Writing with a dog

 Hi there!

Remember when I promised to write a post about writing with a dog? Well, here it is.

Now, having pets is incredible, but sometimes there are a few struggles that come with actually writing with pets around; and I thought it’d be fun to take a light-hearted look at some of the pluses and minuses today. Specifically, I’ll be talking about dogs, today, as I already wrote one on cats!

1. They will check on you… especially at mealtimes. Have you ever unknowingly worked through dinner? Don’t worry, with a dog, that is impossible, they will make sure that everyone is well-fed.

2. They will make sure you get fresh air, even if it’s just so they can use the bathroom. I mean come on, who doesn’t want to walk circles in the yard and watch someone else pee?!

3. They will help you edit. Did you know that reading out loud can help you catch those tiny errors? Yet if you read to yourself out loud people may give you sideways glances, so just read to your dog! And don’t worry, I’m sure that the regular yawning and walking away to stare out the window are not meant personally.

All joking aside, having a furry friend to pet and play with when you can’t come up with the next plot-point is massively helpful, if only to your mental health. I can’t imagine not having a pet, as the only time in my entire life when there were no pets in the house was before I turned 2.

Thanks for the read!

History!

 Hi there!

As you probably know by now, I love history; and for that reason, I predominantly write historical fiction. But do you know how interesting history itself can be?

I’ve read more historical articles, books, and watched more documentaries than I can count. But there are still a few things that stand out in my thoughts. Did you know That Victorian ladies regularly carried pins with them, to keep their napkins from slipping onto the floor? Pretty savvy right? That a murder case was once partially solved by a ghost? Look up the Greenbrier ghost. For a twist greater then any drama you’ll see on TV, Napoleon divorced his wife because she couldn’t have kids, but left her with a house, huge garden, and a very healthy allowance for the rest of her life. And Woodrow Willson, president during WWI, predicted (more or less) WWII.

All of this is to say that history is an interesting place to take a walk through, I’ve given you a few jumping-off points here, but it’s up to you to dive in!

Thanks for the read!

What’s your favorite historical fact/event/person?

Jewelry making, a hobby and business

 Hi there! 

Did you know that I’ve been making jewelry longer then I could read? My mom started me on necklaces, (with large wooden beads, cross-stitch needles, and yarn,) when I was 2 or 3, as a way to build hand-eye-coordination... but I took to it like a fish to water.

Wooden beads became plastic, and plastic beads became glass, yarn turned to stretch-cord, and then thread, but I didn’t stop beading. My patterns started to develop from random collections of color to overly complicated many-beaded overly-colorful bracelets and necklaces. I gave almost every female member of my family at least one piece of jewelry for Christmas or their birthday... (not to mention one or two men) and most of them were kind enough to wear them, regardless of the child-like designs.

Despite my love of jewelry making, I didn’t start to learn any complicated tricks, or branch out until I was in my teens… and I also started to master colors and simplify my designs to the point where they were artful, rather than distracting.

Believe it or not, I still actively enjoy making necklaces, it’s fun to assemble patterns, but more than that, I find it incredibly cathartic to string the beads onto the thread… there’s something mindless, and yet incredibly fulfilling about putting together something physical from beginning to end, all within an afternoon.

I keep a large collection of beads just for playing around with, making seasonal necklaces and earring dangles for my clip-on-transformers… only to take them apart them and remake them later. Most people take up crocheting, knitting, embroidering, or something of that sort… but I can’t manage to get the knack of any of those (except for counted cross-stitch, and that drives me to distraction.) 

There is one problem with this hobby, however, I’ve run out of people to give jewelry to! Seriously, I could make a pile of necklaces, but no one is buying the ones I have on Etsy, and I don’t know who I could make anything for, it’s a funny issue, but it could be worse… I could be knitting a sweater large enough for an elephant!

Thanks for the read!

Balancing plates

Have you ever seen someone practice plate spinning? The juggler seems almost to defy gravity as they maintain the plates’ precarious balance with a combination of skill, speed, and occasional trickery. That’s almost how my life feels at times.

I’ve talked about my “social media Monday’s” before… well, they got much worse after I published my book, and now I’m working on creating a slightly more sustainable system. Rather than packing all of my social media prep into one mega day, I’m going to try to stay a single day ahead of the game, IE, every Monday I prep for my blog, and nothing else, and so on. 

How many plates do I need to balance on a daily basis? I need to split my time between the living room, (my wall desk collapsed rather dramatically onto me a few weeks ago) and “kitten central” (my brother’s room) as we’re not quite ready to let him roam freely with the dog yet, and we can’t leave him alone for more than 2 hours lest he start crying for attention. This may seem random but it’s a little harder to work when you have a kitten doing gymnastics off of your leg, then when you can just sit and write; I can write around him (most of the time) but only if I flip the laptop over to tablet mode, (loud buttons are far too tempting to a little kitten) and I’m not quite used to using a digital keyboard for working on my book yet.

Obviously, I have to do all those little things that keep me healthy, as we all do, such as brushing my teeth, doing my exercises, and trying to consume a healthy amount of water. And I do have a few things in my regular calendar as well, such as small group; but I’m only going to talk about repeating things, that you may not automatically assume. My daily task list includes: writing 2-3 pages in my book, writing/prepping for the next day’s social media promotion, a devotional, a Bible study, monitoring my seller accounts on Etsy and Amazon, playing with/snuggling Berlioz, trying to make sure Spirit doesn’t feel left out and cleaning at least one thing (sometimes this is sweeping the floors, sometimes it’s putting away stray items around the house). And soon, I’ll be adding daily voice work practice (recording and editing audio) to this list, and if I ever make any sales, I’ll need to add making more jewelry to keep my Etsy stock up as well. 

This list could definitely be longer… but it’s daunting to even look at first thing in the morning, especially when I add all the little daily things that come up, from a walk outside to bathing the dog. Right now, I’m just tired; tired of working to seemingly no avail, my Etsy shop has been open since February, and I have yet to make a single sale, and my book has been out for nearly a month now, and I’ve sold all of 4 copies. It feels like I’m breaking my back for no purpose, promoting products that no one wants, and writing books that few will ever see. I haven’t talked about this much, but it took a lot of time and effort to design and make all of those necklaces and earrings… to learn how to set up a business, and I’m now afraid that I wasted most of that time.

Sorry for the downer, but this is life, not perfectly shiny all the time… and sometimes it’s hard. Tomorrow will likely be better, but today I’m tired and sick of waiting for a result.

Thanks for the read.