Monday Check In

Last week...

Writing Related:  I'm still working on the edits and rewrite for Garrett's story but I do feel like I'm finally making progress. I have a busy week this week so I'm not sure how much I'll get accomplished but I'm determined to squeeze in a much time working on this book as I can.

Motivational Quote:  "You may be born without any gift at all, but that doesn't mean you can't work very, very hard and get to the top." ~ John Caudwell 

What I'm Reading:   I'm currently reading The Secrets We Hide by Karin Slaughter. It's the 2nd book in her North Falls series. I am a fan of Ms. Slaughter's writing and particularly of her Will Trent series.

Random Things:  While I don't have anyone I need to buy school supplies for, I always look forward to this time of year when school supplies are on sale. I stock up on composition notebooks, index cards, single subject notebooks, and a folder here and there. I use all of these things in my writing. I will sometimes pick up one of the plastic pencil boxes because they work really well as craft containers. I have one that holds my many pairs of deckle edge scissors. 

Random Photo:

                                      I saw this t-shirt and couldn't resist buying it. 
 

 

Monday Check In

Last week...

Writing Related:  I finished the final edits and revisions on One Last Chance (Caine's book) on Saturday. My editor is taking one last quick look at it and then it will be ready for publication. Whew! At times I wondered if I'd ever get it out into the world.

Motivational Quote: "I am a pessimist with a lot of hope." ~ Mia Couto  This quote describes me perfectly.

What I'm Reading: I started reading This Is Why We Lied by Karin Slaughter yesterday afternoon. It's the latest book in the Will Trent series. The first few chapters were slow going, but it's gotten much better. Now I hate having to put it down to do other things.

Random Thoughts:  I'm going to be a great-aunt three times over. Three of my nieces (one is a niece-in-law) are pregnant and all of them due at the end of September, early October. One couple is expecting a boy, one couple is expecting a girl, and the last couple chose not to find out the gender so it will be a surprise. 

Random Photo:

I came across this on Facebook. It resonated with me because it's really accurate (in my opinion).

Monday Check In

Last week...

Writing Related: I sent off the revised manuscript for Mississippi's story to my editor and a couple of beta readers to check over the revisions I made. Other than that, I didn't get a lot accomplished. I had a couple of appointments after work that ate into my writing time.

Motivational Quote: "I draw on strength gleaned during those hard times to forge my way through life with love, compassion, understanding, openness, and grace." ~ Paul Tran

What I'm Reading: I just started After That Night by Karin Slaughter last night. It's the latest installment of the Will Trent series that just came out this month.

Random Things:  I never put much stock into the whole Mercury being in Retrograde thing until recently. The last retrograde was from August 23rd through September 15th. I had all kinds of bad crap happen, especially at the day job during that time period. On Monday, 9/18, I went out to go to work and my car battery was dead. My car is only 2 years old so you would think I wouldn't need a new battery but I did. So even though the retrograde ended 3 days earlier, I figured the Universe had decided I hadn't had enough to deal with so it gave me one last thing. 

Random Photo:

 

                       I thought this was appropriate given the last few weeks I've had.

Monday Check In

Last week...

Writing Related: I managed to get Mississippi's story out to my editor and beta readers by my self imposed deadline of July 3rd. The draft isn't as clean as it usually is when I send it out. I'm hoping they don't find a lot of things that need reworking/rewriting. 

Motivational Quote: "You can achieve anything in life. It just depends on how desperate you are to achieve it." ~ Milkha Singh

What I'm Reading: I'm struggling to read Girl, Forgotten by Karin Slaughter. It's the second book in the Andrea Oliver series. I love the Will Trent series, so I thought I'd give this series a try. This book seems slow to get started. Admittedly, I'm only on page 45, but so far, other than the prologue, it's been more of a rehash of what happened in the first book, Pieces of Her, rather than a new story. 

Random Things: I eat a lot of tossed salad in the summer. Usually I'm good about using a reasonable (read "healthy") amount of dressing on my salad. I also try to use low fat dressings so that I'm not negating the health benefits of all the raw vegetables in my salad. Once a year around my mom's birthday (it was last week) I have blue cheese dressing which I love. And because I only eat it once a year, I put so much blue cheese dressing on my salad, you could say my salad is swimming in it. Mmm, delicious, but definitely not healthy. 

Random Photo:

                              This is my favorite brand of blue cheese dressing.

Monday Check In

Last week...

Writing Related: I didn't get as much written last week as I'd hoped. I'm trying to be optimistic and tell myself anything written, even if it's less than I planned, it's still moving the story forward and brings me closer to finishing the book.

Motivational Quote: "Sometimes you just have to be willing to flow." ~ Alicia Keys   Considering how my writing went last week, I thought this quote was pretty appropriate.

What I'm Reading:  I'm reading The Kept Woman by Karin Slaughter. This is the 8th book in the Will Trent series. There are only 2 more books published in the series but the 11th book is being released later this year.

Random Things: I haven't baked anything in a few weeks and I'm craving cookies so I'll probably end up making some this week. I have everything to make either gingerbread chocolate chip cookies, which I love any time of the year, or chocolate chocolate chip cookies. I'll just have to decide which ones to make. I also have a lemon blueberry bread recipe I want to try, but don't have any lemons so that might wait until next week.

Random Photo:

         A picture of gingerbread chocolate chip cookies the last time I made them.
 

Monday Check In

Last week...

Writing Related: Still moving forward on Mississippi's story. I'm only about 60 pages behind where I should be. I was behind nearly double that amount. I did struggle a bit last week but I think it was because I was trying to work in a sub-plot that really wasn't related to the story. I ended up going back and deleting it so my page count was a little less than I'd hoped for after those pages were removed.

Motivational Quote: I'm repeating the prior week's quote because it helped me stay the course last week. I hope it helps you with your goals as well.  "Inspiration is highly overrated. If you sit around and wait for the clouds to part, it's not liable to ever happen." ~ Chuck Close

What I'm Reading: I started reading Unseen by Karin Slaughter on Wednesday, but am only a couple of chapters into the story. Not a lot of spare time for reading last week and I didn't read before going to bed like I usually do. Unseen is the seventh book in the Will Trent series. 

Random Things: The weather has been crazy in my area for about the last week going from sunny and in the fifties one day to snowy with temperatures in the thirties to a wintery mix of snow, ice, and rain with temperatures in the forties and then back to the fifties. This has brought on a lot of changes in the barometric pressure. Unfortunately, I'm one of the people who are sensitive to those changes. I've had a near constant headache ranging in intensity from just being a nagging enough headache to let you know it's there to the pounding, you can hear your heartbeat in your head type. I'm looking forward to spring settling in so that we don't have such drastic changes in the weather.

Random Photo:

                                   A random photo of my cat, just because.😀

 

Monday Check In

Last week...

Writing Related: Still moving forward on Mississippi's story. I was able to get quite a bit written this past weekend. I'm still behind, but I feel like I'm getting closer to getting back on track.

Motivational Quote: "Inspiration is highly overrated. If you sit around and wait for the clouds to part, it's not liable to ever happen." ~ Chuck Close

What I'm Reading: I started reading Criminal by Karin Slaughter over the weekend. This is the 6th book in the Will Trent series. I'm not sure I'll like this book because it flashes back and then forward in time. I'm not generally a fan of those types of books.

Random Things: It's been spring like in my area the last few days. Warmer than usual for this time of year and more rainy than usual. I'll take the rain over snow any day.

Random Photo:

                                  Crocus starting to bloom in the yard already.
 

 

Monday Check In

Last week...

Writing Related: Another good writing week last week. I feel like I'm actually making some forward momentum in Mississippi's story. 

Motivational Quote: "Find your voice. Find your process & passion. Find your community. Find the things that bring out the best in you that get you up out of bed every day, excited to create & share. Without them, it's a bigger struggle." ~ Bryan Thao Worra

What I'm Reading: I started reading Fallen by Karin Slaughter last Thursday. This is the 5th book in the Will Trent series. I haven't had a lot of leisure time to read in the last few days so I'm less than a hundred pages into the story.

Random Things: My mom's post-op appointment went well Monday. Everything looks good. She was given some gentle finger exercises to keep them limber. She can't put pressure on her finger or palm or pick up anything with that hand that is heavier than a coffee cup until her next appointment in early April. My employer is allowing me to work from home during her recovery period since she's very limited in what she can do. 

Random Photo:

               My neighborhood after the snow storm moved through this past weekend.
 

Monday Check In

Last week...

Writing Related: I actually managed to get 20 pages of new material written last week for Mississippi's story. Not a lot by most standards, but more than I've been able to get accomplished the prior couple of weeks. It should be a quiet week this week so I'm planning on getting a significant amount written.

Motivational Quote: "The most profound question I believe we must ask when walking through a storm, which we all do, whether we are president or a street sweeper, is: 'What have you come to teach me? What is this situation pushing me to change in my life?' " ~ Susan Taylor

What I'm Reading: I started reading Broken by Karin Slaughter late yesterday. It's the fourth book in the Will Trent series. 

Random Things: My mom had hand surgery last Friday. I've been dealing with the stress of her injury and related pain and now surgery by baking. I've made two kinds of cookies, three different kinds of muffins, and two loaves of cinnamon swirl bread in the last week.

Random Photo:

                        Peanut butter chocolate chip cookies I made early last week.
 

Monday Check In

Last week...

Writing Related: I'm back to working on Mississippi's story, the 4th book in the Echo Company series. I managed to write a decent number of pages, but not as many as I'd hoped. It always takes me a couple of weeks to get back in the groove so that the words flow easier during my writing sessions. I think it's a combination of not having written in a few weeks and trying to get back into the story and the character's heads. I have a couple of appointments after work, but hope to still get about 7,500 words written this week.

Motivational Quote: "I try to expect nothing and hope that everything is possible." ~ Jia Tolentino

What I'm Reading: I started reading Triptych by Karin Slaughter yesterday afternoon. It's the first book in the Will Trent series. I decided to read the series after watching the first episode of Will Trent on ABC a couple of weeks ago. Despite a bit of a jarring reveal (see Random Things below), I'm liking the book so far - I'm about 75 pages into it.

Random Things: I realize authors have no say in casting when their books are made into movies, or in the case of Will Trent, a television series, but I do wish that the people doing the casting would make some attempt to have the actor portraying the main character look a little bit the way the character is described in the book. I love Ramon Rodriguez as Will Trent so it was a bit disconcerting to find out Will Trent is a six foot 5 inch white man with dirty blonde hair and some facial scars in the books. I had the same problem with Forrest Gump. I saw the movie when it first came out. Loved Tom Hanks as Forrest. But in the book, Forrest is described as a hulking linebacker, built like a brick wall type. No where close to how Tom Hanks is built. I had such a hard time correlating how Forrest was described in various scenes with how Tom Hanks looks that I gave up reading the book. 

Random Photo:

           Mrs. Green laying under our Christmas tree before the presents took up all the space.