week, and unlike mine, it shows.

The basement has been framed (outside and load-bearing walls inside – we will be doing the rest later). The main level floor is in, and they started on the back wall.

 

   

In the photo on the left above, the big, concrete pad in the foreground is the garage. The photo on the right is viewed from the front of the house.

What I’ve Been Reading: Finally finished some fiction, yay! In paper, I read The Mycologist: The Diary of Bartholomew Leach, Professor of Natural Philosophy by Nicholas P. Money. This historical fiction book is not something I normally would have picked up–I didn’t even know what a mycologist was, until my daughter bought this for me (it’s someone who studies mushrooms). The author is a professor she worked with her senior year at Miami University (in Oxford, Ohio), who she really liked and had a great rapport with. She bought two copies of his book to support him, which I loved! She normally prefers to read nonfiction, but really enjoyed this book, and says the main character basically is the author. But I wouldn’t go so far as to call him a Marty Stu, because the character was really well-developed and appropriately flawed. The book is told in a diary format, and follows the main character’s struggles with being an atheist in an era where this was not acceptable. The voice was perfect for historical fiction featuring a British professor living in Ohio in 1858. But what I especially loved about it was seeing my alma matter’s and the city of Oxford’s history, and “meeting” several of the men after whom the buildings there were named. I also enjoyed seeing the part Oxford played in the Underground Railroad. Highly recommended for those who enjoy historical fiction, especially if they’re interested in Ohio history.

In ebook, I finished The Demon Always Wins by Jeanne Oates Estridge. This was a fun paranormal romance featuring a demon who is forced to help Satan win a bet with God. While heavily steeped in Christian Biblical tradition, this was done in a humorous way so that it should be enjoyable to readers regardless of their religious faith or lack thereof (huh, interesting that both novels I finished last week had to do with religion?). Highly recommended for readers who like paranormal romance.

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What I’ve Been Writing: As noted above, I met my writing goal – barely! I wrote five days this week, for about 1200 words, and finished another scene, so I’m happy with that. I thought briefly about writing the short story that was the optional assignment in the Dean Wesley Smith workshop, but decided to just stick with the WIP instead, and I’m glad I did. I just did not have any more time to devote to writing this past week, and that won’t change this coming week.

I think ROW80 ends this week, but I’ll set a weekly goal anyway, since I need to keep up, and that is to finish watching the videos on the workshop, and to write at least five days, at least 200 words/day.

What about you–are you ready for the holidays? I’m not, though I am close. How are you keeping up with all the extra to-dos that December usually entails? And how are you doing on whatever goals you might have, whether writing or otherwise? Please share in the comments–I’d love to hear from you!

Jennette Marie Powell writes stories about ordinary people in ordinary places, who do extraordinary things and learn that those ordinary places are anything but. In her Saturn Society novels, unwilling time travelers do what they must to make things right... and change more than they expect. You can find her books at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, Kobo, iTunes, and more.