Month: May 2017

#MAYkingItWork: The End

Standard

So here we are at the very, very end of May. I’m happy to report I have, at least, touched my intended manuscript. I’ve finished one chapter (I’d left off without it done) and started another. Success!

Ish.

Though to be fair, the spirit of #MAYkingItWork was really always about facing that project that has irked you, and for any of us that have done that, no matter how much or how close to completion, May is a win. I’ve delved back into the manuscript and surprised myself. It’s funny. It’s got a concept.

And Aunty Ida is ready for another book.

So how about you, my intrepid blogging friends? Do you feel you pulled back the curtain and faced the music in the mirror or whatever mixed metaphor you prefer?

I’ve had a bit of an unusual May, changes ahead, irresistible opportunities I couldn’t let slide. Priorities are what they are, and every day we choose, one way or another.

So maybe your #MAYkingItWork project couldn’t be the top of your heap. It really didn’t make it to the top of mine.

But it was IN the heap. And I’ll take that as a victory.

Have a dusty, unfinished manuscript you need to work on? Join us in May for #MAYkingItWork! Commit to a project and commiserate with us!

Check out  my full-length novels: 

Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   

Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 

 Her Cousin Much Removed

 The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.

And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s free!

Peruse Montraps Publishing.

Advertisement

The Mad Morphing of #MAYkingItWork

Standard

By Hartsook Photo [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Inspired by a comment by a friend who will remain anonymous (Hi Debs! Oh wait, that’s the opposite of anonymous), let’s come clean: #MAYkingItWork might not be taking the shape you intended.

It’s certainly not taking the shape I intended.

What’s that, hypothetical reader? Am I ready to rhombus? Huh? Oh, I see, not the shape I intended… Geometry humor. How long have you been holding on to that one?

That long?

But I digress.

The universe has certainly rumbaed (see, hypothetical reader? I can humor too) its way over my plans for Aunty Ida’s next adventure, but life happens and real adventures are more important that fictional ones.

Hmm. Usually.

The air is electric with change, some for the good, some for the not-so-good, some we may not know for quite some time. We are watching the Earth turn in real time, and we’re turning with it. Sometimes we must adapt.

And that includes our writing plans.

Words are words and projects may differ, but as long as we are making progress with something, we are #MAYKingItWork.

 

Have a dusty, unfinished manuscript you need to work on? Join us in May for #MAYkingItWork! Commit to a project and commiserate with us!

Check out  my full-length novels: 

Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   

Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 

 Her Cousin Much Removed

 The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.

And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s free!

Peruse Montraps Publishing.

 

 

How’s #MAYkingItWork Going? WEEELLLLL

Standard

This painting has a very odd title: Master of the Female Half-Lengths [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

So. I’m really not making #MAYkingItWork work. Like at all.

On the one hand, I think there’s a really good reason for it. Given what’s going on with our, uh, “government,” for lack of a better word, I can’t take my eye off of the news. It seems that things are happening, and they may be happening quickly. This may be the most pivotal moment in history in most of our lifetimes.

It’s tough to look away, let alone to disappear into another imaginary world.

On the other hand, that sounds like it might be a bit of an excuse, doesn’t it? What’s that, hypothetical reader? That’s what you said?

Hmm.

And, as it often goes, I now have a new idea I want to work on. So many shiny things.

How’s it going for you? Anyone made progress?

Have a dusty, unfinished manuscript you need to work on? Join us in May for #MAYkingItWork! Commit to a project and commiserate with us!

Check out  my full-length novels: 

Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   

Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 

 Her Cousin Much Removed

 The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.

And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s free!

 Sign up for my spamless newsletter!

#MAYkingItWork: Get Cozy with those Manuscripts!

Standard

And so here we are, our first full week with our choices chosen. It’s a bright, sunny Monday with the faint echoey racket of something being built in the distance, a day with muted traffic sounds and, mercifully, no hammering.

As I wrote that, the echoey construction sounds turned to hammering. Touche, universe. Touche.

All I can think about at the moment, though, is the Sally Yates hearing later today. It’s tough to focus on the fictional world when the real one reads with far more plot twists.

Artists have, throughout history, created art in the most bleak of circumstances. Creativity is also a form of escape, and when it works, when it’s flowing, you can disappear inside of it as the real world melts away.

Yes, even the sound of heavy metal tools on heavy metal beams.

OK, maybe not that.

If I stop paying attention to it, maybe I won’t notice it anymore. What was I saying?

Right. Creativity.

It’s not always a smooth road to a finished project. Actually, I’d say it’s rarely a smooth road to a finished project. So as we find the potholes where we threw our hubcaps of momentum the first time (trust me, I know, I know) consider maybe the time just wasn’t right then. Maybe there’s something about now.

Have a dusty, unfinished manuscript you need to work on? Join us in May for #MAYkingItWork! Commit to a project and commiserate with us!

Check out  my full-length novels: 

Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   

Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 

 Her Cousin Much Removed

 The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.

And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s free!

 Sign up for my spamless newsletter!

 

#MAYKingItWork: Decision Day

Standard

Commitment is a strong word.

If you’re with me for #MAYking it work, a challenge to pick something unfinished and get to it, you probably know that, when Friday seemed like a good chunk of time away, we all agreed that we would choose our manuscripts and/or projects by today.

OK, fine, maybe you didn’t say it out loud, but you were definitely thinking it. Well, today is Friday.

And I’m still waffling. I want to pick one particular project, but inspiration for another without far to go came last night. In the contrary way my brain tends to work.

Contrary brain.

Anyway, I will not be diverted! I am going with my first choice: another Aunty Ida book.

There. Said it. No backsies. I’m on it.

How about you? Did you choose? Was it harder than you thought?

Have a dusty, unfinished manuscript you need to work on? Join us in May for #MAYkingItWork! Commit to a project and commiserate with us!

Check out  my full-length novels: 

Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   

Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 

 Her Cousin Much Removed

 The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.

And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s free!

 Sign up for my spamless newsletter!

#AtoZChallenge Wrap-Up and #MAYKingItWork

Standard

Yes, this post should have gone up yesterday, but I was a little blogged out. Another A to Z Challenge done, and it was a fun one this year. I didn’t really mind the lack of the list once we got used to it, but I also was a terrible, terrible slacker when it came to my visits.

But I will find you all. Who says all visits must be only in the month of April?

This year’s challenge spawned a new idea: #MAYkingItWork. We pick an unfinished manuscript of any type and commit to it for the month of May. Are you in?

I’ve got two candidates at the moment, so I have to make a final decision. Let’s say we reflect, go through our potential choices, and decide by Friday? No pressure, really, just support and encouragement.

So thanks to everyone who came by and visited this month, it’s been so much fun sharing April with you, and I hope to see you around often.

Have a dusty, unfinished manuscript you need to work on? Join us in May for #MAYkingItWork! Commit to a project and commiserate with us!

Check out  my full-length novels: 

Aunty Ida’s Full-Service Mental Institution (by Invitation Only)   

Aunty Ida’s Holey Amazing Sleeping Preparation (Not Doctor Recommended) 

 Her Cousin Much Removed

 The Great Paradox and the Innies and Outies of Time Management.

And download Better Living Through GRAVY and Other Oddities, it’s free!

 Sign up for my spamless newsletter!