Next New Book

As a blossoming, somewhat seasoned writer and self-publisher, I get asked often for advice from other writers. Sometimes I'm asked to take a look at a book and give it a review. Such is the case. 

You know what . . . despite what might jump to mind when you first look at the title and the cover, it's a darn good book. In fact, I'm a bit jealous. Why?

Weekly Writing Status Update - 6

I feel like these aren't doing much, but it was recommended to me by that book, and I've pledged to do it for 50 updates, that will be almost a year, so I'm going to keep plugging away even if they don't feel immediately impactful. If there's one thing I feel like I'm good at, it's hanging in there for stupid even pointless exercises and relationships and friendships and even jobs, long after I should have quit, and long after others would have quit.

Last week was a good-ish week for writing. I kept up with my writing 300 words a day for every day except one. Why did I miss that one day? I can't remember now. I just know I did. 

More Essentials of Writing a Novel

I love how every now and then, in a book, on social media, in life . . . anywhere, these little nuggets show up that speak to a person. They hit me and I think, "BOOM! that makes sense" . . . or "that resonates," or even better, "That's what THAT means!" 

Many of these I try to file here in the blog as evershades or sox entries (see HERE or HERE), but many others get lost or integrated into my other blog hoi polloi.

This one is getting it's own post. 

World's Worst Fun Run

I've had a spate of really good fun runs lately, so it only makes sense that I was due for a bad one. What constitutes really good? Good parking, good race routes, good pace, good and fun people to see, good all around. 

This one this past week didn't have any of those. Not a single one. 

Essentials

I was listening to a podcast for a while, James Thayer's podcast on novel writing. It was good but each time I listened to it, usually on my commute, I found myself wanting to take notes and really listen, not background listen as I tend to do when I listen on the drive. 

So, I've stopped listening to the podcast. Which is too bad, I really liked it. 

Griffin Four

It's an interesting way to start a book. To talk about cavalry sabers being repurposed to machetes but WEB Griffin always does things this way, and then the reader is captured on that path for the first part of the story, and sometimes even further than that. 

I'm onto the fourth book in this series. I'm on the fifth book in the Clancy Series, I'm on the second book in the Martin series, I finished the Stranger Times series, and I'm stuck on the third book in the Sackett series. So, it feels good to keep moving through this series.

Weekly Writing Status Update - 5

So, the biggest thing that I should provide an update on with this status post is about my 300 words a day goal. How did it go? Is it positive?

Overall it was a good  . . . and IS a good exercise. First, I'm stunned that 300 words really isn't that many words. I can knock out 300 words in no time. 

Cardinal of the Kremlin

I just finished Cardinal of the Kremlin. This is such a great book. So I've read, Hunt for Red October, Red Storm Rising, Patriot Games, and now Cardinal of the Kremlin as a part of this reading of the series thing I'm doing. 

Hows it going? I like the series reading. I finished all of the Stranger Times books. So that series is over. I've had trouble getting back to the Sackett series that I started. I might try and pick that one up again soon. I'm in the midst of the Corps series too, of course. And I can't think of it, but I know there's another out there. 

Pullups a Flex?

This article (linked HERE) expresses something something I've been a proponent of for a very long time. I think one of the ultimate signs of fitness, at any level, is whether or not the person can do a pullup, and to judge level of fitness, count the number of pullups. 

When I worked as a SEAL PT Course instructor, I was a huge advocate for people to do pullups. So often I would see the ladies cheating, kicking or frogging their way up, what do they call it now? Kipping? I'd see people, women and men, put their feet on a spotter to help them up. 

Sometimes I Forget

Here I am plugging away on my novel, Sunset Perfect . . .which is renamed to "Murder in the Kingdom" a title change I'll explain more later. But sometimes I forget why this is important to me. Sure, I enjoy the aspect of working on a creative project and setting it through . . . I love the character development, and the ability and chance to tell a story, . . .but then there is that feedback and the kudos. This is the part I sometimes forget. 

Every now and then I go check Amazon and read the reviews for my novels, and I'm usually happily surprised to see some new ones have come in and the reviews are usually good. 

More Shades

Ugh, this one hits hard. Why? I guess cause it's so true. 

You deserve a calm love with someone who's your safe space, your best friend, and soothes your soul during stressful situations. Life is hard enough, you deserve someone who brings you peace, not problems. 

Airports and Innovation

I write about airports alot I find. Why? Well, I find myself at airports an awful lot. I have been traveling a lot and I get to check out a lot of airports, and I get to write at a lot of airports (if you'd like to see all of those posts, go search "airports" and you'll see em all). 

BUT, other than my telling you that Denver is by far the worst airport among all those that I've visited, what I can tell this audience about airports that might not have come to the fore of their thoughts and attention, is the glaringly obvious fact that airport security stinks. 

Weekly Writing Status Update - 4

This week I “completed” a lot of my writing . . . And started a really decent (so far) writing habit. Two great things if you ask me. 

The completions consisted of submitting my article to Interactive Learning Systems. This is a Taylor and Francis academic journal that I selected as my target journal for one of my articles that I drafted from my dissertation. It’s not all of my dissertation. The first three chapters of the dissertation are 25K words. I’m only allowed 6K words for the article so I pared it down quite a bit. 

More on Rom-Coms and Breakups

I don't really like the movie, but I re-visited The Breakup, with Vince Vaughn and Rachel Anniston. It's a good movie, but certainly not a great one. It's fun, but not at all uplifting. 

It's an interesting script, and the choices the author has made about the direction of the movie are interesting. The most interesting and intriguing aspect to me is the fact that he made the Breakup an actual breakup at the end. I guess he felt he had to give the audience the actual breakup that is the namesake of the movie. But it's certainly not a positive and uplifting movie ending.

Bartenders and Restaurant Owners in Movies

Anyone who knows me or has read this blog for a bit knows that I love rom-com movies. Always have. In fact one dream of mine . . . it's to write a novel that gets turned into a rom-com. It's a lifelong dream which means it may take all my life to achieve. 

I could see Everyday Sox becoming one of these. 

I Keep Saying Last Class - This Time I Mean It

I keep saying this is my last class . . . or this is my last big hurdle, . . . or this is the last thing I have to do for my PhD. But this all comes with qualifiers. What do I mean? Why am I bringing this up? 

Today, I turned in my last paper/assignment for my last class toward my PhD. It's a big deal to me. The paper was a submission to an academic journal. Basically, I took parts of my dissertation proposal, the one on VR and emotion, and pared it down quite a bit. I submitted it to the journal and sent proof of the submission and a copy of the proposed article to my professor. I would post it here too, on this blog, but I can't. If it gets accepted to be published, it can't be published anywhere else previously. 

What’s This Novel Title?

So I was pecking away on a novel that I had tentatively titled Sunset Perfect. An old friend helped me with that title years ago. She said she thought a friendship, a close friendship should be simple and perfect, like a sunset. So, ergo, Sunset Perfect. 

That was the working novel title for this little story for years and years. Now, the novel has changed, which is funny cause that friendship sunsetted too when I left my old job! HA! 

Try Using the Word "Not" More

When I first read this I wasn't a fan. Having considered it more, I have decided that I love it. It's a simple technique, "Use the Word Not", but it doesn't make sense until you look at your own writing a bit more analytically. 

I just wrote a passage for my daily writing goal, and realized that I could have used this advice to use the word Not. This isn't directly from my writing, but let's pretend it is. 

Weekly Writing Status Update - 3

I had to travel this week, and as anyone knows who reads this blog, I love to write when I travel. So for this week's status, I have good news . . . I did write, and quite a bit. 

I plugged away on the story of the welder, but not as much as I'd like. BUT, since I'm on the subject of creative writing, I also started writing (again) on the rom-com I hope to write about the B&B in Wyoming. So, it was fun to write several hundred words on that. For a few days there I was really doing well on creative writing. 

When Writing Isn't

I just spent three hours writing . . . but not writing at all. How is this possible? What does it mean? 

I'm back to dissertation and academic writing. My last two chapters are due in November. What does that mean? My proposal consisted of three chapters. Chapter 1 was my introduction, Chapter 2 was my literature review, Chapter 3 detailed my methodology. 

Self Authorship Between Groups

At work, self-authorship is easy. What do I mean by this? I mean the ability to see other sides of issues, the opportunity to see multiple perspectives and gain understanding, the chance to understand challenges rather than deal with them and be overwhelmed by them. 

At work, this has become somewhat regular. Kegan's and Baxter Magolda defined self-authorship as "the internal capacity to define one's beliefs, identity, and social relations"  . . . in this case it is distinct from the socialized mind, the one where groups and herds dominate. Self-authorship is the ability to know our own beliefs and not allow them to change based on these challenges. 

Blocking Out My Novel

Right now I’m working on three different stories, all of which I’m hoping to turn into finished novels. I figure that since I’m getting to the end of my PhD and there will be fewer and fewer posts on adult learning,  . . . Hopefully there will be just as many on self-authorship, . . . But in the spirit of finding daily content . . . I guess posting about those three (hopeful) novels will keep my blog filled. 

So I guess I’ll give a quick synopsis of each and then throughout the days further develop each book as we go.