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Update: Creative Endeavors

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While I may have posted a bit about our home remodeling adventure, I am still working very hard on my creative projects.

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I first saw white doves instead of smoke. Not sure what it says about me.

I’m on track to have the romance novel about Daniella and Callen ready by this fall. Yes, the same Daniella from To Love a Prince. She needs her own happily-ever-after.

 I finished my fourth round of revisions on this story and sent it to my editor and beta reader earlier this month. This is my first time using this editor, but I got her name from a blogger friend, so I am hopeful. My beta reader is amazing, and she’s done a better job than paid editors I’ve used.

I am both excited and nervous to hear back from them. It’s always hard to let your baby go. Yes, it’s not perfect. Yes, their honest critique will make it better. It’s still hard to hear, even if it’s needed changes.

While I’m waiting for their edits to come back, the short story I wrote about Sir Gabriel didn’t shake him out of my head. Rather, it wove him deeper into my thoughts. So, rather than work on the novel I’d been planning, he’s getting his own story. I’m 100 pages into it already, so it’s going to be a full length novel rather than a novella.

 I’ve started to think of stories for Eli and Auburn’s children, but I’ve put those plot bunnies in a pen for now.

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The creative joy of the plot bunny.

I think I will save them for a future series called the Sleeping Dragon or the Dragon Wakes.

 I still have several more story ideas for future novels in the Knights of Valor series, and I’ve had more ideas for the the series I started that involves dragon brothers and their riders.

Ideas aren’t my issue, but time sure is! The day job is quieting down as we head into the summer months, so hopefully I will have more mental bandwidth for writing and editing.

My goal is to release one more book this year and three next year.

Yes, I put that in writing. Hold me to it!

 

 

5 Reasons I’m Ignoring Stephen King’s Advice

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Most writer’s have heard Stephen King’s famous writing advice.

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I’ve read Stephen King’s book On Writing. It’s an interest read, though I confess, I haven’t reread it since 2008.

5 Reasons I’m Ignoring Stephen King’s Advice

1. Consuming is Easier than Creating

It’s not easy to admit, but I can be lazy. Reading is easy. Writing, at least for me, is work. Hard work. If allow myself to be lured in by this, I will spend all of my time reading.

2. Time Is Scarce Commodity

I’m not saying I don’t read. I read a lot. But I don’t read nearly as much as he recommends. By the time he wrote On Writing, he’d been a full time author longer than I’d been alive. It’s a lot easier to say you don’t have the time to write if you don’t have the time to read voraciously when writing is your day job.

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This might give me more time as I would never be able to sleep again.

3. I Lose My “Voice”

Voice is an author’s unique way of writing. It changes over time, grows, matures, but it still is what makes their work unique.

But when I read a lot of another author, I see their voice bleeding into my work. May not be a big deal if I’m reading someone like Tessa Dare who I’d love to emulate, but…

4. My Favorite Genre Can Be “Spotty”

I love fantasy romance, but there are a lot of newer authors in the genre. That can be both fabulous and awful. I can find some really great stuff out there, and then some not so great stuff. One book I got 25% of the way through and finally gave up because errors in grammar, punctuation, and spelling kept yanking me out of an already mediocre story.

5. Learn by Doing

As great as reading is, and as much as I love it (I will NOT admit how many times I’ve gone to bed late because I was reading), reading only gets me part way there. I also need to apply bottom to chair and write. I’d rather have the brain surgeon that’s performed 3,000 successful surgeries as my doctor than the one that has read about it 5,000 times. It’s a skill, and for me, sometimes the only way to learn it is to do it.

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I’ll keep reading my couple of books a month and make time to write.

How about you? Ever ignore expert advice? Why or why not?

10 Ways to Conquer Stress and Bring Back Your Creativity

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We know stress kills creativity. And, given modern life, stress isn’t going anywhere.

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Me during the height of budgeting

So, what can we do about it? How do we tame the stress so our muse will come hang out with us and bring some inspiration along with her?

 

Here are 10 Things “experts” Say Will Reduce Stress

1. Get enough sleep

Because it’s so easy to sleep when you’re already stressed. It’s not like stress causes insomnia or anything. Oh wait.

2. Eat Well-Balance meals

Already doing this, though this can also be a source of stress. It’s a lot easier to pick up something on my way home that to spend thirty minutes I don’t have trying to put together a healthy choice.

3. Limit Alcohol and Caffeine

Gave up both when I was pregnant, and I never started back on either. Very liberating to not need that cup of coffee in the morning, though I was awful to be around for the two months it took to break the habit.

Frankly, I’m not sure if this just transfers your stress from you to your family members as they now have to deal with you without coffee…

4. Count to 10 (or 20)

This has helped me when dealing with my children, but not for the bigger things like when those children are ill.

5. Take Deep Breaths

Okay… Feel like medical science might be stretching a little here.

6. Take a time-out.

No, not the kind you give your children.

Although maybe.

They recommend things like practicing yoga, listening to music, meditating, getting a massage, or learning relaxation techniques. According to the experts, stepping back from the problem helps clear your head. Because I totally have time for this! If I did, I might not be as stressed out…

7. Learn what triggers your anxiety.

What triggers mine? Impossible goals like trying to balance work, children, a spouse, a household, and writing. You know, modern American life.

8. Maintain a positive attitude.

I think I actually flipped off the computer monitor when I read this. Mature, I know.

9. Get involved.

Volunteer or find another way to be active in your community, which creates a support network and gives you a break from everyday stress. Which totally works because I’m not already stressed over not having enough time meet all my current obligations.

10. Welcome humor. A good laugh goes a long way. 

Clearly what some of these coping strategies are. For me, anyway. Though, it’s not exactly funny as this helped me very little.

 

If nothing else, I suppose it did make me smile a little. Sometimes, science can’t solve all your problems.

 

I Want to Eat Healthy. Really!

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It’s the time of year when so many people are settling in to their New Year’s resolutions. I didn’t bother with any this year. Yes, I want to eat healthier, but that is a tired refrain that never comes to much.

I actually prefer healthy foods over fast food. I like home-cooked meals better than what is served at most restaurants.

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Looks so much better than McDonalds

When people ask me if I could have one helper, would I want a chef, a maid, or a gardener, I never have to think about it. Chef, please!

Like every other working mom, I am time-constrained. Gone are the days when one person stays home and has the time to fix from-scratch food. Heck, we didn’t even have that luxury when I was a kid.

When I get home from work, it’s a lot easier and faster for me to whip up some burgers in my new cast iron pan and serve it on white buns (that the kids will actually eat) with some baby carrots, strawberries and a side of chips than it is for me to roast chicken.

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Yeah, still looks better than what I normally can make.

Taco night is celebrated in my house because the kids love it, and it’s fast.

A friend of mine tried one of those fancy new food delivery services, and she was extremely critical.

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Not exactly.

  She didn’t need someone to send her a box of veggies for her to chop and dice. She’d expected the stuff to arrive mostly prepared. The vegetables ready to be popped into the oven. The main dish already seasoned and ready to be cooked.

She had NOT expected to spend 45 minutes prepping dinner before it even found its way into the oven. Whoever thinks it only takes ten minutes to chop and slice all that stuff is NOT your average home cook.

She canceled her subscription to the service and strongly advised against it. Maybe that’s not what most food delivery services are like, and if they are, there is clearly a market for someone to do better.

If it doesn’t exist already (and if it does, please point me to it!), what we really need are meal kits filled with fresh, whole foods that are already chopped, seasoned and ready to go. We’re looking for the healthy home-cooked dinner that we can get on the table in twenty minutes or less from the time we get home from work.

Anyone who says forty-five minutes is a weeknight meal either has a stay-at-home spouse or doesn’t have kids. My kids aren’t going to make it to almost seven before eating supper. Especially as their bedtime is eight.

 How about you? Ever try a food delivery service? How did it work out for you? Would you recommend it?

 

Why I Can’t Wait for Self-Driving Cars

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I am very excited for self-driving cars. I know, many people are leery. I, too, have read Charles Stross and understand that they can be hacked and used as murder weapons. At this point in time, what can’t be hacked? But I digress.

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About like this, I suspect.

Even with Stross’s visions of mayhem running through my head, I hope self-driving cars get here sooner than later.

My Top Reasons for Wanting Self-Driving Cars

 

  •  Someone Else is the Kids’ Chauffeur – I know, my oldest child is only in kindergarten, and I am already tired of either me or my husband having to cart her all over the place. Dance lessons. Gymnastics. Another birthday party. I can’t believe how much of my life this consumes, and I can’t listen to audio books while she’s in the car. My hope is they can design the cars to recognize faces, let the child into the vehicle, then take them where they are going. Maybe I’m hoping too much, but a parent can dream
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It’s only cute until the 50th time you’ve sat through it.
  • Lower Cost – If we had self-driving cars, I believe it will only be a matter of time before we’re all scheduling a majority of our trips with a less-rapey version of Uber. While we may still need one car, our second car is used exclusively for my husband’s commute. We could simply schedule that with a self-driving car. One less car is a big deal to the average family when the cost of a new car is almost $34,000. Cars are the second most expensive thing we own after a house.
  • Traffic Rules – I am tired of people not choosing to stop for a stop sign, running red lights, and otherwise not obeying traffic rules. You know who you are red pickup truck that didn’t decide to yield to oncoming traffic. *glares* If we’re all in self-driving cars, this goes away.

 

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Not sure how much more obvious we can make the sign.

 

  • More Free Time – While my commute is usually less than fifteen minutes each way, my husband has a much longer commute as do a lot of people I know. So while it might not buy me time back a lot of time, it will get my husband more time.
  • No More Distracted Drivers – Drivers can now text or whatever the heck they’re doing on their phones that caused them to be not paying attention to traffic and forcing me to honk at them when they run a stop sign.

I know there are a lot of safety hurdles to self-driving cars, but I’m really looking forward to them. I am hoping the benefits outweigh the costs.

How about you? Like the idea of self-driving cars? Hate it? Why?

Running Out of Time

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Are we really as time deficient as we think? We all seem to be constantly running out of time, or claiming we never have enough of it.

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Maybe both.

 

A quick Google search will reveal oodles of articles on time management and how to get more done in less time. (Hint: it involves turning off Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.)

We all think that the modern world is super stressful and that we never have time for anything, but a look back through history tells us of twelve and fourteen hour work days. It tells us Saturday was long considered as much a work day as Monday. Only the Sabbath was taken off, and then it wasn’t a day of rest, but a day of prayer.

I know, sounds like some people’s jobs, especially with all of the connectivity, but it still doesn’t answer why are we feeling so particularly time-crunched now.

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I did some Google research, and I didn’t find a lot of articles out there. So I did a little introspection.

I can honestly say I didn’t feel the same level of stress and pressure before having children as I did after. They are a monumental task in our society, which many people from previous generations have told me was not always the case. I’m not entirely sure why the sudden pressure on parents to perfectly organize, arrange and educate their children, but I can tell you that it’s there.

The days of kids riding their bikes and hanging out have been replaced with soccer camps, computer programming classes, and “enrichment” activities.

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And it only gets worse.

I’ve also learned that commutation between parents and care-givers, whether kindergarten or formal pre-school, is difficult. This adds to confusion and makes everything take longer.

Yet, for me anyway, it’s more than this.

For me, the lack of time stems from me not being able to do all that I want to get done. Mainly, writing and the corresponding social media presence that entails. For a friend of mine, it means not getting to work on her jewelry making. For another, it means not getting to ride her horse.

This is why I feel time pressured. My choices for entertainment are greater than they’ve ever been, and most are instantly available, at the same time that so many other obligations have been added.

How many of us really want to chauffeur our kid to dance class and then watch a room of kindergartners try to master basic ballet steps before carting them home? I think we’d all rather be binge watching something on Netflix. Or reading. Or writing.

For me, the feeling of never having enough time started around the time I realized I had to be social to write books. I mostly love writing, but as you may have noticed, I’m a bit of an introvert. Okay, a lot of an introvert. Social media is hard for me. While writing felt like an unpaid part time job, the social media aspect made it feel like a full time job, on top of kids, a spouse, and a day job.

This is why I feel time crunched.

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About right.

What to do about it?

Well, the kids are non-negotiable. Most days. That means the day job to support them and everything that goes with them is non-negotiable.

Not entirely sure what to do about the writing. I should complete three first draft novels this year. Two are already done, and the third is halfway there. Not exactly the four most romance writers produce a year, so even with as much time as I’ve committed, I’m not quite at the romance author level. And, that doesn’t account for revisions. All of my work needs serious revision.

The logical answer would be to set aside writing, but I’m not willing to do that. I’ve been writing since I was a kid. I clearly want to do this thing, and I’ve already put it off too many decades.

So, back to feeling like I never have enough time.

 

How about you? How do you balance family commitments with you professional life and hobbies? When was the last time you binge watched on Netflix? Any real life tips for making a serious hobby work with family and work?