No TIME!!!

So, I’ve had very little time over the last few months to blog. I have, however, been working on the second and third drafts (simultaneously) of the first book in the series I’m working on. I’ve also attending an awesome conference, which I plan to blog about soon. And I have some info on a conference in Columbia MO on October 18th. Stay tuned…I will be back.

Camp NaNo made everything pause

Participating in Camp NaNoWriMo is hard. I wrote 50,000 words in the month of July while still keeping up with the house (mostly, lol), homeschooling the kids, participating in church stuff, etc. I basically worked on the weekends. It was exhausting, but I did it, and I am glad that I’ve got the first draft of the third book in the series I’m writing done.

But still, in the month of July, I felt like I put a lot of things on pause. Blogging being one of them because I just could not muster the energy to write any more words. So, I hope to get back on the bandwagon for blogging this month.

As for my writing, I’m returning to the first book in my series, which I think I’m going to call Visions. I am rewriting/editing, and so far, I think it’s going pretty well. I’ve added 16 pages to the first 25 pages, which for me is a good thing. Some writers over-write. They get done with their first draft and they’re at like 180,000 words. Their editing process looks a lot like cutting half their words. My first drafts tend to be short, between 50-70,000 words. And then I add in a lot of the world-building and focus on character development and whatnot.

Anyway, like I said, I’ll hopefully be able to get back into the habit of blogging regularly this month. I enjoy doing it. I always feel like to have material I have to learn new things and research new things, which is fun for me. I’m looking forward to it!

Camp NaNo Update

Exactly two weeks in, and I’m at right around 33,000 words. That’s 144 pages, double spaced, for those of you who might be wondering. Not bad, considering I’ve only been able to get significant amounts done on the weekends. I couldn’t have done it without my husband. He’s given me the time. At least two nights each week and all day on each Saturday and half of the first Sunday. He watched the kids and encouraged me to write  and celebrated with me when I came home with a large word count. He’s my biggest support! 

Anyway, I got to a point this weekend, at around 24,000 words, where I just couldn’t write any more. It was like my brain turned to sludge. I’m feeling a little bit better, but I have to know: does anyone have any tips for when you’ve written and written and written and you just don’t know if you can put one more word on paper? All I could do was take a break. I wrote nothing on Sunday and for most of today. Tonight I was able to get in a couple thousand words. Any other tips for if I hit that wall again? 

Flash Fiction: Lil’ Lady

I have been intrigued by flash fiction ever since I learned of it. It’s a snap shot, a moment in the life of some character. It leaves so much up to the reader’s imagination, but if done right, still gives some sense of satisfaction, of being told a story. I have attempted in the past to create flash fiction pieces of various lengths. Depending on the magazine or the contest or the challenge, the length of flash fiction changes, although I do think that as a category, it has to at least be under 1,000 words. This piece, Lil’ Lady, was written from a challenge to stay under 500 words. It is also my only attempt at an “Old West” themed piece. Here it is! I hope you all enjoy it!

Lil’ Lady

When her Pop didn’t come home that night, May knew she would need to saddle up and head out to find him, though if his habits proved true, she knew she wouldn’t need to look far.

“Third time this week,” she grumbled as she mounted her old mare, a chestnut colored Morgan no one else wanted. She patted the Colt Navy revolver. It hung snug in it’s holster off of her hip from a slightly-too-loose leather belt. Her Pop had given the gun to her when she was nine years old, two years after he taught her to shoot it.

May nudged the mare, who slowly meandered her way toward town. Dry Creek was about a mile down the small dirt road, and when May reached the short row of buildings, she headed for the one in the middle – Hank’s Saloon. She dismounted and began to walk toward the swinging doors but jumped back as a man flew past her, head first, landing roughly in the dirt. Two men followed after him.

“Yer gonna give us everythin’ ya got and then some, ya hear?” The taller of the two kicked their victim and asked again, “Ya hear?”

Great. That’s my Pop.  

May walked up behind the men, both of which easily overshadowed her fifteen-year-old frame. She tapped the taller one as he took a step back to let his friend get in a  good kick.

“Hey, fellas, don’t mean to interrupt, but that drunken fool is my Pop. What’s goin’ on here?” 

The shorter, bearded one addressed her with clear annoyance, telling her they won five dollars from her father, only to find out he had no more than a half-dollar on his person.

“Right, well, I don’t have that kind of money on me, but if you let my Pop go, I promise to get it to ya,” she took the Colt Navy out of it’s holster and played with it while speaking, letting them see she could handle it well.

They laughed at her. “Ya think yer gonna scare us lil’ lady? We ain’t scared o’ no woman.” They turned back to her Pop, now curled up into a whimpering mess, who promptly received a kick to the back of his head.

May shrugged and sighed, “Have it your way,” and she shot them both. As she helped her Pop to his feet, the bearded man, still barely conscious, stared down at the gaping wound in his gut and then back up at May, mumbling something, brow furrowed. She looked at him with a smirk and answered the question she saw in his eyes, “My Momma passed when I was three, and Pop didn’t know nothin’ about raisin’ girls.”

© Brianna Boes 2014

 

I WIN!

So, this weekend, I feel like I won. I’m participating in Camp NaNo, where I’m trying to write an entire first draft of a novel in the month of July. I started the weekend with about a thousand words down, just from writing a couple hundred here and there since July 1st. After an all day work day on Saturday, about five hours of work Sunday night, and another probably eight hours of work yesterday, I ended the long weekend at just over twenty thousand words. That just makes me feel happy.

The next few chapters may not go so smoothly; I’ve got some problem solving to do. This is the part of the novel I’m not so sure about, the part that could change or needs something extra I just don’t know about yet. I know what needs to happen. But how it happens…well, I might just write the idea I have and rewrite it later. Or I’ve been considering skipping this section all together and moving on to about two chapters later where I know for sure how things are going to go down.

For you seasoned writers, do you ever skip ahead in your book? How do you deal with sections as you write that first draft that don’t seem quite right?

It’s Been an Awesome Eight Years…

This past weekend, my husband and I celebrated our eighth anniversary. We had a lot of fun, and we enjoyed being together without having the kiddos for a few days thanks to my parents. It really was one of the best weekends we’ve had in a very long time. 

We married in 2006. Two kids, lots of life experience, and eight years later, we are still happy and in love. We have little arguments here and there, and we are still learning about each other, but we are so happy. I can’t imagine life with anyone else.

A few things about marriage I’ve learned so far:

1. Love really isn’t about how you feel. Sometimes you feel less like giving your SO (i.e. significant other) a kiss and more like punching them in the face. Love is the decision to dedicate yourself to one person, to sacrifice for them, to support them, and to learn what they need from you to feel loved. When you find someone you can decide to love, and they decide to love you, it’s a beautiful thing.

2. You never really “know” your SO. People are not stagnant creatures. We change. We grow. We are constantly becoming different people. You may know who you marry, but if you don’t keep learning and pay attention to who they are becoming, you’ll find one day that you don’t know them at all. I am so grateful that my husband and I have never stopped learning who we are, both as individuals and as a couple. 

3. Compromise in the every day little things is key. It took me a long time to understand that it would be better for everyone, myself included, if I just let go of my way of doing things once in a while. For instance, I’m a planner. I wanted my husband to be a planner. I wanted him to be precise with our schedule. That didn’t work for him and it caused some arguments. Eventually, it came to the point where I gave a little, became more relaxed, and understood that not every occassion or outing needs to be planned. In the process, I discovered I actually enjoy a little spontenaity. On the flip side, my husband learned where planning is important in our family. He now knows that it’s a good idea to let me in on it when he schedules a dinner or an outing with the guys. He is considerate of my time and also of the time we have as a family. We both had to compromise, and we are both better for it.

4. Never stay angry. We got this very good advice before we were married: never allow the day to end on a bad note. Even if the argument isn’t settled, agree to discuss it when everyone has had more time to think about it. Hug each other. Snuggle on the couch for a few minutes. Acknowledge that you still love each other. It’s hard to stay mad when you are snuggling up to your SO watching funny videos on YouTube. 

These are just a few of the practical things I’ve learned to help life go a little more smoothly in marriage. Have you learned any practical tips over the years with your SO?

Are Writers…Gasp…Entrepreneurs? 5 Tips For Beginning Authors

A friend of mine, Liz Schulte, said something to me a while back that has got me thinking. She said, “To be a writer, you have to be an entrepreneur, too.” Considering that this chick is a successful author and a book-writing-machine and a pretty awesome lady anyway, when she gives me advice, I generally listen.

The word “entrepreneur” at first made me cringe a little. I find that’s not uncommon with writers. Marketing yourself and your work sounds like too much drudgery. We want to be writing, not marketing. We want to be creating, not selling. However, Liz is right. There is an idea among much of the writing community that publishing equals an automatic “in” with readers. Like once you’ve got that finished piece, that wonderful book you’ve spent so much time on and poured so much of yourself into, it will magically be brought to the attention of a vast majority of people. In reality, no matter what publishing rout a writer takes, if the writer doesn’t market, if the writer doesn’t build some kind of platform, the book will not usually sell well.

Now, let me clarify. If you are a writer who writes only for self-satisfaction or only for the art of language, good for you. If you are satisfied with that, by all means, write your heart out and save that stuff for generations of your own family to read and enjoy. That is perfectly okay. I’m talking about writers who write, maybe for the same things, but also for more. I do write for self-satisfaction and for the creative outlet. I love the process of writing a book. But I write for other reasons too. I’m a writer because I love the relationships I build in the writing community. Other writers simply understand something about me that *ahem* normal people don’t (we writers are weird; we have to stick together). I write to be read. I want people to read what I write and hopefully come away with something they didn’t have before, maybe ask questions they didn’t ask before. I want people to read what I write. And yes, I write, because eventually, I hope to make some money doing the thing that I love. And so, for writers like me, I think it’s true: we have to be entrepreneurs.

How do we do that? How do we take entrepreneurial steps to set up a good foundation for our writing careers? The closer I come to beginning the process of publishing, the more that question seems to hover over me. There is a lot more to this than I know. A lot more that I have to learn. But here are a few suggestions that I’ve been given by various writers, applicable especially to writers who are where I am–on the road to publishing, but not there yet.

1. Take tips from small business owners and entrepreneur magazines.

2. Learn from writers who are already there, who are selling books and making money. How did they build a platform? How do they connect to readers? What kind of marketing tools do they suggest for newly published/almost published writers?

3. Have an online presence. Do you enjoy blogging? Could you have an author’s page on Facebook? What about an author’s website? Twitter? LinkedIn? There are so many options in social media that can serve to help build a platform for when your books are published. And who knows? Maybe you’ll start a blog for that purpose and find you actually really enjoy it!

4. Make up a business card. Business cards are awesome for when you are at writer’s groups or conferences. If you don’t have one at a conference, you’ll be writing your information on napkins and the backs of other people’s business cards all day long. Or you just won’t make any lasting connections and will have missed a major opportunity. Plus, it just feels cool to whip out a business card and be like, “Yeah, I’ve got one of these. I’m legit.” 🙂

5. Think of yourself as an entrepreneur, or at least an entrepreneur in training. It’s kind of the same thing as: you’ll never be a writer if you don’t think of yourself as one. You won’t see opportunities or have the confidence to make any steps forward if you are afraid of that word. And you’ll certainly never make a living as a writer.

Now, I’m in the beginning stages of all this. Does anyone have any more suggestions for how to be an entrepreneur in the beginning before you’ve published?

 

5 Tips for Being a Diabetes Friendly Family (most of the time)

My husband was diagnosed with diabetes a while back. It’s a difficult thing to adjust to, and we haven’t always done the best job of making it easy for him to eat diabetes friendly foods. But we have made a lot of changes over the years for the better, namely that we have pretty much eliminated starches from our regular menu. Rice, bread, potatoes, noodles…these are all foods that my husband should basically avoid (and unfortunately, ingredients most families use to keep grocery costs down). High carbohydrate foods are bad for him, so we try to keep it generally lower carb around here. We do pretty well when it comes to what we have around the house (although there is certainly room for improvement, and we haven’t mastered how to make the best choices when we are out and about). Here are a few changes we’ve made that have stuck with us, things that weren’t too hard to change but make a difference:

1. Use spaghetti squash instead of noodles. We have spaghetti squash at least once a month. We would have it more except the darned things are kind of expensive (about 4x the cost of noodles). However, they taste yummy. Actually, now that I’ve eaten spaghetti squash for a while, I kind of prefer them to noodles. They go great as substitutes in dishes like spaghetti, casseroles, and alfredo noodles.

2. We buy either Healthy Life bread or Sara Lee 45 calorie bread. This one took a little more for my husband to get used to because the bread is noticeably thinner than the big thick slices of speciality bread he prefers. However, they have lower amounts of carbs and a higher amount of fiber. This has been a healthy, positive exchange for our family and has allowed us to forgo giving up bread altogether.

3. We eat the meat that’s on sale. Tonight I cooked 4 pork chops that were delicious and cost only 3.50. They were on sale at our local supermarket, Gerbes, which actually has great sales on meat pretty regularly. Whenever I see some good meat on sale there, I buy it up and stick it in the freezer if we won’t eat it all. Being as how those lower priced starches and grains are out of the question for us most of the time, finding meat (and veggies) on sale is important!

4. Find creative recipes for salads. You can only eat so many chef salads, people. They get boring, at least for us. We’ve made strawberry chicken salad, taco salad (without any crunchies), and lots of others. You have ditch the croutons and find or make dressings with fewer carbs (which means the super sweet kinds are out). This is another area I’ve been surprised to find I actually prefer to, you know, taste the vegetables in a salad and have it seasoned with berries and some kind marinated meat instead of it being drowned in a heavy dressing.

5. Breakfast, for me, has always been the main struggle. I love bagels. I love cereal. I love pancakes and waffles. I love english muffins. I could eat breakfast foods all day every day. But all those things I just mentioned are pretty much off limits when it comes to being diabetes friendly. At first, the only options were eggs. Lots of eggs. And bacon, which was the silver lining. However, sometimes you have to figure out something else. There are cereals like Fiber One Original that are pretty good for you and won’t agitate a diabetic too much, but most cereals are really, really bad for a diabetic. So, we do quiches and omelletes when I get the chance. An apple for a quick breakfast. But, seriously, I miss me some bagels. 

Trying to be lower carb as a whole family can be tough. We don’t go all Atkins-20-carbs-per-day, but honestly, keeping carbs to around 50-100 per day can be challenging, especially at first. Especially if you include fruit in your diet, which is high in carbs, too, and yes, even too many carbs from fruit can cause problems for a diabetic. 

However, the changes are worth it. My husband is better off for these changes, and so our kids. And so am I. We could do better. We don’t always adhere to our standards when we go out to eat and we don’t always do so when we are at someone’s home where there are healthy and unhealthy options. We could use artificial sweeteners a little less. But I think we’re getting better, and we’re learning what works best for us all the time. 

Has someone in your immediate family been diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes? How do you handle the restrictions in diet?

Makin’ Progress Always Feels Nice!

So, this past weekend, I finished the first draft of the second book in the series I’m writing!!! Woo-hoo!!! I had some kind of burst of energy once I realized I was in the home stretch and wrote 10,000 words in a total of about 8-9 hours of writing time on Friday and Saturday. I’m thinking I’m going to try to get the third done between now and October, with the bulk of it in July during Camp NaNo. Then I really want to finish the fourth and final book in November for NaNoWriMo. Then, I can go back to the first one and do a major overhaul/edit/some rewriting and I can start having some of my writing buddies critique it along the way. Originally I was going to take a break and edit the first one now, but I’m so excited to finish the series! I wish I had time to do both. It makes me wonder, what do you all who work on series and write more than one book at a time manage to go back and forth between the books? How do you manage to find the time? I’m guessing if you are full time, that would make it easier. But any tips for someone who can only find a few hours on some weeks to work on writing projects?

(And just a little shout out to my husband, who is awesome: When he found out I finished the second book, he wanted to celebrate just as much as me. And then when we were out, he asked me what my goals were and he wanted to know if he could help out any more, which he can’t. He’s already so supportive. All I need is for him to keep being awesome! I feel so blessed to have a marriage where we can both count on each other to support one another, and we both really believe in each other’s dreams and aspirations.)

Top 5 Reasons We Homeschool

I never would have guessed that I would be homeschooling my kids. I went to public school. Elementary school was pretty awful for me on the social front, but hey, all my teachers liked me. I don’t have anything against public schools. Without them, lots of kids would go uneducated. But as our kids got a little older, my husband asked me to consider homeschooling our kids. I was resistant at first. I was kind of looking forward to that time when I would send the kids off to school. Maybe I would get a part-time job and bring in a little extra income. Maybe I would be able to volunteer somewhere. Maybe I could have more time for writing. But those hopes were all me focused, and once I started thinking in terms of our whole family and what would be best for my kids, I started to warm up to the idea of homeschooling them, at least through early elementary years. Here are the top 5 reasons my husband and I decided to homeschool:

1. We believe homeschooling strengthens our family dynamic. My kids are closer to each other and closer to us, their parents, because we are together all the time. I don’t believe that this will always be the healthiest thing for our kids. One day they will need to branch out and become independent. Even now, through play groups and church, they have a place, for the most part, to be one their own. Soon my daughter will be old enough to be on a sports team or in dance lessons or karate or something like that. There is a good chance that we will send our kids to school for things like art class, since our public schools do allow homeschool students to participate in some classes (or so I’ve been told). And eventually, unless our kids don’t want to, they will probably be attending school somewhere else, public or private.
2. We believe our children will learn better with curriculum chosen just for them and lots of one on one attention. My daughter loves paperwork. She loves following directions and getting things done. But my son…yeah, he’s a little different. He wants hands-on-learning. He wants to jump and be loud sometimes. He does not want to sit still. They both need something different. And with homeschooling, I can choose curriculum that fits them. I can also add in subjects, like Bible, that our family find very important.
3. We love the flexibility. We aren’t bound up by school days. We can learn anywhere. We can take a break anytime. We can go on vacation in November and it’s alright. We can visit family and take school with us. We can take a Tuesday to do something else and make it up on Saturday. Homeschooling is so flexible.
4. Our kids, and our family, are free to pursue our interests. What if my daughter is really, really good at math? Well, I can incorporate that into our field trips, into our learning in unique ways. Our family likes road trips and history. We can, at any time, take a road trip to visit a monument or museum. What if my son is really interested in farms? We can take a period of time to study farms, maybe even take him to one. What if one of them loves art? What about music? Mechanics? Whatever interests pop up, whatever skills shine through, we can work with and incorporate into our learning.
5. We can, at any time, if we believe it to be better for our kids and our family, put our kids into a private or public school.  Yes, I love homeschooling. Right now. Right now it is best for my kids. But I’ve learned over the years that what is best now can change later. Our lives may change. Our kids may change. And if that happens, we will enroll them in a school.

So, those are the reasons we believe homeschooling our children is the best option for now. A lot of thought and prayer went into this decision. Before having kids, I never would have guessed the amount of effort that goes into making decisions like this. How to educate our kids? How to feed our kids well and keep them healthy? How to foster kindness? How to discipline? These things don’t come naturally, at least not to me. Every parent has a lot of decision-making to do, and I know that we rarely do it lightly. All we can do is what we believe is best.