When all else fails-game day!

So yesterday (Sunday) was a bit odd, and I thought I’d talk about it.

I woke up before 6:00 to find a horrible electrical smell filling the whole house, and even after my whole family looked around the house, we couldn’t find a cause… so we tripped the breakers for the house to prevent a fire. 

We called not one, not two, but three whole electricians, one of whom suggested we just turn the power back to the house in one big flip, (HUGE fire hazard.) And one of whom suggested we just live without any electricity for the next week. None of them were free any time this week, let alone the same day. 

We had a friend suggest trouble-shooting by flipping a new breaker every two hours, to see if we could figure out where the issue was. This worked fine, but we still didn’t have power in the house for much of the day, nor did we have any internet, so we couldn’t “attend” digital church, nor a lot of other things that we would have typically done on a lazy Sunday.

Now, you may think that we decided to sit down and sulk after this series of events… but you’d be wrong. Instead, we decided to use the lack of electronics as an excuse for a good long game day.

As you can see we chose Monopoly; and by the time we finished, I think we had played for about 6 ½ hours!

After 2-3 hours it felt as though my victory was assured;

My hand,

My brother's hand,

My mom's hand.

A little while after this photo was taken, my mom dropped out, and then there were two;

House rule- when you drop out, you get to chose what happens to your hand, you can put everything back, or stack it in the middle, and whoever gets to free parking first, gets it all.

With a stack like that whoever got to free parking first was assured a win… right? Especially considering that I landed on it, with the hand you can see above more or less intact.

But then, disaster! My brother decided to develop everything in sight, slowly bleeding me dry, and somehow managing to almost perfectly avoid all my properties!

I fought back, placing six houses, and hoping that the property development card would take him out… he drew and paid it; twice.

I knew that I had lost, but I wasn’t going to give up either. So we played it out to the bitter end. My brother managing the most spectacular Monopoly feat I’ve ever seen in my life; gaining all the 500 bills by the time I finally lost.

Now, don’t get me wrong the game was fun; but I think there may be a small lesson in here somewhere… or maybe it’s just been too long since I’ve been able to teach, and I’m pulling lessons out of nowhere. 

Considering everything that went wrong yesterday morning, no one on earth would have begrudged us a cranky day, but instead, we decided to do something fun together, without the internet as an interruption. Sometimes life sucks, everyone knows that, but sometimes… just sometimes, you can choose to try and have a good day; even on a bad day.

I wish I could say that I was great at this, but I’m not, I have bad days just like everyone else, sometimes even more than everyone else; but yesterday, in spite of everything, was a good day.

Thanks for reading!

Huge announcement

Alright, I’ve kept ya’ll in suspense for long enough… my extra special announcement is that… my book is officially coming out in 1 week!

It’s been 2 ½ years, countless hours, and far too much heartache, but I’m finally ready to let the world read my book!

Actually, I’m not… I’m actually freaking out, and I have no idea how to cope with the idea that PEOPLE ARE ACTUALLY GOING TO READ MY BOOK!!!

It’s been a dream for such a long time, and actually facing it is nuts but in all the best ways. 

For a sneak peek, here is my front cover, and since this is my blog, I’m going to give you all exclusive “early access” to my back cover.

“One of the ironies of life is that the dreams and drama of my youth must remain a secret until my girls are old enough to understand.”

Grace had long since abandoned her career as a spy to raise her girls in safety, but there are still times she finds her mind drawn back to the missions of her youth. 

She still remembers the days when rumors of Klondyke gold whipped through Chicago and the mission that led her aboard the world's first cruising submarine; following the Liberté à Jesse James gang, hoping to do her part in protecting Samuel, a man who invented a machine to detect the precious metal in the arctic conditions.

Despite a good start, she quickly found herself caught in a dangerous snag in the mission leaving her fighting her self-doubt to finish with little more than her faith in God to guide her. Was she be able to free herself and her partner from the ever-deepening water around them, or did her aspirations of espionage sink beneath the waves?

Thanks for the read!

Keep your eyes peeled for my book this time next week!

"Homework" for writing people

Hi there! 

Today I thought I’d talk about a few tricks I use (or should use) to help me out in my writing when it comes to creating believable characters.

If you want to write believable characters then you need to understand people, or at least how they talk and behave, so I’d suggest spending time with and around people. 

Obviously, spending time with people can help you build relationships, and help you to understand the people “up close and personal”, but spending time around people, not necessarily interacting with them, but rather watching them, such as in a park, can help train you to understand how people behave when they are on the move, and you’ll even start to pick up little things about them if you do this regularly. 

Spending time alone is equally helpful, as you can go into your own head or the head of your characters without interruptions. Reading autobiographies can also help, as well as just watching TV/reading. Your characters will feel very real to you, but they are still characters, so watching how others make their characters “feel” real can help you as well.

Another note that I’d have would be to interact with the type of people you are writing, so you can write them convincingly. IE, if you are writing children then spend some time with children- childlike speech is often written incorrectly by people who have problems remembering the difference between 6 and 4. And if you are writing a character who has different life experiences to you, such as someone of a different race, or someone who isn’t able-bodied, try to find someone who has lived that sort of life, so you don’t make any major mistakes. 

So there you go, a short list of how to keep your characters as real as possible, assembled from things I’ve seen online, as well as my own tricks. Honestly, I find that writing dialogue isn’t that hard, just remember that you are speaking for your characters and don’t feel like you need to make everyone so different in speech that they are all talking like they are from different planets unless there is a very good reason to do so. 

Thanks for the read!

BOOK RELEASE!

Hi there!

I hope you’re having a wonderful 4th of July!

As those of you who have been paying attention will know; my book officially released *Drum roll*

TODAY!!! 

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08C4S923S?ref_=pe_3052080_397670860

I’m SO glad that I’ve finally finished the 2 ½ year journey it has taken to get here, and at the same time I can’t wait to start the next one; being a published author, and writing the finishing the trilogy… Yes, trilogy.

I always finish my blog by saying “thanks for the read” so today I’ll end a little differently; 

Thanks for reading, and please don’t stop now!

???

I have an exciting announcement coming up in just over two weeks... I’ll relieve the suspense and tell you what’s coming up next Saturday.

I will give you a few hints, and you are free to post guesses if you want to play.

1. It’s something very near and dear to my heart.

2. I’ve been working on it on and off for about 2 1/2 years now. 

3. Only a few people have actually seen it… but many know about it.

The odds are high that you’ve already guessed what “it” is by now, so I’ll give you a few hints on what the announcement itself is;

1. It’s been my dream for a very long time.

2.  It’ll be a first for me, but hopefully not a last.

Thanks for the read!

My micro office!

Hello again! 

Today I thought it’d be neat to show you the place I write these blogs from- and make/store my jewelry and write my books… my home office! 

Rather than having a whole room for a home office, I use a corner of my own room for this purpose, I don’t need a whole room, nor do we have a room to use for this purpose alone. 

First up is my desk-

Looks pretty small right?
Well check this out;

Pretty cool huh? I like it too!

I store notes and office supplies, as well as my weekly planners in my desk, and this is also where I do the vast majority of my writing!

Then we have my jewelry tower and spare supplies-

As you can see, I've labeled my drawers to reduce confusion, and I also store some of my spare beads in "test tubes" beside the tower! (The buckets are just decorative.)

Now, in all honesty, I do also have a few shelves and baskets with books for research, and holding my spare shipping supplies, but I was hoping to keep this simple and fun so I’m not putting photos of those up; besides they’re pretty messy anyways. ;)

And that’s about it really. The truth is that the most important part of a home office is an “office” headspace, not having an entirely separate room, or a lot of goodies sprinkled around the room. Other then a workspace, and storage for all of the tools that you may need to work, you don’t really need anything else!

Thanks for the read!

Insight from an aloe plant

A while ago… our aloe plant was dying, and I didn’t know what was wrong with it.

I tried letting it dry out, I tried watering it, I let it have sunshine, and I kept it indoors, but nothing I tried seemed to help it. It had once been huge, but, leaf by leaf, the entire thing was destroying itself, it was perhaps half the size it had once been, and it was continuing to go downhill; where it had once given off tons of healthy baby aloe’s it couldn’t even take care of itself anymore. The leaves continued to either wilt out, or dry up, and I knew that if I didn’t do something drastic it was likely to die.

I didn’t know exactly what to do, but the soil wasn’t great so I uprooted it, a last-ditch effort to save the descendant of my great grandmother’s plants. It was root-rot, the formerly woody, and life-giving root had decayed to the point where I could have tied a knot in it if I had wanted to, and it stunk. I didn’t know exactly what to do, but I knew that if I left much rot behind, it would die; so I took a sharp kitchen knife and cut the rotted part of the root away, ultimately removing maybe half to two-thirds of the root. I gave it fresh soil and a touch of water and prayed for the best.

It didn’t bounce back by any means, it took a long time to recover from the shock of being repotted, and losing most of its root; even now, it’s not the same size that it once was, but it’s healthy… and it’s continuing to grow. The rot had ultimately been our fault; we had left it out in a rainstorm and it destroyed the root; but the solution had also, been pulled off by us. If we had chosen to ignore it, it would have died. If we had continued to act passively in our treatment, it would have died. It took an active, smelly, and messy, effort to let it heal.

Now, it’s possible that my symbolism is a little heavy-handed, but it’s also possible that you have no idea why I’m talking about a little aloe plant in the midst of such horrible tumult and pain; so I’ll elaborate, with the note that I’m not the wisest individual that I know, nor do I have any answers, or even any idea for how we should actually act upon what I’m about to say.

The air around my home is filled with pain, anger, and hurt right now. There is unrest to a level that I’ve never before witnessed, and a lot of people are speaking their minds more frankly then I’m used to. The air is thick with the death of George Floyd, the riots, and righteous anger. Among this, two facts have become abundantly clear to me; this isn’t just about a single horrible incident, it’s about a horrifically long history of incidents, hate, and hurt. And many people are focusing on the current affairs, and responses, not the history, and long-term issues.

This isn’t a matter of blight, brought on overnight, and taking over rapidly; this is a matter of root-rot, hidden from the surface until the destruction is made clear to everyone. 

I’ve seen many people insisting upon using “All lives matter” in place of “Black lives matter” as I once did myself... until I realized that I was no better than the man who insists on screaming “Not all men” while women talk about their traumas. Please don’t misunderstand me, racism, and sexism are very different issues, just like ableism and ageism are; but viewing them in the same light, helped to bring a little clarity to me.  

It’s not all white people, but that is no comfort to those who have been hurt so badly by those of a different race. So if you are tempted to yell, “all lives matter” may I suggest that your time would be better spent proving that fact? I believe that showing that we are safe and that we will love and stand for others is a much better use of time than complaining about how we feel singled out; especially when we are not the victims. 

How can we fix this? I don’t know. How can we show God’s love to our neighbors who are being hurt? I don’t know. How can we try to rebuild and grow after so much pain and anger? I don’t know. I wish that I could end this post on a positive note, but I don’t have any answers. And as I’m not the one who has been harmed, I don’t feel that it would be right for me to decide what it will take to heal these wounds. 

I don’t agree with the looting or the destruction all around us, but maybe, like that root-rot, it will be an outward symbol, a sign of the hurt in the hearts of so many, maybe, people will put on their gloves, and dig into the soil to cut away the rot; not to forget the hurt of the past, but to heal it. But right now, all I can suggest is that we try to help, and pray.