I recently went on a trip to Augusta to dog sit. It’s a 2 – 3 hour drive each way, and I love to use times like these to listen to an audiobook. While there, I watched a YouTube video created by Ali Abdaal (www.youtube.com/channel/UCoOae5nYA7VqaXzerajD0lg). He’s a great speaker, and his content mainly focuses on productivity. Can you tell what I was having difficulty with recently? This video mentioned a book called “The War of Art” by Steven Pressfield (stevenpressfield.com/books/the-war-of-art/). During writer conferences, workshops, etc., I’d heard about this book before. I even thought I bought it at one time, but I had yet to read it. Some of the information he brought forth encouraged me to purchase the book. I immediately went to Audible to get it and was happy to see that the audible version was less than 3 hours long. This meant I could listen to it on my return home.

Now, I must stop here and explain why I had not read it before since it had been recommended many times. That is because I genuinely had the title in my head as “The Art of War,” and I’m not a big fan of reading about war. Head slap moment. Right? It’s The War of Art, not the other way around. It might have been my need to organize and put the first letter of the alphabet first. Who knows? Long story short (not really), I did end up listening to it on the way home, and…WOW. Just WOW.

The insight of this man really made me think. It also made my return trip go by very fast. I’d strongly recommend reading this book if you are an artist in any way (writer, painter, sculptor, or even a quilter). If you are a creator of any type, I believe you’d find something in this book to generate your thinking engines. And if you’re wondering why you might recognize his name, it’s because he also wrote “The Legend of Bagger Vance,” which was turned into a movie.

​It may take you less time to read it physically, but I suggest you check it out. If you do, drop me a note, and let me know what you think.

I've been struggling with procrastination lately a lot more than normal. Because, let's face it, we all struggle a little with that evil being!

I was scrolling through my older blogs and this one popped up that fit my situation so well, I wanted to re-share it with you. Enjoy!

Two minutes...that's all it takes?
I think it was about four years ago. Someone once told me that she doesn’t go to any more writer’s meetings nor take anymore writing courses. Her reasoning? “Because I don’t learn anything new.” The weird thing is that I sort of agree. I don’t always learn something NEW when I attend these programs, but I ALWAYS get a light bulb moment. It’s usually something I forgot about or even an idea to look at, something I typically do differently.

So, with that said. Has anyone heard of Skillshare? (https://www.skillshare.com/) I recently discovered it, and the first class I watched was on productivity. Aren’t we all in some way working on this? There was a lot of information I’d heard before, but I was hearing them said differently. For example, one of the things he talked about was a two-minute rule. Meaning, if something takes less than two minutes to do, do it now rather than putting it on a “to do” list. I started doing this, and it really gave me those “I’ve done something” moments—a positive reinforcement type of thing. I try to do this every day with anything decision I face. If it takes less than two minutes, then I just do it. Now…what about those things that take longer? Well…we default to the five-minute rule. What this means is: If you’re faced with a task that you’re struggling to get done, tell yourself, “I’m only going to work on this for 5 minutes, and that’s it.” Now, you’re thinking, if this task takes longer than five minutes to complete, why even start? Good question!

Newton’s First Law of Motion – If something is still, it will stay still. If it’s moving, it will continue moving unless an external force acts on it. So, we must start. Ergo, your five-minute rule. So, let’s apply this to writing, shall we? 

How do we make these five minutes less stressful?

We start by prepping the area, get our stuff together and turn on the computer. Open the files we need, pull up a blank document or the current document.

This starts the motion. Think about it. You’ve already got everything set in place to write. Continue that motion by writing.
Okay, I’m giving everyone two minutes to get something to write with. That means a paper and pen, or even pull up a word document.

So, you’re going to start with the words above and think about your current or new manuscript. Now, complete this sentence and go on to explain in detail what you want to happen. You can tell it, no need to focus on showing. But, if you get into showing, that’s fine. Now, I’m setting the timer. Ready, set, go! (Go on…I’ll wait while you try this)


Time’s up!

Okay, so count your words. It’s okay if you only got 20 words. Now, you did this many words in only two minutes! How many of you could’ve kept writing if the timer hadn’t stopped you? That’s the external force stopping the motion. You wouldn’t have stopped unless told to do so. Let’s say you give yourself five minutes towards writing new words…you’d have double this amount. If you set up another five minutes, you’d get more, and so on and so on. Think about it.

I’d like to recommend a book: Atomic Habits by James Clear This book is exciting.

One more thing from this class that I thought was really interesting:
Pareto Principle – 80% of the results will result from 20% of the effort. OR 80% of output will result from 20% of the input.
So, basically, first draft (crap draft) is 20%,
next round of edits is 20% (focus on active verbs & dialogue),
next round 20% (focus on plot arc),
next 20% is the character arc.
Think about this for a moment. You only need to input 20%, and you get 80% done afterward with the edits.
It goes back to what we hear all the time: You can’t edit a blank page.
We all need that 20% to start. If you’re a new writer or beginning in a new genre, or anything really. Remember getting those words on the page will get you 80% closer to a final draft.

Although this is focused on writing…you CAN apply it to anything else in your life. Let that stew.

Then, let me know how it worked out for you. I’d really like to know!

October is one of my favorite months of the year. The weather is cooling off, decorations galore and scary movies galore. Since I'm a paranormal author who incorporates ghosts in her books, it's a given I'd love Halloween, right? Although, my ghosts aren't there to scare folks (unless they deserve it). 

So it would only be natural to be part of a spooky event. 
Check this out!
Starting this week, we are introducing stories from our Halloween Flash Fiction Authors, and we will feature two stories a week for the next four weeks.
This week’s stories are:
Samhain Surprise by Teresa Keefer
The Witch’s Wand by Tessa Russ

I love these little quick reads. I hope you do too! Enjoy!

Halloween-ish Flash Fiction and a Give@away for You!

​My first love was mysteries, and Sherlock Holmes kicked my butt. I remember a game I received for Christmas one year. This was the gist of it: The player received a binder. In the binder was a copy of the London newspaper dated appropriately, interview dialogues, a map of London (also dated appropriately), and a book with the beginning of a mystery. The idea was to solve the mystery in the smallest amount of “moves” possible. Each time you read an article, reviewed the map, or read an interview, it counted as a move. Over and over, I would try each mystery and try to “beat” the score. I didn’t do very well, but I never gave up. I was hooked on trying to figure out the puzzle of the mystery! I did the same with a book on Jack the Ripper. Really, with today’s technology and advances in psychological studies, that would be a mystery easily solved, or would it?

This presented me with a puzzle. How do I meet the requirements for the degree without following the traditional path of sticking to one foreign language? I researched and, lo and behold, I found out the requirement was four years of a foreign language, with the last two years being upper-level courses. But! Those upper-level courses did not have to be in the same language. Sweet! I went to my favorite English professor and asked for her assistance. During the next year and a half, I took Old English (which required translating Beowulf), Latin (translating Aeneid), and Sanskrit (no translating, that was hard enough on its own!).

Another Life puzzle: Being a single parent also presented its own challenges. How do I stay involved with my kids as I work full time and attend school full time? Easy peasy. I tortured my kids with my homework! My son lucked out with Beowulf. Because really…what boy doesn’t like a story of a hero coming to save the day of a wounded town and frightened king? He also got drawn into Latin stories. Myths, Gods, treachery…he soaked them up. This led to video games and books of fantasy for him. And yes, mom had to reciprocate and learn the video games. Those wicked things can be addictive. Live interactive books. Genius!

Some folks call these challenges. I’ve chosen to call them puzzles. Why? Because eventually, puzzles can be solved, I believe. If one takes the time to look at the entire picture and then plunge in. That’s the scary part: plunging in. But, it’s also the most thrilling.

Have you had a life puzzle that you figured out a unique way to solve? I’d love to hear about it!

​Do you have an affinity for nature? Is there some form of nature that automatically calms you and allows you to find an opportunity to reflect or even let your imagination run? What about creating a “happy place”? I’d like to hear about it.

While we waited to board the river cruise boat, we took a stroll along the park outside of the hotel and was treated to a display of local artists sculptures. (Note: I tried to capture the info posts on all, but only caught some.)

Here are a few more that I missed the placards for:

Very talented, don't you think?

Our last day aboard ship we packed our belongings and headed into Basel on our way to Lucerne. There we stayed at the hotel for two days before heading to the airport. Here is the view from our hotel room. (Swiss Alps in background)