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. 

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. 

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. 

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.