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Month: December 2020

New Year’s Plans

Pretty sure I say every year I’m not doing resolutions, but…and I’m still not. But. I have been thinking lately about how I want to make some changes in my life, and what better time than the new year to give me a bump in the backside about getting moving on them? One thing that, I think, really changed things for me this year was getting furloughed back in March. I spent six weeks at home, happily puttering. I (belatedly, it turns out) decided to do a little gardening. I say belatedly because I was not the first to come up with the idea, so I waited forever for my seeds… One tomato plant is still out there, struggling to turn some tomatoes red for me. I also started writing every day, twice a day. Morning and evening, my friends and I would gather online and write through the pandemic. It drew us closer, it got us words, and it got me more in the habit of looking at myself and my life, because even though I was attempting to write fiction, when the story-words wouldn’t come in the middle of a sprint (coordinated timed writing time, after which you report your word count) I would just journal instead. Enough of that and, I’ll tell you what, you end up writing fiction just to stop the navel-gazing. Anyway. Another thing that came along, was a “wellness” app that comes with my insurance. Normally I wouldn’t be interested–I have enough apps…

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Christmas Looks A Lot Different This Year

…but that’s okay. I am actually feeling a bit relieved. Don’t get me wrong now. I love everything about Christmas — buying gifts, the food, spending time with my loved ones, making memories…but it can be stressful. And this year, with COVID happening and my health being wonky and work being crazy…it’s been really hard to get into the spirit. I am in the spirit, for the most part. I’m excited. 🙂 I’m going to be finishing up my wrapping tonight, and I am excited to see everyone open their gifts on Christmas morning. We’re having a FaceTime gift opening with our in-laws instead of seeing them. We will miss them, but this is for the best, especially with this new COVID variant on the loose and most likely here in the States. Scary stuff! But at least with FaceTime the unwrapping will be in real time and it’ll be close to being together. (That was my idea if you couldn’t tell!). Our dinner will be a bit scaled down, as was Thanksgiving, and that’s fine. Again, it’s just a lot of work, and there’s just three of us eating it this year, so we figured we’d make less. But the menu is no less amazing! It’ll be yummy! But less work which is great, as my mom and I are not spring chickens anymore and could use a break. It’ll be quieter and less crazy, but perhaps we needed that. Every year lately has felt like a rat race…

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Tis the Season for Procrastination

Hi, friends! Can you believe it’s almost 2021? I can’t! This year has both been extremely long (things that happened in February feel like ten years ago) and too short (ah! It’s the end of the year already?). The holidays have snuck up on me. I’d like to pretend that’s caused by 2020, but, to be fair, they do every year. For some reason I can’t seem to ever do any Christmas stuff before Thanksgiving. My brain can’t process it or something. But then what happens is that I only have a few weeks to do everything, and I get overwhelmed and shut down, which makes it harder to get everything done, repeat ad naseum. This is why I can never carry my Nanowrimo momentum through December. Very frustrating. A side effect of being overwhelmed is that I am an expert procrastinator. December is perhaps the worst month for it, too, because I’ll tell myself things like “It’s the holidays, you should make sure you’re enjoying them” and then spend two hours on YouTube. (In case you’re curious, I am almost completely done with my shopping now. I have to do my brother and his new wife–I’m thinking gift certificate somewhere–and some little things for stockings. Also my husband has informed me that he’s gotten me four presents and expects an equal amount of things to open. I got him one expensive present, so I may go buy some Reese’s Cups and wrap them or something.) (I am only about…

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TeamTinyNaNo

If you’ve been hanging around here for a while, you know that all four of us Turtleduck Press authors are old hands at NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). That’s where we met, in fact–on the NaNo forums, many moons ago. (Or most of us? One of them will correct me if I’m wrong.) Most of us still haven’t met in person…but I digress. Back in the day, we were young(er) and foolish and could whip out the requisite 50,000 words in a month without breaking a sweat. (Okay, maybe a little bit of sweat.) But for me at least, those days are long gone. My brain, wrists, and responsibilities won’t let me rack up words like that anymore. Still, there’s something magical about that NaNo energy. So we were talking in our regular virtual write-in, and KD suggested that even if we couldn’t manage 1,667 words a day in November, we could surely manage 100 words a day. (Hat tip to Debbie Ohi as well.) It would get us 3000 words by the end of the month. That’s not exactly a NaNo, but it’s not nothing, either. It’s about a chapter (or two chapters or half a chapter, depending on pacing). Or it’s one short story. Or it’s several flash fiction stories. And, more importantly, it’s more than we had in October. For me at least, it was also more than I’d written in October. Spoiler: we did it. We may not have written every single day, but Erin, KD,…

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Curiosity Killed the Cat–Part 7

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Standing before another puzzle with the standard three answers, Jhi Bo decided she was becoming heartily sick of doors. Gerda muttered behind her, and Jhi Bo added that to the list of things making her want to pull her braids out—the incoherent mutterings of her companion. Though she doubted being able to understand would have been better. The girl was probably not thrilled with the competence on display by the heroes she must have thought would save the day with a quick bit of magic and perhaps a small swordfight. At least after their trek outside the maze, they had a lantern for their second attempt, though the girl still tended to let it droop by her side so that at every door Jhi Bo opened, the interior had a woman-holding-a-sword shaped shadow. And they had food, so when they caught up—Jhi Bo shook her head. When they caught up to that fool Srivasi, she would let Gerda feed her brother, but she would not offer food to that blasted mage. Why hadn’t he just waited for her? Because of the questions, she was sure. Srivasi needed to know and surely no maze could tempt him like one so clearly made by one like him—someone with that quest for any and all knowledge, no matter how useless or obscure. Jhi Bo opened a door, her sword at the ready since she couldn’t read the question, let alone guess the correct…

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