Inclines to Hills

What a day!! Lost my train of thought in middle of scene this morning cuz of my allergy meds. Then my 11yo gets up and he's not feeling well, mostly allergy crap, I think, so we had easy school day. (Yes, we do school on Saturdays, and no, we don't stop for the summer.) I hate it when I can't remember where my brilliance was taking me. Of course, it would have been brilliant. All the lost ideas are fantastic. It's like a rule somewhere. This story just sort of came to me the other day, so the idea is a new shiny and I'm still ironing out the issues :) It's going to be a short/novella. I think. It's SUPPOSED to be anyway. Something to work on whilst I figure out the other things on Search for Sorren.

Roll call for this week: Worked on Search for Sorren (editing AND writing), one of the shorts, a paragraph/idea for the other, and my garden, and crocheted. And where are all those projects?

Search for Sorren: WC 57,737 and 113 pages edited.
Short#1:  6,575 words, and research done on area and some wild animals, and hunting seasons.
Short#2: 94 words, and some ideas, may end up elsewhere as start for novel #3 in the series.
Midwife's Moon: Currently out for edits by CP, staying steady at 20,655, with CP saying first two pages do good job of setting up tension, etc so that's good news :D
Crocheted: Afghan #1: 35%ish (had to redo 1%ish cuz of mistake a few rows back. I probably could have fixed it, but I'm anal retentive when it comes to my arts and crafts.
Afghans 2&3 still at 1%

And, I'm forgetting something... I learned how to do a google document for the style sheet for my The War of the Weres series :) I did said style sheet. More networking/marketing things done as I get reviews, interviews set up. Kinda stalled until my review copies are ready :) Ran invites on my FB author link. Hadn't done that since I set things up.

OH and I ran. And lost weight/inches. *throws confetti*

While running, I had some thoughts. First one, inclines. I have them. Lots. I always kind of thought of it as flat. Well, when I'm in a car, it is mostly flat. I did some magic awesomeness on map my run and saw my inclines. one of them is 16ft over course of about .1 mile, maybe .15ish. Idk. But anyway, 16 ft over .1 isn't that steep, it isn't. Not like my running partner who does a 36 ft hill (and it's apparently not the only hill, or she does it twice or something)

Now, when I first started runnin, I ran to a specific place, then back, then the rest of the run/walk intervals along an actual flat tenth of a mile, back and forth. Well, I got up to 2.7 miles doing that. I had my bits of inclines, but more than half on pure flat. I decided I need to push it harder, get stronger, so I went a bit further up an obvious incline, then back, and again, running on the flat to finish up my time. Well one day, I wanted to really push myself. I ran/walked 2.9 miles, a different route which takes me around an orchard. And guess what? The last .9 miles is all up hill. A gradual hill. But let me tell you, when you're a newbie to running and the last bit is all up hill... yeah.

Now, I go so that one mile of my run is up and down a couple strong inclines, as my everyday run. I'm making 2+ miles so I'm happy. But I got to thinking, as a writer, when we don't know of the bumbs, the problems, the inclines that we face going into writing, it can seem like all flat land, or smooth sailing, to mix my metaphors. But, as we go along, we find out, there's some hard parts in this. You've maybe forgotten grammar you knew, you found out you had to learn to write a query letter, and the days of a writer being a hermit and the publishing house doing the majority of the work (except actually signing the books ;P) are long gone. You have to become a computer guru, internet saavy, instantly understanding the ins and outs, or thought not to be serious in some circles. It's hard work.

What do you do when you come across these inclines? Do you work harder so they become easier? Or do you bypass them, thinking you're doing great, only to find out there's an actual HILL coming up and since you didn't work on the inclines, it's too hard? What can you do?

Writers are a great family of friends. Yes, I said family of friends. It is what we are. Recently, a writer friend, whom I've never met "in person" went into a coma, from toxic shock syndrome. A large number of writers went into a period of grief, all at different levels. Why? Because we are a family. This person was a vibrant, loving, giver, who touched us all. When she went down, we all felt it.

My advice, if you have a sincere wish to be a writer, become a part of our community. Don't do it falsely, be there. Ask questions, offer up encouragement, but don't be fake. Then, when you see that incline, that looks like a mountain, it will only be a mole hill with the help of your writer family. A small bump in the road to becoming a published writer. Conquer those inclines so that when a real hill comes along, you'll be ready.

My car, My writing.

I'm going to put off my author feature one more day as I have two authors whom I'm waiting on. I will do the two I have tomorrow even if I don't get the other's stuff.

In the meantime, I'll do tomorrow's post today :) See how flexible I am?? Now someone besides my husband knows. Er, TMI? Anyways...

We have bad luck with cars. Maybe it's because we're poor and can't do everything the minute it needs done. Maybe it's my karma. IDK, but it's bad. How bad? Well, back when I had a good job, I had a newish mustang. Good condition, convertible, 6 years old. Green awesomeness. I loved that car. My sister in law saw it and asked if she could borrow it to go to Seattle (We live on east side. Anywhere in that area is "going to Seattle" and sometimes even literally.) She said her car wasn't working so hot, but it was fine locally.

I looked at her quizzically. May even have tilted my head. I said, "You're car has something odd happening. Something you can't get checked out right now and you want ME to drive your car?"

Her eyes widened and she looked at her coworker and said, "Oh. No, nevermind. We'll find something else."

That's how notorious it is. I'm not a mechanic, but I can get in a car and tell if something's wrong. I just don't have the words to express it correctly.

Well, on Saturday night, I drove home from inlaws where we went to console me on not seeing my family or being there for funeral. Hot tubs are very good for consoling. As I'm going down the road I said something was wrong with the car.

A mile later I said to my buzzed/drunk husband, "Did you feel that?" Turns out it had been doing it for week and he'd bought transmission fluid and oil but couldn't get to it without tools. Sunday was crazy and Monday I had an appointment with the baby.

On the way to the appointment, the car does the hesitation thing worst.

I try to get it taken care of in town but first the damn hood wouldn't pop open. I go to McDonald's and get my 2 yo fries to placate him while I'm working on the sucker. Finally, I get the hood thingy to work again. I put my hand in but can't get any torque on the lid. It's place under the manifold and air filter. How stupid can you be. And usually, when it's that hard to get, there's like a dipstick check. No. Nothing. I finally curse and slam the hood back down.

My kids screaming and I'm freezing. I think it was colder in the day yesterday, than it was at 530 this morning. I decide to try to go the ten miles back home and work on it there where the kiddo can at least go in the house.

I didn't make it a mile. I get on the highway and it's very bad. I pull over and work on it somewhere, this time burning myself to heck and gone. After multiple burns, only one bad, I remember my husband has heat resistant gloves he left in the car. I get them on and try to turn it. I still can't. I'm getting nervouse because the semitrucks are passing me like I'm a plague they're running from.

I move the car, using the emergency shoulder the short distance to the next road and pull off. I start making phone calls and texting. I need strong hands and a long funnel. And pliers. Or something. LOL I put a quart of oil in while I'm waiting cuz I see it's also low on oil.

I finally get help and they are able to turn the damn thing. And they had tools, so we took of the airfilter. It worked for a bit. But it's still doing it a little bit. Especially in one particular gear. Suck suck suck.

This long story does have a writing moral to it. What could it possibly be???

Well, it's this:

How many times do you have a great idea for a story? Or a great idea on how to fix something in your book but don't have time to write it down? Or maybe you think you'll remember it? Or maybe you don't have the tools ready--no pen, paper, computer, handy cassette recorder, nothing that you need. And you look. You try. Maybe you even write it on your arm, but it's not quite enough.

For whatever reason, it's lost. Or when you do get around to applying it, it's not quite as good as it was. Or there's something not quite right.

Two things, my friends. One, try to have all your tools handy. If, when you get those tools together, or apply your brilliant idea, things still aren't quite right, you need a friend. A friend can help a) say yep, there's no dipstick handy. How odd? Thus confirming you do have to do things the hard way, even if you don't want to. And b) they can help you get those brilliant ideas working so you can bring your book on home :)

So have your tools handy, and keep a friend along for the ride. You never know what you might need.

Hello there :D

I've found a few new friends recently, and it has been loads of fun ~ I should say they are old friends that were lost! It's been a blast.

In other news, I'm still not sleeping, I know that's more of an update, not news, and get this. My boys made High Academic Honors for their perspective classes. Yes, Both Patrick and Edward are the bomb and are getting treated to a full on steak dinner as a reward. You should have seen their eyes. It was pretty funny.

Trying to get Graduation Party together for my daughter for this Saturday. Did major grocery shopping today. Tired but pleased with the results. Got about 12-13 hundred dollars in food for 800 or so :D yep yep quit proud.

Can't wait to get rewrites finished so can get my readers' opinion :D

Till later friends.