Me and My Blog

I know for a fact that two people that read this blog: my husband and my best friend. I know because of their encouraging email responses to Blogger's email of the post. One time I actually received an internet High Five from my friend. (There it is.==>)  These are two people that will probably read anything that I write, even if it's useless and pure garbage. That's one of the great things about family and great friends.

However, it's the rest of my potential audience that makes me question what to blather on blog about. With other writers like  LJ Cohen, Lynn Viehl, Diana Gabaldon, Rosina Lippi, and countless others offering elegant wisdom, why should anyone read what I have to say?

Leave it to the internet to lead me down that sometimes dark, this time brilliant search where I rediscovered this...

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.
Steve Jobs

Just what I needed.

While I don't think I'm living someone else's life, I do find that I care an awful lot about what others may think about me and my efforts. Which leaves me shy and hesitant to put myself and my writing out there for all to see, questioning what to share in this space.

No more questioning. What I say or write may not be profound, elegant, or Earth shaking, but it touched me in some way. It might be a new-to-me service or a cool tool, something that bothered me or made me smile, a story that I wanted to read or something that my Muse insisted I put down in words.



I'll share these things just in case you, my audience, might find them entertaining, useful, or something you can relate to. Maybe it will bring
you a smile.

Could be that you'll have something to share back, and I guarantee that it will be another Made-Me-Smile moment.

So, here's to putting myself out there. Inelegance, smiles and all.

A Writer's Internet Find: BrainyQuote

I was working on a blog post when I went in search of a quote and I found a great site called BrainyQuote.com.

This site is loaded with quotes about everything. When I searched for voice, this is what I got. Over 40 pages of quotes. Incredible.

The site utilizes Google Search to query the internet and list the results for your perusal. At least, that's how it seems. A bit wonky if you ask me, but it gets the job done. However the search works, I've bookmarked the site for future use.

If you've ever wanted to use a quote for your writing, or anything else, this might be the place to check out. Do you have a favorite place to get your quotes? Share in the comments.

(Bet you can guess that my next post has something to do with voice.)

Back to the Drawing Board

Yep. Back to the ol' Drawing Board. Time to review and tweak my outline.

Why? Because of my editor's comments. She gave me lots to think about, but the piece of feedback that will take the most amount of work deals with my setting. She highlighted something I hadn't considered. My story takes place in 17th century Scotland, which is very popular with other writers. So, she asked, how was I going to make my story stand out from the rest?

Um... After a few days of letting her question percolate, I have an idea. An idea that means lots of research and playing with facts and maybe even physics.

Fortunately, the work I've done so far won't be a complete waste as I can use most of my material. However, I predict major tweaks to how the setting interacts with my characters and vice versa. I think. At this stage, it's hard for me to predict how it will all come out.

While this problem-solving/creating effort, if not exactly exciting, is enticing, it means that the finish date of the story just got pushed out even further to some undetermined date. (Can you hear my frustrated sigh?) No, I haven't succumbed to the urge to ditch the story. And fortunately, my coach reminded me that any movement is better than no movement. So, I'll just suck it up and get it done.

To that end, I've printed out my latest outline and begun my research. Let the tweaking and twisting begin. How diabolical unique can I be? Time will tell.

In the meantime, I hope the Drawing Board is ready, cuz here I come.

A Writer's Platform? Really? Yes.

Seasoned writers, coaches, agents, and the like all talk about platform, and how a writer, published or not, needs to have one. The rule-following person that I am, I started my platform with this blog many moons ago.

Which is sort of anemic. Yes, I noticed.

Truth is I struggle with what to blog about. Memes? My writing journey? A story draft? What? There are only so many times I can rant and rave about the long and tedious revision process. And significantly less times that you'll read it.

Twitter, Google+, LinkdIn, Pinterest? I have profiles in each of those social networking sites that I keep for writing related topics, not that I do much with them. That's going to change.

I just signed up for Platform Bingo with Christina Katz. This is the first offering
by Christina designed to help writers of all backgrounds and experiences to develop and maintain a platform. I'm looking forward to getting ideas that help me understand the platform concept and how to make one that reflects me and my writing. The game starts tomorrow.

Any one else interested in some platform coaching? We can try it out together. Just follow the link.

Keep an eye out for this space. Plans to be afoot.

Time. I need More Time.

Who doesn't need more time? Ask anyone. If they could have more, they'd take it. I know I would. (Power would be good too. However, that might be a greedy to ask for both time and power.)


We all get the same amount of time in a day, yet the 86,400 seconds still aren't enough. Or so it seems. With exercising, cooking, eating, cleaning, chauffering, volunteering, sleeping, and general mothering and wife-ing, sometimes it's difficult to wedge in photographing and writing. But wedge them in I must.

With the guidance of my life coach, I've been scheduling in that writing time and setting realistic goals. And now that school started today, I can already hear the uninterrupted writing time calling me.

What will I do with all that time? Keep working on the revision that seems to never end.

What do you wish you had more time for? Let me know in the comments.