2006 Highlights

January — Got the assignment to write website reviews for the OWFI Report, the newsletter for the Oklahoma Writers’ Federation, Inc.

March — First website review published in the OWFI Report

May — Won honorable mention for columns in the OWFI contest

June — Second website review published in the OWFI Report

September — Third website review published in the OWFI Report

October — Won two honorable mentions at the Ozark Creative Writers conference/contest

December — Fourth website review published in the OWFI Report, got the invitiation to the general residency at the Writers Colony at Dairy Hollow in Eureka Springs

2006 was a good year. 2007 will be better!

Filed under: writing

Easy Yummy Stuff

Since I had a pretty good response to the “Cooking as Creative Expression?“ post, here’s something else along that line.

A fast/fancy lunch can be pretty easy.  How easy?  Well… 

How about:

• seafood fondue
• crab “scampi” with spaghetti noodles
• fruit salad

The fondue stuff is easy-peasy!!  Just melt 2/3 of a big box of Velveeta and 4-6 oz of pimiento cheese together with a splash of milk.  Add crab meat and those little salad shrimps.  Put some bread in the oven to toast up.  Voila!  It’s done. 

The crab scampi stuff was pretty easy too.  But what I want to skip to is the fruit salad.  When we went to the grocery store, we bought some blackberries and blueberries.

So…

1 medium banana, mashed
1 medium apple, diced
1 medium orange, sectioned and diced
1/2 pint blackberries
1/2 pint blueberries
1-2 cups miniature marshmallows

In a large bowl, mash the banana.  Cut the apples and add to the bowl.  After you peel the orange, when you section it, do it over the bowl so any juice will drip into the bowl and keep the banana and apples from turning brown too quickly.  Cut each section into 2-3 pieces, depending on the size of the orange.  Add in the blueberries and blackberries.  Gently stir it together.  Add the marshmallows and gently stir them in.

Mom wanted to make a more “traditional” fruit salad with pineapple and sour cream and the like.  But she put me in charge of it and said to do it however I wanted to.  Dad doesn’t like pineapple AT ALL, so I didn’t put any in there.  It was really good!  We ate most of it for lunch.  There’s a square Gladware tub in the icebox and it’s only about 1/2 full.

Filed under: not writing

2007’s Goals

In light of the post the other day where I quoted part of an article by C. Hope Clark, here are my writing goals for 2007:

1. Write a minimum of 1,000 words a day.
2. Send a minimum of one query a week.  (I tried to do more this last year and overwhelmed myself into doing nothing.)
3. Develop a minimum of 2 greeting card ideas a week and send them out when I get batches of 5 or 6.
4. Maintain a tickle file of article ideas that I add to weekly.

This one is both personal and writing:

• Work through the 1-Minute Organizer system (in conjunction with FlyLady.com) to get organized in my workspace and personal space.

And there we have it. 

Filed under: writing

Cooking as Creative Expression?

Do you think cooking can be a form of creativity/creative expression?

If no, then what about those who write cookbooks, invent recipes?  (I’m thinking of Ina Garten of Barefoot Contessa on Food Network, but there are others; I just really like her.  )

I’ve been baking today.  I took some recipes that were done one way and tweaked them for me.  Being diabetic, it’s not a good idea to use the full sugar so many recipes call for.  But there’s this wonderful product called Splenda Blend for Baking.  I used that instead.

I made cranberry almond bread and banana nut bread.  Both recipes call for a cup of sugar.  I used half a cup of Splenda Blend instead.  It turned out wonderful.

That’s not the only change I made, though.  The recipes don’t call for vanilla.  That’s how I learned to make banana nut bread, with one teaspoon of vanilla.  It adds a little extra “yum” factor.

I also made a sugar-free cheesecake that uses Splenda Granular instead of sugar.  It’s very good.  And it came out perfect today. 

Yes, I’m a happy baker.  Sometimes — like the past couple weeks — I think I should bake (and cook in general) more.  Perhaps I will.

Filed under: not writing , creative, creativity

2007 Writing Goals

I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit lately.  ‘Tis the season and all that. 

I just read an article by C. Hope Clark at the beginning of the FundsforWriters newsletter that made me rethink how I was wording my goals, though.

She says:

At this point of the holidays, the presents are wrapped, the dinner is planned and travel is done. Chances are you’ll have
some moments to contemplate your life whether seated in front of the fireplace with eggnog or strolling through the snow that has blanketed so much of the United States lately.  You know that notebook that sticks with you? The one that contains your story outlines, character thoughts and plotting changes? The one that contains your to-do lists and deadlines? That’s the one…the notebook where you now need to record what you intend to do with your writing in 2007.

None of these phrases are allowed…

“Write more”
“Write everyday”
“Study writing”
“Sign up for a class”
“Read more writing books”

How many articles will you keep in play? When will you
finish the novel? How many new magazines will you break into? How much money will you make? How many articles will you sell? What hours of the day will you write and how many words will you write during that time?

Goals are only as good as the measurements. Theories are for dreams, not for accomplishments. While you start with a dream, the work comes when you mold them into reality. Most writer
wannabes love the dreams, but stop there. You know them…the
ones who talk about being famous, making money, speaking on Oprah.

You think about recording thoughts and stories that do more for the reader than they do for you. That’s the sign of a good writer. He thinks more about how the writer will enjoy the words even if the writer doesn’t remember where the words came from.

Failing to communicate lets others down. It’s when you crave doing for others that you perform your best work.

Now…what are your writing goals for 2007?
Clue: It ain’t about the byline.

(Funds for Writers, December 24, 2006, Volume 7, Issue 52)

Things to make you go “Hmmmm….”

For me, I’ve already made one change.  In Microsoft Outlook, I have set up some daily, weekly, and monthly tasks that I need to do to accomplish my writing goals.  One of them was “Write at least one hour!”  It now reads, “Write 1000 words!”

I still need to work on goals for queries and the like.  I’ll get to that.  Soon.

Filed under: writing

I’ve GOT to Remember This

A friend of mine shared an e-mail she received the other day from a literary agent who was declining an invitation to appear in a Yahoo Group to answer questions and the like.

One line stood out for me.  Correction.  Two words.

Fecal roster

That is just classic.  I’ve got to remember that.  There are honestly some people who, if I said that instead of “shit list,” would have absolutely 100% no clue what I was talking about or even saying.

Filed under: writing

Believe it or not….

Tonight I have actually already been working on getting OWFI contest entries together.  There are a couple things I knew immediately that I wanted to enter, so those were easy.  I did a few minor edits to one of them and got those two printed out.  Now I just have to figure out what else to enter.

After that, I started setting up Outlook Express so I can use several of the functions on it.  Accountability is important in so many things and I think those daily reminders popping up will either (a) keep be accountable if only to myself or (b) annoy the hell out of me until I disable them.

Let’s hope it’s the first.  lol

Filed under: writing

Special Promo: Paper Journal Challenge

 

EMBODIMENT PAPER JOURNAL PROJECT 2007 | LEARN MORE + JOIN

This is something I’m going to be participating in throughout 2007.  It’s free to join LiveJournal if you’re interested in this.

Filed under: writing

BookHitch.com: A Website Review

“Step right up, folks!  Get your books hitched to readers today!” 

Doesn’t sound very professional, does it?  BookHitch.com doesn’t look very professional either.  At the outset, the appearance is amateurish at best.  The logo appears to have been hand-drawn by an unartistic child.  However, the logo is colorful and somewhat eye-catching.  Providing a person does move past the logo and go into the site itself, the image does not improve much.

BookHitch.com provides services for both readers and for writers.  There is an extensive search engine to find books available in their areas of interest.  However, this review is more about the writers’ services.

The site has been in operation since May 2006.  Administrators aim to provide a link between authors with books available and potential readers.  There are two listing options available to authors.  The free listing allows basic information:  title, author name, publisher, ISBN, and a link to where the book is available, whether it be on Amazon.com, a publisher’s website, or the author’s own website. 

The premium listing is $49 per year per book.  There are no discounts for additional books.  It allows for an image of the book cover to be included with the basic information.  The fee does not allow for more than one book.  If an author has more than one book available, they must decide which one to promote with the premium listing.  There appears to be no other avenue of promotion aside from the listings.

Kathi, a reader based in Boston, Massachusetts, who requested her last name not be used, said, “I’ve never heard of any of the publishers (small presses, I take it?), nor any of the authors, but I do like the condensed info the site gives.”

Appearances aside, the site seems to be well maintained.  In testing out-going links, there was only one broken link, which could have been entered incorrectly in a book’s information.

Published authors have other, possibly more effective, ways of “hitching” their books to readers.

Rating:  * *

(Originally published in the OWFI Report, December 2006)

Filed under: writing , reviews

What’s Coming Up?

I already have a lot on my plate writing-wise for 2007.  Here’s what I know of so far:

• 4 more website reviews — March, June, September, and December
• OWFI contest deadline in February
• OWFI conference in May (along with chairing the autograph party and going to the awards banquet)
• Writing residency at the Writers Colony at Dairy Hollow in June
• Ozark Creative Writers contest deadline in Eureka Springs, AR, in August.
• Ozark Creative Writers conference in October

That’s not counting the local writers’ group meetings.

I had considered not going to the OWFI conference in May and just saving my money from that for Eureka Springs in June.

However, in reading the conference information, there is going to be an editor from Tor there.  This is big.  That bears repeating.

This is big!

It also means I need to get my rear in gear and start seriously writing instead of continually putting it on the back burner. 

Starting now, not waiting until the first of the year.  If I put it off another week, I’ll continue finding excuses to put it off another day or two.

Keep your fingers crossed for me.  I’d cross mine but it’s terribly difficult to type like that.

Filed under: writing