Back to School, Back to...a World of Opportunities

I've been seeing on Facebook, moms who are meeting for pedicures after they get their kids off for their first days at school. As a homeschooling mom, that's not exactly my life! I hear of woodworking and mechanics classes that other public or private school kids are excited about--classes I will never be able to teach. However, it's not all doom-and-gloom either. Last year, my son and I spend the first day of public school on a nearby beach at a Not-Going-Back-to-School Picnic.

I was blessed over the summer to have been invited to speak to many groups of teen writers, including a writers' camp in Penticton, and a week-long event at the Vancouver Public Library. I'm looking forward to several events in October and November as NaNoWriMo approaches. I hope to be able to inspire many writers to try fast drafting, maybe for the first time! I'll give updates on these events closer to time, if you're local and interested in attending.

But back to school... Homeschooling really has afforded us a lot of freedom for different and exciting opportunities. We have spent plenty of time on movie sets in the last year, and I almost never have to say no to a speaking engagement because it interferes with school obligations. Over the summer, my son enjoys catching up with his neighborhood school friends, and I enjoy catching up on some writing projects. This summer, I wrote a first draft of a new novel, plus revised a couple of novels and polished off my first script and entered it into my first screenwriting contest.

This year "Back to School" doesn't mean picnics or other relaxing pastimes for us...but that's because I've had another wonderful opportunity that has come my way. For those of you that don't know, besides writing and homeschooling, I have also performed with a Polynesian dance troupe for many years. And this month, I will be departing with that troupe on a cruise ship to Hawaii, where we will get to perform on board, and then at one of the biggest luaus in Honolulu. I am very excited for this! And while my son doesn't get to come along, he has a new opportunity of his own--becoming more of a self-starter and independent on his learning journey. The reason I started homeschooling in the first place was because I wanted our son to pick up a love for learning from his dad and I, and this, when he's starting to take responsibility for his own schooling, is where I'm really starting to see that love for learning kick in. So while his journey may not be as tropical as mine, I think it is just as life-giving.

So that's a little bit of what Back to School means for me. What does it mean to you? Are you off for a pedicure? Or does life feel even busier when school obligations kick in? Do you have any special traditions you keep to during Back to School times?

Frogs and Other Loud Workshop Interruptions

I spent the weekend out in the middle of nowhere. Okay, I'm actually a bit of a wimp. There was gravity-pulled running water from a creek. There was also enough electricity to host several bands.

I, of course, forgot to take pictures of any of that stuff, but here's a picture of the serenity I was surrounded by all weekend. I was at a music festival where I was teaching a workshop on writing. It went very well, except, as you'll see by the subject, for the very loud (but tiny) frog that was hanging around. Seriously, though, he was pretty cute! I swear, I find myself in the oddest situations.

As I mentioned on Twitter, my first day without phone and Internet was akin to a detox--I was practically getting the shakes every time I thought of my useless iPhone. By day two, though, I was so completely relaxed. I say this every time I'm forced into a place with no electronics, but I tend to forget: I need to do this more often.

To compound my technology fast, I pulled out my laptop (which has an 8-hour battery) to work on revising a chapter of my novel. I'd gotten through most of a chapter when my Microsoft Word problem started doing weird things, and eventually shut down, not saving my work.

I sweated over this for about an hour. Then I decided to read a good book (which I ended up reading from start to finish). I'm happy to report that I came home a much less-stressed person!

I hope you all had a great weekend! Do you ever take forced breaks from technology? Let me say this one more time: I NEED TO DO THIS MORE OFTEN!

A Blog in Pictures

Lately, I've had no time, mostly because of this:

And today I'll be off doing this:

But at the end of the day, this is what's waiting for me:

Happy Wednesday, everybody!

Organization For Dummies (like me!)

I used to be pretty organized person. Honestly. I used to work in secretarial/administrative, and people used to come to ME to help get them more organized and on top of things. I remember when I was young, I had a secret dream of working in, or even owning (gasp!)an office supply store. Seriously.

I've fallen off the wagon. In a big way.

Okay, that's not really mine...but it could be!


I could blame this fall on the other pack-rats in my home, but where would that get me? Personal responsibility - that's what will solve things! And the truth is, I HAVE been having trouble organizing and purging my own things. So I've been reading up a little on getting organized, both in my writing and my life, and asked around the social media sphere. Here's some ideas I've been given (thank you to all my facebook/twitter friends!!)

1. Flylady.net - I went on this site once years ago. I've been kind of afraid to go back. I was "just not in that place." But now I am. I'll try it. I'll take the plunge.

2.Use a Mom's Calendar. While I like this idea, I certainly love the idea of having ONE central calendar, I'm pretty happy with my online Google calendar. It syncs to my iphone and sends me email reminders about things (and since I check my email about every thirty seconds, that's a pretty handy feature!)

3/ Here's some great advice I'll just put in as a complete quote, because I definitely couldn't say it better: "Remember that any fantastic system doesn't work for everyone. Be prepared to tweak or completely throw out whatever system(s) you start with. Accept any "failures" to stick with a system as real life & an opportunity to change the system. Know that you will never feel like the quest for organization is done & that's ok! You will always seem more organized to onlookers than to yourself!| - Thank you, Allison Paul! I will be back to read this again and again, I'm sure!

4. Create a clone, or even better, create a few! I admit, this would help immensely! If anyone figures out the formula for this, please let me know!

5. Turn off the Internet. Well, obviously I'm still here, so THAT didn't work! LOL. But honestly, when I get busy on a writing project, I use Internet/Social Media time as a reward. After say an hour of solid work, I'll allow myself five minutes on Twitter, or something like that. Goals and rewards work well for me!

6. And here's what kick-started the whole idea of getting organized this year: my mom sent me the following link (do you think she was trying to tell me something?) http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifehack/12-months-of-clearing-to-create-a-great-2011.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+LifeHack+%28lifehack.org%29   Seriously, though? This looks ATTAINABLE to me! I can do this! (Though I admit, I still cannot even get to my bedroom closet in order to clean it - BUT January's not over yet!!)

On the writing front, my best organizational tool so far is Scrivener. And they've just come out with a Beta version for Windows (the real version should be out soon). It's fabulous for organizing, when you're in the organizing stage of your writing, moving scenes around and such.

As I said above, I'm also big on goal-setting. I generally set monthly goals, and usually pretty ambitious ones. I set for about three months in advance, since it can be difficult to tell beyond that what I'll be in the mood for, what work I'll have from my editor, and just generally what my life will be like at that point.

Right now my goals are these: Finish an outline for FINDING HOPE by January 31st. Write the next draft by the end of February. Read through and send out to critique partners in mid-March. Finish another draft of PERFECT AIM by the end of April.

Of course that may be altered when I get my next set of notes from my editor. But it's still good to have a plan. At least it's good for me.

Do you have a plan for the next few months? Do you have any organizational tips for dummies like me, or do you like any of the above ones?

I'm Back!

I'm not sure if you missed me, but I can promise you that I DID miss all of you. I went through a serious case of withdrawal from my online friends this last week. But I'm back and ready to catch up.

First, before I forget, I just want to mention that I'll be starting a new and awesome contest tomorrow, so please stop back and check it out. I'll be giving away a signed ARC by one of my favorite, made-of-awesomeness authors.

Secondly, I want to know what I missed! The blogosphere is way too huge to catch up properly after a week away, so help me out. What interesting stuff went on while I was offline?

It's been so long, I don't even remember how much I mentioned about where I was going and what I was doing, so here's a quick rundown. It was not a book-focused trip (I know it's hard to believe, but I DO have a life aside from writing and reading). My family took a trip down to Sacramento/San Francisco for about a week. My husband and I used to run a natural bodybuilding federation, and we're still pretty connected to that whole world. My husband was invited to judge a big bodybuilding competition and I was asked to take care of the tabulations. It was a long, grueling day of staring at almost-naked bodies, which all began to look alike after a while, and I wondered if agents have the same problem - no matter how good the manuscript (because these were some pretty impressive bodies!), I wonder if you read enough good writing if it starts to blend together and look the same.

From there, we traveled with our Californian friends into San Francisco. We spent one day at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom. I did not attempt any of the death defying rides, but only because of the long lineups (that's my story and I'm stickin' to it!) We stayed in a really cool hotel right downtown San Francisco. It used to be a high-end apartment, and the place had so much character, I just wanted to stay there forever. In fact, all of San Francisco has a lot of character, and I took a lot of notes because now I'm hoping to set my next book there. It was a very inspiring place, and I felt like if I could have stayed, I probably could have written a whole book in a week.

Of course no trip would be complete without stepping into a bookstore! I did stop by the Borders that was just down from our hotel room and snapped a few pix of some of my author friends' books. I swear, it's just as exciting for me every time!

So I'm serious about filling me in from last week. What interesting stuff happened that I missed out on - in your own life or around the Net?