Tuesday, August 15, 2023

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. 

Friday, August 11, 2023

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. 

Thursday, August 10, 2023

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.

Wednesday, August 9, 2023

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. 

Monday, August 7, 2023

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! 

Saturday, August 5, 2023

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. 

Friday, August 4, 2023

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. 

Thursday, August 3, 2023

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. 

Tuesday, August 1, 2023

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. 

Monday, July 31, 2023

But or Therefore

I saw a video of Matt Stone and Trey Parker talkiong aobut what makes for a great story, and when I first saw it I didn't get it. I even tried to get it, and I didn't. I have to say, when I read about it in this tweet that I've been writing about, I finally got it. 

I've heard this before but in different terms. I've heard that conflict is key. We've all heard that. No one wants to hear a story about someone where everything goes well.