Monthly archive April 2008

Critique Night

Submitted by jlpowers on Thu, 04/24/2008 - 2:00am

I’m chair of my RWA chapter’s Critique neeting, a once a month meeting where we have an hour of craft-of-writing presentation and an hour to critique chapters.

Last night was one of our meetings, and if you discounted me, the presenter and the board members, only four people showed up… which is sad, because it was a great presentation.

So this morning I wrote a long email and put it out onto the chapter’s email loop, asking them why only 4 people out of our membership of 75 bothered to show up.

The response has been really interesting and very supportive. Several people have added various aspects of the history of the group, which helps me understand the dynamic. I suspect we’ll have a major re-vamp of things in the near future.

It’ll be interesting to watch.

Acceptance

Submitted by jlpowers on Thu, 04/24/2008 - 1:00am

The theme of a lot of the reading I’ve been doing, and Oprah’s show this week with Ekhart Tolle, is acceptance.

Worry and guilt are non-acceptance of what “is” and serve no useful purpose in life, if they last for more than the moment it takes to recognize their existance and deal with the issue the feeling of worry or guilt has raised.

The Universe, being the cooperative place that it is, has been giving me chance after chance for practicing my acceptance skills. And I wasn’t doing so well. Especially yesterday.

So I sat down yesterday afternoon and wrote in my journal for a long time, trying to figure out what was going on and why I was having so many problems. Along the way, I discovered that part of my issue was that I didn’t have a definition of “acceptance” that really explained to me how to go about being “accepting". (Read more)

What's Right?

Submitted by jlpowers on Tue, 04/22/2008 - 12:00am

I was feeling really grouchy this morning, and spent a fair amount of time trying to figure out “what’s wrong?". Then, finally, I had this blinding flash of the obvious. If I wanted to feel better, I shouldn’t be concentrating on “what’s wrong", instead I should be focusing on “what’s right".

The thougts you focus on are the realities you create in your life. Or putting it another way, “what you resist persists". So, by focusing on what I didn’t want, and resisting what I didn’t want, I was creating more of what I didn’t want.

So, I have more to learn, and the outer realities aren’t being created nearly as fast as I’d like, but I feel like I’m getting there. (Read more)

Spring or Summer?

Submitted by jlpowers on Mon, 04/21/2008 - 2:00am

I was really looking forward to spring and today, for the first time, the buds on the trees are finally big enough that the trees are showing a hint of green… but it was 75F (24C) out today! I hope to God this isn’t going to be another of those years that goes straight from winter to summer… could we please have a little spring around here? Please?

Beyond that, I worked this morning, then read some on my book while #3-son was at the orthodontist. As I read, I’m fixing the accent, so maybe I’m closer to the character than I thought I was, which is good. Now if I could only find the time to work on it more.

I also wish I was sleeping better… I’ll be so glad when this blasted tooth quits hurting. The joys of life.

Combining Comments

Submitted by jlpowers on Mon, 04/21/2008 - 1:00am

I spent the weekend taking everybody’s comments and inputting them into the manuscript, a tedious, but necessary process. The next step is to read the last half of the manuscript to get myself back into the voice, then I begin the re-write of the beginning. Again, tedious, but necessary.

No word from the agent, but that’s okay, because I won’t send it to anybody until I’m done with this re-write, so their delay isn’t a bad thing.

But this morning I work. Lots of people clamouring for web pages, which is a good thing.

Spring & Taxes

Submitted by jlpowers on Mon, 04/07/2008 - 12:00am

Spring is springing and that’s wonderful! I’m not usually a cabin-fever person, but this year the weather was starting to get to me. But today, the grass is more green than brown, my flowers are coming up and the trees have the beginning of buds. I’m not so thrilled with the temperature at the moment, only 44°F (6.5°C), but it could be a lot worse, so I’m not really complaining about it. It’s sunny and bright, and that’s very nice.

And what comes with spring? Taxes, of course.

So that was my weekend… taxes.

It would have gone quicker if I hadn’t needed to update the last four months of Quicken-stuff, and if my filing for last year had been better. Descriptions like “PayPal Something” don’t really impress the IRS when I want to deduct it. On the other hand, if I hadn’t done as good a job record-keeping as I did, it would have taken a lot longer. (Read more)

Got it!

Submitted by jlpowers on Thu, 04/03/2008 - 12:00am

I’m going to back-date this one, because that way I can keep track of when is happened, rather than when I got around to writing about it.

Got a call today from the gal who’s looking at my manuscript’s British accent and she wanted to meet to go over it with me. So we met after I picked up the kid from school, and ended up talking for almost two hours about my manuscript.

After everybody’s comments, I knew the beginning needed help, but I didn’t know what or how to fix it. At the end of our meeting I knew the why and the how of fixing it.

So, I’m tickled. Now I just need to find the time to do it.