Feb
5

Writer’s Tears

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With a title like this, you’d probably expect a bit of authorly whining – which I’m happy to do, of course – but in reality, I’m just drawing attention to  a particular brand of Irish whiskey…known as Writer’s Tears. Now, I don’t actually have a bottle of the whiskey – you can only get it in Ireland at the moment (and a few other places in Europe via email). I did try to order it online (even got my brother-in-law to try it, since his hotel has a liquor license and shipping alcohol in the mail is fairly hard to do.) But Ireland post doesn’t ship liquids of any kind right now, so I’m pretty much out of luck unless one of you fine people is going to Ireland and wants to bring me back some.  (Hint, hint.) However, I explained to the lovely people at the shop in Dublin… Read more
Feb
1

Inspiration

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So if you follow me on Facebook or Tumblr at all, you probably saw me post this lovely drawing by Lucy yesterday. Yes, it’s a heart taking a poo. I don’t particularly understand her logic behind why it needs to take a dump in an outdoor toilet, but 6 year old minds are a wonderful puzzlement. Maybe it’s a statement about love. On the other hand the rest of her journal is full of stories and pictures that make me think she’s going to be a romance writer. Yes, there are pictures of ninjas – several of them, in fact, but she was very excited to share one of the stories last night involving a little boy who was bullied. (Complete with pictures of children lining up and kicking the boy. The children all have huge shoes. Perhaps they are Dutch?) Eventually the little boy meets a girl who is… Read more
Jan
30

Pieces of Me

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I suspect the title of this blog post is far more poetic than the actual content will be. I debated saving it for something more emo and angst filled, but eh. Sometimes writing those sorts of posts are cathartic…but sometimes they are really whiny sounding too. Anyway, I’ve been pretty slammed the last few days – work has picked up in a crazy fashion, leaving me very little time for anything else during the day. School stuff kicking in for the kids. Web/graphic design stuff – funny how it’s either feast or famine for this. Crickets forever and then bam! Everyone wants a chunk of my time for something – site redesigns, shirt designs, plug-in creation…just crazy.  (These are good problems to have, however.) Add the nightly writing sessions, plus a beta read or two and there goes the rest of my sanity. Even all my errands are out to… Read more
Jan
28

Motivation

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I’ve always said I’m a 1000 word a day writer. (At least on work days.) At the very least, that’s what I strive for as a bare minimum. And to be honest, after a full day of work and  the kids stuff, sometimes it’s been a struggle to get that done – recently in particular. Without a deadline, I’ve got to kick myself in the pants more often and sometimes it becomes a little too easy to just “skip it tonight. Make it up tomorrow.” Which, of course – rarely happens. I may get my 1000 words in the next night, but I’m probably not getting more than that.  And it’s sometimes a slog. I’ll start writing around 10 PM and then before I know it it’s midnight or 1 am, and I’ve only got 500 words.  I’m probably my own worst enemy though – too many willing distractions online… Read more
Jan
25

Electrifying

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Cautionary tale today on the blog involving the new laptop and a heating pad. So, as noted a few weeks ago, I ended up with Magpie, my pink Sony Vaio. And it’s been great so far. I get to work in the evenings in the family room with everyone else. If the TV is sometimes a tad distracting, it’s still worth it to me to have the option of being there. (And on the laptop, the temptation to fire up a video game is much less, simply because my brain seems to go into more of a “work” mode on it.) But anyway, it’s been fine until earlier this week when I started noticing an odd tingling sensation in my palms and on my fingers if I touched/rubbed the space beside the trackpad. (Which, if I’m typing, is where my wrists are resting.) It didn’t hurt exactly, but it wasn’t… Read more