Part 1:  Daydreaming for Ideas
A few weeks ago, Stephanie mentioned she was starting the writing processes with some daydreaming. Which got me to thinking about daydreaming.
And, since I like to classify, I identified three types of daydreaming a writer should do often. First up on the blog: daydream for ideas.
Ideas are arguably the bread and [...]

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(Or, How To Keep From Dawdling When Writing)
I learn a lot from my kids. They are experts at dawdling. They spend way more time talking about a thing than doing the thing. I keep telling them to just get it done and then they can go play. But, along the way they have to pet [...]

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Last week I wrote about some ideas to help writer moms get more writing done this summer. I test drove those ideas this week and here is what happened.
1. Outside Activities.
We’ve been to the pool every day this week for swim lessons and waterslide fun afterwards. I need to find a waterproof pedometer to attach [...]

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The kids are out of school, we’ve had a few days of down time, fun time, relaxation time. Now it’s time for them to settle into their own fun and let mom get in some large amounts of UNINTERRUPTED writing time. Yes?
Well, not for me today. Today, mom’s internal volcano erupted. I don’t remember what [...]

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This is our final blog on Anti-Procrastination month. Time for a status check. If you took the challenge, how did you do? If you didn’t officially take the challenge, maybe all this talk of anti-procrastination subconsciously affected you and you crossed off some projects from your to-do list.
My plan was to make it through Margie [...]

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Final days of Anti-Procrastination month! For those of you who were a little cheeky back in April, saying, “Can’t we put it off until June?” (yes, I saw you tweeting), guess what? June is just around the corner. That’s what happens when you procrastinate…the days slip on by and then you wonder, what happened to [...]

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Best reason ever to stop procrastinating and knock out your to-do list? Because you get rid of that big dark cloud that keeps following you around. Or is it the heavy weight on your shoulders? A monkey on your back? A noose around your neck?
Whatever you call it—once it’s gone, Oh, What a Feeling! <insert [...]

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How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives,”
–Annie Dillard, The Writing Life
What a great quote! Want to be a writer? Look how you’ll get to spend your days:

Reading

Writing

Editing

Marketing

Dreaming

Studying the craft

Submitting queries and manuscripts

Dealing with rejection and pressing on (start back up at reading!)

Celebrating your first book!

Sounds like fun, [...]

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I’ve got a spot in my house, on top of my dryer, to be exact, where I drop items that need to go out into the garage. Toys for donation, canned goods, boxes of cereal, school items, reusable grocery bags that need to go back into the car….etc. My plan is, that whenever the pile [...]

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Whenever my husband and I plan for a household project, such as landscaping, or fixing a plumbing issue, we always double the dollar amount we expect it to cost. From experience, we’ve learned that we usually underestimate, especially when hiring out. So we double our estimate and come close.
Same goes with publishing. Each step takes [...]

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