Some of this, a sprinkle of that, a dash for excitement, and freeze overnight…sounds like just the thing to cool a body down. July has passed at the same rate as an ice lasts on the sidewalk in Phoenix at noon. I’ve been crossing items off my to-do. And since everything takes longer to finish than I plan, I suspect that’s where the time has dripped. The good news is that I’ve made final edits/updates on 15 of my projects. The interesting news is that I have 15 to go! But I’m not waiting that long to move my stories onto other platforms. For those of you who prefer to read an ebook on something besides a Kindle or the Kindle app, you’ll have the chance to find my books in different places next month.
Because of so much “behind the scenes” work I’ve done this month, the short story fail from May is sitting on my computer. I’ve added a little to it. I know where to add more (how the villain gets some money, a bit more backstory on the hero). But with so many drips of time given to other projects, this one has remained dry. I’ll be doubling my efforts next week to flesh out the story. Hopefully it will make an appearance in next month’s newsletter.
I hinted at this in last month’s blog: The Companion Workbook for Creative Play: A Guide for the Artistic Path is available! When I wrote Creative Play: A Guide for the Artistic Path, my writer friends suggested I make a workbook to go along with it. I finally did! All the exercises and the non-rhetorical questions are transferred to this workbook. I formatted the pages to give white space and lines to record the results of the exercises and questions. Readers can write or doodle, draw lines and arrows, and make the workbook useful for them.
The other announcement: The Companion Journal for Cracked Heart: Poetic Thoughts on a Life is also out! In Cracked Heart: Poetic Thoughts on a Life, I invite readers to play with language and rhyming words to create their own poetry. I include a section for using poetry for healing. This journal offers lines and spaces for readers to jot down ideas and poems based on the prompts I give. A list of suggestions for playing with language and using words to investigate emotions and memories is included.
Have you ever had a gym membership, one of those really reasonable introductory priced ones, where you have unlimited use of the facilities for $9.99 a month? <raises hand> I used it for a while, then didn’t get around to canceling it for over a year. Part of me wanted to be a Gym Rat. Part of me wanted to write stories or be with my horses instead. The second part got its way 🙂 Then the days went by and I forgot and I listed all the usual excuses. I did eventually cancel the membership. A month later, the gym closed. Certainly it wasn’t my membership that put them under…
I’m feeling the same about Netflix. I won’t cancel the show app. But when juggling reading industry information and scrambling to complete these monster projects before the August 10 deadline, something has to give. And that’s fiction, both mine and others’. I feel a shift coming,.. one I’ll encourage, as all (non-creative) work and zero downtime (read: all work) make for an overwrought mind and a body too long hunched over the computer. I promised myself that I would return to just my fiction writing when all this other stuff was done. But I’m thinking the return can (and probably should) occur before the plate is completely cleared (because when does that ever happen?).
Keep your drips on the shady side of the road.
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