Hey, Hey Good Lookin' - Whatcha Got Cookin'?

One of my goals right now is to cook more often, and so when I sat down to write this goals post the only I could come up with was this song. So of course I had to look it up...

Bring back memories for anyone? I'm not that old (not calling you old, calling me young :P) but my Daddy used to ask my Mom that question all the time, and even sing from time to time!

So how am I doing on my goals? Well...

Writing:
1. Five hours editing a week. I'm at 3:10 right now! I'm very happy with that. I'm actually ahead of the game! Granted, it's only by 10 minutes, but I was behind schedule last week, and never reached my goal, so this is super fantastic.

2. Blog on a regular basis. Monday: Giveaway post (go enter!), Tuesday: Creative Writing Post, Today: your reading it!

3. Write book reviews and post on GoodReads.com. Four so far! I'm not caught up yet, but at least I'm up to writing about the books I read this month! One of the reviews is in Monday's post... in fact it's the book I'm giving away! (hint, hint)

4. Read and comment on at least 5 other blogs. Check!

Life:
1. Put more variety in our diets. That above picture is last nights dinner. Left over burrito meat cooked up with some scrambled eggs and cheese, topped in salsa and olives, served on a tortilla (and rolled up, but this is prettier)! Super yummy. Tonight's dinner was a newish recipe (old favorite ingredients, new combination) but of course I forgot to take a picture of that!

2. Clean/Organize the house. I cleaned! A little bit. The house is still a mess in general, but the bathroom is clean! And a little bit of the mess is gone.

3. Exercise! I've been doing more stretching, and the cleaning is counting as exercise this week. Believe me, my knees are feeling it.

4. Take more pictures. I think the above picture of dinner is the only picture of any worth I've taken this week so far (the one's of my husband when I was picking on him don't count) but hey, that's one good picture. I'll take it.

See that pretty picture? Ok, so maybe it doesn't look so pretty to everyone else. Especially since I have gone through and blurred the text in the center. But that my friends, is the ready to go file for the second draft of Misfits!

Woohoo!

I finally finished the overly long process of taking all the changes I made on the paper copy and putting them in the new digital copy. This required lots of copy and pasting text, putting it in a different order (in many cases) than I wrote it, typing up the outline I created, typing notes into the text and highlighting them, and lastly, making sure all my references pages were in the new work-from file. Oh and for the heck of it I alphabetized, color coded, and labeled everything.

My OCD side was very happy when I was done.

It took way longer to do all this than I expected, but I figured out some more things about my story along the way, and I know the next phases of the the process are going to be much easier because of this phase, so I'm happy.

So what is next? Well I was going to tell you rewriting is next, but I realized yesterday that I need to do some more world building and character building before I tackle the rewrite. I started in on that today, and I'm not sure how long it's going to take me, but I know the book will be better for it in the end, so I press on!

How is your writing going?
~ Ruthie ~

The Way the World Smells

Like free books? Check out my giveaway!

The following piece is my response to the Creative Nudge I posted on Saturday - taking the sense of smell and making it central to a short piece. I used the characters in my current WIP and wrote a totally new scene for them, that I might just include somewhere in the book (or unwritten sequel).

source

“How does the world smell to you Levi?”

Levi looked up at Alina from his bowl of Keava’s stew, and just stared, confused, with out a clue how to respond to this strange question.

Seeing his confusion Alina tried again, “I mean, I know you are a Wolf, and that Wolves are very scent orientated, and I’ve noticed that even when you are shape-shifted into human form you tend to sniff at things. For instance, you just took a deep whiff of that stew you’re holding, and while I do that too because Keava’s stew is fantastic, I’m just wondering what the world smells like to you.

“Like … the world?” Levi wasn’t trying to make a joke, he still was completely lost, and unsure of what Alina was trying to get out of him. She asked the strangest questions sometimes, and right now he’d rather just go back to his bowl of stew.

“Well, yeah, of course, but what does that smell like? Does it smell different when you are a Wolf versus when you are in human form?”

“No.”

“Really? I’ve always wondered about that, what stays the same when you shape change that is.” Alina wanted to figure out her friend, well, honestly, she wanted to figure out everything, but right now she was focused on this strange, black haired Wolf that fate had thrown her together with.

Levi sighed and put down his stew. “My abilities mostly stay the same, except I’m not as strong as a human. I can still see everything through scent, hear better than you can although not quite as good as I can as a wolf, and use my mental abilities of course.”

Alina rolled her eyes. “I knew you could use your telekinesis and telepathy, and those make sense to me, it’s just seems strange that your physical abilities change so little.”

“Well think of it this way, I’m in charge of the shape change, it’s not like I’m casting some spell that does the work for me. I mean yeah, there is a spell involved, but I still have to put the intent into forming the shape. So what can stay the same, and that gives me an advantage, does.”

“Ah, that makes sense.” Alina looked thoughtful, “Do you think you could ever teach someone else to shape-shift?”

Levi just shook his head.

“Why not?”

“I’m not that good of a teacher!”

Alina laughed, thinking he was wrong about that, but letting it rest for now, she still wanted an answer to her earlier question. “So what does the world smell like to you?”

“You aren’t going to give that up are you?”

“Nope.”

“It smells… like information. I can tell that you and Keava were collecting herbs earlier because your clothes still smell like rue and lavender, and I could tell you what spices Keava used in the stew, and that there was a herd of deer through this clearing earlier. The fire smells like a bouquet of the different woods we used in building it, I can smell the different flowers growing around us, and a whole bunch more.” Levi ended awkwardly, not sure if this is what she wanted to hear, but then, looking back up at her and seeing the wonder on her face, deciding that it was.

Skyrim Anyone?

I have a confession to make - one of the many things that distracts me from writing lately is Skyrim! My brother-in-law bought it for us last week and I've been a bit addicted. Nowhere near as much as my husband though. Of course since we only have one gaming-capable computer I only play when he's at work, so that could be part of it. I'm doing my best to be a good girl though. I do honestly need some downtime right now because I've got a lot I'm working through emotionally, but I'm making sure I get some writing time too!

Here's where I'm at on my goals for this week so far:

Writing Goals:

1. Five Hours Editing a Week (Ideally an hr a day M-F) Currently at an hour and a half of editing. Not quite the 2-3 hr mark I'd like to be at, but considering I had no time to write at all on Monday (other than getting my blog post up) and didn't really sleep Monday night so I was exhausted Tuesday... Well, I'm happy with where I'm at!

2. Blog on a regular basis:
Monday - Posted about these goals
Tuesday - Finally updated my blog (long over due) and posted about it.
Today - Duh :P


3. Continue to write and post reviews both here and on www.goodreads.com - Two book reviews done!


Life Goals:


1. Put more variety in our diets, try new recipes and cook more often. Done! 


2. Clean/Organize the house. First get things organized, then get on top of doing weekly chores. No progress.


3. Exercise! I actually have really good news on this front! I saw my physical therapist for the first time in a month and she was really happy about my progress. Of course this means she gave me harder exercises ... which are very uncomfortable for now... but it's still good to hear.


4. Take more pictures. Done!


All in all I'm happy with where I'm at right now at the mid-week point. I feel like I'm making good progress on most things, and considering other factors in life the last few days, I'm ok with not making progress in other areas.


Best of all? I'm very, very close to starting re-writes of Misfits! In fact, if all goes according to plan I should be starting tomorrow or Friday on the rewrites. Yay! I'm both excited and a little nervous...


How are you doing with your goals?


~ Ruthie ~ 

Happy Dance Time!

See that? Those are all the 3x5 cards I made for the different scenes in Misfits! (91 in total) Phew. I am so excited that's done! It was a lot more work than I was expecting, and I hit a lot of real-life speed bumps, so I thought I was going to be done with this step a loooong time ago. Now that I have it all organized...its time to tear it apart! I'll explain more about that on Sunday (with pictures!) That's tomorrow's project - and I've been looking forward to this since sometime in November when I wasn't even done with the story yet.

I'm also super excited because I made some real progress in reaching a title for the story, and in figuring out the sequel, all this morning! It's been a big day obviously.

I've known all along that this book was ripe for a sequel, and as I wrote the last couple of chapters it became clearer than ever, but I've never really known what the sequel was going to be about. Today, as I reread and outlined, I found several things that were just too much new information to be including in the last chapters of the book, especially with all the other realizations my characters were coming too. I started jotting down things like "use in the next book," and before I knew it, I realized I just given myself a major driving force for the sequel.

This book is all about my characters finding each other. Yes there's a quest that they're on, and that's very important too, but the quest is really there to drive them getting to know each other and learning to work together. The next book is also going to have some sort of quest to it (that part isn't figured out yet) but the focus for the characters is going to be growth. I'm going to have each one of them gain new abilities (some magical and some probably not), and grow as individuals along the way. I don't know much more than that, but that's more than enough to get me excited!

I've also figured out that Misfits (which is what my band of adventurers is) will be part of the series title. Each book title will have something to do either with the quest, or with the personal challenges facing the group. I know that sounds vague, but it's still a big step forward! I'll keep referring to this draft as Misfits for the time being, just to avoid confusion, and let you all know if I get something more concrete.

~ Ruthie ~

Ps. How is your writing going?

Fear

source

Fear. It's something we all deal with. Some of our fears are irrational (there probably isn't a monster in the closet, unless my husband is about to scare me again) and some of them are quite rational (yes, avoiding black widow spiders is smart). There are fears that we have because of a lack of information, there are fears we have based on past events, and fears that are related to current events in our lives. Lots and lots of fears that people deal with in one way or another.

For most writer's there is a fear that we all share. Namely, that our work isn't good enough. 

Now I know that this isn't a fear unique to writers, but I am writer, and I know many of my readers are writers (or artists) and will identify with what I'm saying.

When you write something (or create a work of art) you invest a lot into it. You put in your time and effort, but more than that, you put a piece of yourself into your work. So this fear of not being good enough is very, very personal. 

I have struggled with this fear many times in my life, and most recently, as I've been working on outlining Misfits, the book I wrote during NaNoWriMo last year. (note: Misfits is a working title) I look at this piece of work in front of me and I see all its messy flaws, and believe me, it has a ton of them. One of the characters starts out talking in full sentence and later in the book he only speaks in choppy, broken sentences. One of the character speaks like a normal person and I need to fancy up his language and give him lots of big words to use. There are plot holes. Places where I made things work so I could keep writing and it's just quite frankly not believable. The conversations in places are so stilted it makes me cringe. 

It would be really easy to stop right here and say, "This is never going to be worth the effort. I should do something else." It is going to take a LOT of work to make this book at all readable and, after all that work, what if it's still not good enough? 

Here's the thing though. I can't worry about that yet. As my brother reminded me yesterday, Misfits is a 71k book that I wrote in 29 days. Of course it has lots of problems! Since I've never completed an entire first draft of a novel, and I wrote this one in a very short period of time, there is absolutely no way that the first draft could be anything but a mess.

And so I go on.

I'm 75% of the way through outlining the book, and when I'm done I'm going to spread the manuscript out on the floor, scene by scene with it's matching index card, and make some hard decisions about what needs to be done from there to fix it. I'm committed to bringing this book to a complete second draft, and my fears be damned. I can't let them rule my work or I'll never get anywhere.

Sure, there's a chance I'm investing all this time and effort and I'll decide, in the end, that this book isn't worth publishing, and that's ok. I'll have learned a lot through the process (and believe me I am!) and the next one I write will be better. I have to believe that, or I might as well stop writing. So adios fear, you can pack your bags, I'm not going to listen to your seductive voice.

~ Ruthie ~

I'm Baaaack!

source

I've missed blogging! Actually I've missed a lot of things. I've been sick for weeks... and before that life was insane because someone I was close to was in crisis and...yeah. It's just been crazy but I'm getting better slowly but surely and I'm happy to blogging again! 

Yesterday was the first time in a month and a half that I had sat down to work on Misfits, my NaNoNovel. That's just sad. I have done writing here and there in the mean time, book reviews, a few writing exercises, but not touched the book. I know that the stress I've been under is a big part of it, but I also think that part of it comes down to scheduling.

I hate schedules, which makes it very hard for me to put myself on any kind of one. Part of it is that I can be very ADHD, so schedules tend to annoy me because I have a hard time focusing on what I'm supposed to be focusing on when I'm supposed to be focusing on it. So for a long time I've given myself a schedule of "you must do this and this at some point in the day" and just tackled it in whatever order felt "right" to me that day.

The problem with that is that the things I want to do, or have motivation to do for whatever reason, get done. The things that I don't want to do? Not as much. 

So I'm trying out a new schedule. It still has a lot of flexibility to it, but I'm assigning chunks of my day to certain tasks (like writing!) and then leaving some vagueness to how I approach the use of that time. I've also put into my new plan time for me to get sick or have migraines (which I do a lot) or for other things to disrupt my schedule. I'll let you guys know how it goes! 

~ Ruthie ~ 

Banana Bread! Row80 Update

I made banana bread! I'm so happy! Why? I'm learning how to do more baking, and this is something I've never made before and it came out awesome! Woot!

Anyway... on to the writing!

On Wednesday I said that I needed to rethink my goals. Here is the conclusion that I have come to, I can not devote my life to writing right now.

What does that mean?

First of all - I'm not going to stop writing! That would just be insane. That would be ... soul sucking. I may go through weeks where I write less than others, but I am a much happier Ruthie when I write, so completely abandoning writing is just not going to happen. Period.

Second - I am keeping my writing goals, but they have been massively scaled back. I have decided that while I have two books I want to work on, I just can't sustain that level of focus right now because I need it for other things. For the next few weeks my goals are simply to work on blogging regularly again, and focus on Misfits. This decision was HARD because I want to work on both, but I'm not doing justice to either and getting stressed. Stress is not good.

Lastly - the reason behind all of this is that I'm really good at setting myself up to do to much, and between asthma and migraines, that is not a good thing! Especially since stress tends to lead to both of those. I got through NaNoWriMo and said, "I can do this! I'm going to focus on my writing and put it first!" Which would be great if I was truly at a place in my life where I could do that.

Instead, I really need to put my health first. I'm in the middle of a long journey out of the deep hole that was dug by my body. That may sound weird, but a full explanation would just take too long and make me sad. Suffice it to say, I am a very unhealthy person and large portions of it are not my fault (that and I love food, I really love food!). It means I have a long journey ahead of me to be what could be considered even semi-healthy. I am much better than I was, but...

Working on my healthy isn't just good for all the normal reasons, as I continue to get stronger I'll be able to do more, which in the long run, will mean more writing!

Where are you at with your writing?

~ Ruthie ~

Ps. As a perfect example of how messed up my health has been - yesterday was a really busy day and I wrote this up while the banana bread was cooking. But by the time I had pulled it from the oven, taken pictures, and eaten, I had to go do something else. By the time dinner was done I was so tired I couldn't do anything else and this never got posted. See why we need to get on top of this whole health situation?

Moving Forward Once Again - ROW80 Check In

I'm making progress and writing again. It makes me so happy! I'm no where near caught up on my goals, and honestly I'm fighting a migraine right now so I'm not going to pull up my goals sheet and update it until tomorrow. I'm going to need to revise things based on the time lost due to the back injury, but that's ok. I'm well aware that there are things in life that are out of our control. The only thing we can control is how we respond to them and then move forward.

Moving forward can be hard sometimes, especially once you know your too far behind to properly catch up. The key, I've found, is to remember that even if you can't catch up you'll only fall farther behind if you don't start moving. That's where I usually start, simply moving.

Simply moving can mean a lot of things. Pertaining to the actual injury, it means doing what I can for myself, with out help. Getting my own water. Then, as I improve, getting my own food. As time progresses I move about more often, do basic stretches, start to catch up on small chores.

With writing, simply moving looks similar. The first thing I usually pick back up after a major set back is this blog. If you look at the last two weeks my posts have been few, but I did make attempts to get back at it. Then, once I was able to do that with relative ease, I focused on catching up on book reviews. Now? Now I'm back to the "real" writing.

In the last couple of days I've not only written some of those book reviews that I've mentioned (I have several in queue right now!) I've also started on a ghost story, and worked on going through Misfits and taking notes. I was hoping to work on Jemnath today, but I got knocked down with a migraine so again its one of those days where moving forward involves small steps.

The ghost story is one of those cases where I have loads I'm supposed to be working on, but my muse is insisting I take some time to work on a different idea. I'm trying to balance all three right now, but hopefully the first draft of the ghost story (it's a short story) will be done in the next week and I can put it on the back burner for awhile. Depending on how it turns out I might work on polishing it from time to time and make it my first submitted work. It has potential, but who knows what will happen!

How are your writing endeavors going?

~ Ruthie ~

Creative Nudge #6 - Meet Levi

Due to my back injury I was never able to respond to the last Creative Nudge I posted - or to post a new one! To catch up I'm both going to share what I wrote and give you a new Nudge - all in one post. Sorry if this gets a little bit long!

Creative Nudge #5 was to interview a character from one of your stories. If you didn't get a chance to respond to it but still want to, feel free to leave a link to your post in the comments of this one! For now... Here's mine :)

source

Levi is one of the characters from my NaNoNovel 2011 which I'm currently referring to as Misfits (although I'm thinking maybe Pack of Misfits instead?) Levi is a Wolf. Wolves in Maerdon are sentient, have a range of psychic and magical abilities, and years ago began learning to shape change to enable them to more easily communicate with the members of other races that weren't comfortable (and sometimes not capable of) using telepathy. Levi has a tortured past, and when we meet him in Misfits he is choosing to live out among the other races in the shape of a man. He's big, 6'2" in human form, with black hair and blue eyes. I've had him answer these questions based on his life before the book starts.

Question #1: What's the hardest part about shape changing?
The small things. At first that means things like getting the fingers and ears right, but then once you have learned the form that becomes much easier. Then you are tripped up by things like facial expressions, mannerisms, even the way you walk. I've spent enough time among the other races that I've learned to imitate them fairly well, but I still forget that most humans can't smell the way I still can while in human form. It takes a lot of focus not to be constantly sniffing the air.

Question #2: What's your favorite thing to do?
Hunt. I love the hunt, and, based on experience, it's something I won't really be able to explain to you.

Question #3: Since you've chosen to live among the other races and not with a pack, how do you make your living?
I hunt. I've learned out to take down a kill without ruining the hide and I then tan and sell the hides. 

Question #4: Where do you live?
I travel a lot. Never stay in one place long, but I do have a cave I take the hides back to so I can tan them. 

Question #5: Wolves are a pack society, is it hard living as a lone Wolf?
Yes.

I could ask him more questions - but this post would get rather long (because of my questions, not his answers obviously, did you notice they got shorter as we went?).  

Erin Morgenstern's Website

Creative Nudge #6: The Circus! I'm currently reading "The Night Circus" by Erin Morgenstern and I can barely put it down (but I know I have to do my own writing too!). So write some thing about a circus, or a clown, or something else you associate with the circus. 

Go write! Then Blog. Then come back here and leave me a comment so I know you did! I will not be using the linky tools that I was previously using (don't want to pay for it) and I'll be looking around to see if I can find another one before next week.

~ Ruthie ~

Week One of Set Writing Goals

Before I start talking about where I'm at in my writing goals - I wanted to share something fun with you! I mentioned on Tuesday that I won the Book Mark Break Challenge this year, and the prize was that she featured me on her blog. I'm very excited about it as its my first time being featured since I rejoined the bloggy world, so I'd really appreciate my lovely readers heading over there and checking it out.  Just don't forget to come back and read this post and leave me a comment! 

source

Today marks the end of my first week of ROW80! (If you don't know what that is go here.) It's been a weird week, but a good one. Most of my plans got changed around, but I still got a lot done, and I had some invaluable girl time that I don't regret for a minute, so that makes me once very content writer. Mr. Muse is happy too. 

The Goals and what I accomplished:

1. Write 750 words minimum a day - I did it! I had one day where I was really sick and almost didn't do it, but that's why I've set up a reward. If I do my 750 words every day I get to buy a book - and I really want to buy a book! It was enough to get me to the computer. Most of what I wrote that day was trash, but reading back over it today it was interesting to see how some of what I wrote set me off on things I worked on the next day, without even remembering I'd made a note about it while sick! See? Even sick ramblings can be useful.

2. Jemnath - Ch’s 16 &17 - I barely made this goal ... by writing at least half of it today. But hey, the goal was there, this blog post was looming over my head, and it got written. Isn't that what joining ROW80 is all about? I know I do much better when I both have set goals, and a system of accountability. Of course we'll have to see what future weeks hold, but so far it's working!

3. Misfits - Read Through & Hatchet Attack - This is a lesson in needing to adjust goals. I'm not done with the read through - and I haven't done the hatchet attack yet because I have to finis the read through first! I'm ok with that though because I am 30% of the way through my read through, and I put a bunch of hours in it. It's just taken me longer to do than I expected because of the type of notes I'm taking. So I've adjust my goals, dedicated next week to trying to finish the read through (hopefully life will cooperate a little better than it did this week), and going from there. If you look at my goals page you'll see both that I updated it with this weeks results, and I've already adjust my editing goals to match reality!

How is your writing going? Are you meeting your goals? Do you need to adjust your goals like I had to when faced with reality?

~ Ruthie ~

WIP Wednesday - Full of Distractions (ROW80)

That's right, my week so far has been full of distractions. Some of them good (lunch with a friend) and some of them mundane (like laundry) but full none the less. Today was supposed to be a day of writing with a little bit of house work mixed in - but my plans have been derailed! 

It's a good derailing though. See that cute couple on the left? That's my "baby" brother Peter and his wife Tanya wearing some of the knit & crocheted items my Mom made (I know the hats were knit, and I have a feeling the scarf was crochet but I can't remember). They have been in town for Christmas (they live in Chicago) and I found out last night that there is a going away luncheon for them today! I was going to head up to Vancouver tomorrow, but I've moved all my plans around and I'm heading up today instead. Which should be a ton of fun and leaves tomorrow as a writing day instead! 

Despite all my distractions I've gotten a little bit of writing work done. My goals for this week are:

1. Write 750 words min. a day.
2. Jemnath - Ch’s 16 &17
3. Misfits - Read Through & Hatchet Attack

So far I'm going strong on the writing 750 words a day. I've promised myself a new book at the end of the month if I manage to do it every day so that's plenty of incentive! Yesterday's 750 was taken up writing chapter 16 in Jemnath (goal 2!). Every other chapter in this book is very short, between 450-800 words, so that was relatively easy to hammer out yesterday. The only downside is that means I have at least 2000 more words to write this week in that book, but with tomorrow and Friday pretty wide open that should be reasonable to accomplish.

I'm LOVING doing the read through of Misfits! I'm only through chapter 5 so far. I debated going through and just reading with out notes the first time versus taking detailed notes as I went a long and opted for the second option. In an ideal world I'd be able to keep my writing fingers still long enough just to take in the scope of the story - but I just couldn't do it. I am not only taking notes in my notebook, I am making 3x5 cards for each scene as I go along. It's all part of my master plan to take a hatchet to first draft! I'll explain more about that (with pictures!) in the ROW80 check in on Monday. 

For now - I gotta go take a shower, write my 750, and head out for Vancouver. Cheers!

~ Ruthie ~

My Writing Goals - I'm Excited!

I’m very excited to share my writing goals with you, my blog readers! I’m not sure I’ve ever been this excited about sharing my goals. There are several reasons for that, but I’ll save that for later.


This year I’ll be joining in on A Round of Words in 80 Days (ROW80). ROW80 is all about setting good writing goals and then achieving them, but there is lots of grace involved, you are free to change your goals and adjust them to meet reality.

I am excited about meeting other writers, and about the accountability involved. I’ll be posting twice a week (Sunday and Wednesday) about how I’m doing with my writing goals. I have put a page up at the top of my blog with my writing goals (or you can click here). That page has it a copy of my spread sheet (I’m all about spread sheets!) but I’ll summarize in this post.


1. Write 750 words a day. I’m doing the 750words.com monthly challenge (for more on 750words see my post here.) If I write every day for this month I get to buy myself a book! Going back and forth between actually owning Hunger Games, Eden by Keary Taylor, and working on my Terry Brooks collection. Anyway, the 750 might be made up of writing prompts, writing book reviews, working on my books, or just stream of consciousness, but it will happen!

2. Two chapters a week in Jemnath. I’ve projected that out until the end of the 80 days, but I honestly have no idea how many chapters this book will take! I may be done by the end of ROW80 - or I might just be really close. We’ll see. Two chapters equals one long chapter and one short (about a page) chapter. I think that’s attainable and still gives me time to meet my other goals.

3. Editing Misfits. I really don’t know exactly what that’s going to look like past the first read through and going at the book with a hatchet (I’ll post about that on Wednesday). For now I have the first two weeks filled in and the rest is TBD (To be Determined). I’ll expand on my goals once I have a better idea of how the edit is going.

Like I said - I’m really excited about this! I think I’ve set attainable goals that will stretch me, but not too far. It certainly won’t be the challenge NaNoWriMo was, but I think thats probably a good thing in this case. I also feel more confident about meeting those goals than normal, because I’ve learned that I desperately need outside accountability to meet my writing goals, and I think this will be perfect for that. Not to mention, I’m just elated that I’ll be doing so much writing!

What are you writing goals right now? Want to join ROW80? We’d love to have along for the ride!


~ Ruthie ~


Ps. Do you like my writing notebook (see picture)? I love Celtic knot work and leather - so this book is perfect for me! I also love purple and this pen works really well.

Creative Nudge #3 - Plus Excitement!

I'm so excited! Do you see that beautiful pile of paper to the left? That's Misfits - my NaNoWriMo Novel! My best friend printed it up at school (shhh...don't tell anyone!) and brought it to me when she came home for the holidays. When she gave it to me I just hugged it to myself for awhile.

Now I'm going a little bit crazy. I really, really, did I say really yet? want to start going through it! I have it right there after all. Still, I promised myself no editing until the 1st (partially so I can start working on Jemnath again, which I have) so it's just going to sit there for now. Still... I think I know what I'll be doing as soon as I have my coffee January 1st!

*****

Creative Nudge #3

This week is our first photo prompt! 

Before I say anything else - let me tell you that I got this fun and zany Christmas Squid from my friend Carapace's Etsy Store. You can buy it here - it's only $5!

So what now?

1. Stare at the picture long and hard - then write! What will you write? I don't know! That's up to you :)

2. Post what you wrote on your blog! 

3. Come back here and leave a link in the Mr. Linky Tool below! Feel free to leave links there for previous Creative Nudges as well. I'll list the first two nudges in the link tools below in case you want to check them out. 

That's it! Have fun writing and with the madness of finishing getting ready for Christmas! 

~ Ruthie ~

Ps. I'll be putting up my post to last week's Creative Nudge tomorrow!

My Words Mondays - A Plot Ninja

source

Ninja Monkey! I love monkey's! I was excited when I found this picture to go with my weekly sharing of some of my writing :) This week I'm going to share a piece I wrote as a result of a Plot Ninja. What's that you ask? At the Kick Off party for Portland area WriMo's we passed around 3x5 cards and wrote Plot Ninja's for each other. They were ideas that we could throw at our story if we got stuck. Well, I never got stuck enough to use mine, so I opened it after it was all over, took one my main characters from Misfits, and used it as a writing prompt! My card said, "Your main character climbs a tree and breaks a leg."

This is the result... 

*****

Alina had wandered off for some time to herself. Their pack of misfits was a lot of fun, and she loved being with the others, but sometimes a girl just needed some time to herself to think, or not think, and to have no external pressure to do either. The woods she was walking through were lovely, but she only half-noticed them. She was entranced by the fact that she was alone for more than five minutes for the first time in days, and everything else was just peripheries.

She had no idea how much time had passed. It was still afternoon, the light told her that, but nobody expected her back so the time was relatively irrelevant except for realization that she'd been walking for awhile, and she probably should start paying more attention to her surroundings if she was going to make her way back to the other's any time soon.

Looking around Alina realized that she was in a relatively sparse area of the forest. A fire had obviously passed through here some years before, and while there were a few of the big tree's that had survived, the majority of what was around her was new growth. Looking at the old tree's, the one's who had survived through wind, rain, and fire, she noticed that one of them had something purple up in it's branches.

"That's strange." She muttered to herself, and decided to get a closer look at it. She wound her way through the bushes to the base of the tree and started looking for hand holds. From the black marks along the trunk she suspected the old fire had made her job harder, but she'd climbed a few tree's in her day, and soon she was working her way up towards what appeared to be some fabric.

The tree was tall, from it's height and girth it was likely one of the oldest tree's in the surrounding area, and the purple fabric was high in it's branches. It looked like the wrong shape for a kite, but that was about all Alina could tell, even as she slowly drew closer.

Suddenly she heard some loud barking, and even though she should have been used to it by now, she started, losing her footing, and fell. As she bounced off of branches, trying desperately to grab hold (and nearly succeeding) she had just enough time to think, "We were tempting fate when we named that damn dog Trouble," before she hit the ground with a thud.

Alina blacked out for a few minutes, and when she came too Trouble was licking her face eagerly. She glared at him and pushed him away, taking stock of her injuries. Her body was covered in bruises and small cuts, but what consumed her attention was the pain in her leg. From the angle it was lying at the bone was obviously broken. She attempted to move it and blacked out again, but for only a few seconds this time as far as she could tell. Realizing that moving was futile she laid back and tried to figure out how she was going to get a message to the rest so they could come set her leg and help her back to camp.

How could an afternoon that had started out so right end up so wrong?

*****

I hope you liked it! 

~ Ruthie ~ 

Ps. If you had a plot ninja last month (for my WriMo friends) what did you do with it?

WIP Wednesday - Achoo!

source

A sneeze and a box of tissues. That about wraps up my writing report for the week! Ok, so maybe there’s a little bit more too it, but not much. This week saw the end of my writing streak. I had written every day since the end of October, 38 days in a row, and it hurt to break that streak! Still, when your out with the flu, or a cold, or whatever this is, sometimes you just have to be nice to yourself.

It was a strange feeling, not writing yesterday, after so many days with out a break, even on vacation and during my sprained wrist! I was frustrated with myself, that I couldn’t get past the lethargy and write, but in the end I started to look at it from a different angle. I’m not sure, but I seriously don’t think I’ve ever written that many days without a break. Granted, some of that writing was total garbage, but I still did it, I wrote something.

Looking at it that way, I decided I had more than earned my sick day off!

Now for the big WIP’s:

“Misfits” is on the metaphorical shelf until January first, and it feels strange not to be working on it on a daily basis. On the flip side, I haven’t exactly forgotten about it. I read a short piece at the TGIO party last week, and I wrote a short story involving one of my main characters in a writing exercise last Thursday. So it’s never too far from my mind.

“Jemnath” is the working title of the book I started four years ago. It’s the name of the fantasy world the book is set in, and this week was supposed to involve me sending the book to my kindle and reading it over so I can sit down and work on completing the first draft (I’m 38k into the story). Hasn’t happened yet, but I’m still sick, and this week isn’t over yet!

Project with Meri - this story has no name yet, but we have resumed planning! We have a very basic out line and are discussing story mechanics right now. This will be a slow project because it involves coordinating thoughts and schedules, and we both get busy!

Wow - that was a longer report than I expected! I’m going to go curl up with a cup of tea now…

~ Ruthie ~

Ps. I am not affiliated with Kleenex in anyway - I just use their product a LOT.