Archive for March, 2013



I learn so much from Kristen Lamb’s blogs!

Kristen Lamb's Blog

Are You Quick on Your Feet?

When I trained as a boxer, we did a lot of footwork. Dart in, hit, then get out of the way. Best way to win a fight? Simple. Don’t get punched. Or at least get punched as little as possible. When our opponent takes a swing? Don’t be there. The skill of sticking-and-moving requires endurance, strength and flexibility. Being a successful Digital Age Author requires the same.

Learn to Stick and Move

Get quick on your feet. Change, adapt, overcome. The lithe survive, especially now in the Digital Age. The big traditional publishers are suffering because their size doesn’t allow them to adapt to the rapid changes that come part-and-parcel with explosive technological advance.

Indies, in this sense, have an advantage. An author can change covers if one isn’t working. He or she can respond directly to what consumers want.

A friend of…

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This is exactly what I am going through with learning to blog. By the way, Check out dreampunkgeek’s blog. She is so very talented and authentic!

dreampunk geek

Writing is a scary thing.  Sitting down to do it after a long break due to health issues, laziness, busy schedules, and stress feels like sticky summer days.  The kind where you know the plunge into icy swimming pool waters is exactly what you need, but you hesitate.  Toes over the edge you breathe in deeply, tell yourself to jump in, but your body disobeys your mind.  You stay frozen.  An iceberg adrift in a sea of heat.  Your only salvation the very thing you refuse to do.  The water will be cold.  It will shock your body as you hold your breath and lose yourself as you sink deep into the dreamy, blue, depths.  You will burst up with a splash, gasping for air, water up your nose, and wiping chlorine droplets from your eyes.  You shiver for a minute, smiling without knowing it, and you float weightlessly.

This…

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I just discovered that there is a blogging software on my computer called Windows Live. I hope it works. I get lost on the WordPress site. So, we’ll see how this turns out.

By the way, I am suffering from an ear infection so I haven’t been on here much the last few days. I felt up to hitting a few ‘LIKEs’ on FaceBook and maybe enough energy to write a sentence or two but then I would be worn out and blurry-eyed. So please be patient while I am a patient and not very patient.


 

I just discovered that there is a blogging software on my computer called Windows Live. I hope it works. I get lost on the WordPress site. So, we’ll see how this turns out.

By the way, I am suffering from an ear infection so I haven’t been on here much the last few days. I felt up to hitting a few ‘LIKEs’ on FaceBook and maybe enough energy to write a sentence or two but then I would be worn out and blurry-eyed. So please be patient while I am a patient and not very patient.

Diagnosis Diabetes


 

I recently noticed something about myself while playing a hidden objects game. To get the objects you needed to proceed through the game you had to revisit places you’ve been before. I sighed a huge sigh and said aloud, “Why do I have to go all the way back there to get this done?” Epitome of laziness? I asked myself. It was just clicks of the mouse to get there. No exercise was involved. But the only reason I was playing a game was because I had no energy at all. I had no incentive to do anything as my fibromyalgia was flaring so badly that I was only one blanket away from crawling under the covers and crying. But I am still looking at how tasks in real life don’t get done because there are so many steps to getting to the real goal. Depression plays a part in this. “What’s the use?” I asked myself. It’s not as though it matters to anyone else.

Then on Friday I got the diagnosis of diabetes and high cholesterol. Really? I am a vegetarian! Not a meat product goes in my mouth! And really, if you look at my family tree is it any surprise that I have it when everyone else did? I eat nothing like my forebears, high fat huge meals, tons of sugar. I rarely have sugar. So after some research I am finally giving up cheese and butter. I was nearly vegan before. Time to suck it up. But exercise?

I find walking BORING AS HELL! I find exercise in gyms BORING AS HELL! When I think about it, I want childhood back. I want a playground made for grown-ups. I want to swing high while singing to the top of my lungs. I want to play hop-scotch or jump rope with friends. I want to sit for hours playing jacks. I might even enjoy getting good at swinging from the rings and hand ladders (whatever those things were called). Four square with friends. Playing hide and seek! If I must I’d like to garden, a little. But I live in an apartment. I’d love to gather twenty cents walk two miles with my brother to the pool and swim ten cents a session then walk the two miles home. That wasn’t exercise. That was fun. But then the swimmer’s ear took over one of my favorite sports. The cold water causes flares now. So what do I do? Virtual life. That seems too stressful and too much effort.

Then I read the latest Dances With Fat and the comments her readers made. At least I am not alone in this journey. I am glad there are people who question the status quo.

Please don’t lecture me. I will delete such comments. But if you can help me find a way to my better health in a pleasant way, I promise to look at it. I hope something sticks. I hope this penny gets me a bubblegum.

Dances With Fat

Angry FrustratedI got this e-mail today:  “Dear Ragen,  I hate exercise – like I seriously hate it.  I know that research shows that there are a lot of benefits but the thought of spending hours in the gym just sounds miserable.  Should I just suck it up?  What if I hate exercise?  Do you think I should do it anyway?”

This is a question I get a lot.  First, there is a mistaken notion out there that because I talk about my life as a fathlete and I talk about what the research says about fitness, that I am “promoting” exercise or I think that people “should” exercise.  Sometimes this happens because I haven’t written things as clearly as I should have, sometimes I think it’s because people have issues around exercise and just seeing discussion about it triggers them which is totally understandable given how much it gets shoved down…

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How Being Tired Can Make You a Better Writer.

I just read the above article and realized that I rarely write when I am tired. One reason, is that my characters seem to reflect my physical needs. When I am hungry my characters sit down and eat, when sleepy they go to sleep, when the needs lean erotic… Well, without those pesky characters doing anything worth writing about, I tend to follow their lead.

Ms. Lamb, also, brought up the fast writing idea that pushes the critical thinker down so creativity can thrive. I can’t imagine writing a book in two weeks, called Fast Draft I have 10 novels written through NaNoWriMo which stands for National Novel Writing Month. Which is a misnomer now, as it is International, usually done in November. The idea is you write a 50K-word novel in 30 days. So my first was written between the Ides of March through the Ides of April. I wasn’t successful with the word count so I started where I left off, in November and gained 50K more words. Another time I wrote a ‘NaNo’ in June. That worked well. The next year the NaNo site set up Camp NaNo, which didn’t work well for me. Mostly I do well with the encouragement of writing friends. But sometimes I find other people to be a distraction. Sometimes the goal must be internalized and unannounced to others. In that case, maybe a two week write-a-thon would work for me.

On the other hand, the reason my novels are not published is EDITING. The verbal vomit is as messy to clean up as the yuck the cat leaves on the floor. I want to point to someone else to ‘clean it up.’ I wonder if there is an equivalent  of the stuff that amusement parks use for people messes, for writers?

I receive Kristen Lamb’s Blog through email. I always find a nugget to chew on. If you haven’t been by, check her out.

 

 

Game of Thrones


I am on my second reading and fifth viewing of A Song of Ice and Fire (TV Series: Game of Thrones). I am immersed.

My first reading had me spitting angry. The world is already so misogynistic; I didn’t think the world needed another book that reflected our current world so much. But on this second read, I am seeing the how some women, with the right encouragement, became independent beings. And even in their striving to be their own persons, they make mistakes or see the world very similarly to their male counterparts.

George R. R. Martin writes with rhythm. I hear that more than see it with my eyes. I listen to the stories on Audible while reading on my Kindle. The author and narrator dance and sing a duet of visions. If you haven’t read this yet, or haven’t seen the series, you owe it to yourselves to take it in. I must warn you, though, there is violence and sexual scenes. They do fit into the story to help reflect the era. As a writer I feel I have a lot to learn from this great author.

Gratitude and Friends


I just finished sending a thank you note to a friend. This is what happened:

My eyes were getting worse and I found I couldn’t read ‘tree’ books. My friend, let’s call her Jane, heard my complaint and said she had a page magnifier. I declined it as I didn’t want her to sacrifice her own vision. Then I got paid and went ‘Amazoning’. I found one fairly inexpensive that might work. Meanwhile, another friend, let’s call her Sally, was upset that she couldn’t see to do her bead work. She and Jane met up together. Later Sally told me that Jane was passing a page magnifier to me. It works great for my needs and I passed the hands-free model to Sally.

The next email I read took me to this WordPress article.

Gratitude and Friends.

I am so grateful for my family and friends. Often it is hard to tell who is which.

 

New–Still


I am ever starting things and leaving them behind. This blog is one of them. I feel so lost in trying to set this up. I want to learn how to do this. I NEED to learn how to do this! So, boring or not this is the extent of my first blogging attempt here on WordPress.

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