Jennifer M. Baldwin's Blog, page 10

Input Update 4/20/2023

Reading: A Princess of Mars by Burroughs Also reading: The City We Became by Jemisin Also reading: The Face in the Frost by Bellairs Listening to: The hum of the dehumidifier Drinking: Lemon water

500 Max

I’ve noticed these past few days, as I’ve tried to trust my writing process and get words done for my current work in progress, that after cycling back through the manuscript and adding new words and continuing the story, I can only manage a maximum of approximately 500 words before I stall out. Sometimes I […]

Keeping the Streak Alive

The title of this post is not referring to my blogging challenge. This is only my third (?) day of consecutive blogging, so it’s hardly a streak at this point. The streak I’m referring to is my fiction writing streak. I’m now at 46 consecutive days of writing at least one sentence of fiction every […]

Notebook at the Dining Room Table

One thing I’ve noticed lately is that my focus during my writer’s notebook (WNB) time has been getting a bit scattered. I usually write in my WNB at my work desk in the mornings, and my computer is right nearby (it’s an L-shaped desk), so as I’ve started writing in the notebook, my brain will […]

Blogging Every Day? (Again?)

I don’t know if this is a worthwhile challenge for myself, but maybe I should try blogging every day again. (To use the word “again” feels like a bit of a stretch. In late 2020/early 2021, I almost managed to blog every day… for a few weeks. But when March rolled around, I was back […]

Substack, Notes, Time, and Attention

Substack — the platform I use to publish my monthly newsletter — has been introducing a range of different services lately, including a Chat option and now something called “Notes,” which is a bit like Twitter, minus the hellscape stuff. (They also have an app which you can use to read newsletters, participate in chats, […]

Input Update 4/13/2023

I should really make these, like, a weekly thing… Listening to: Macroblank on Bandcamp (I know nothing about this artist other than I really like listening to him while I work) Reading: A Princess of Mars by Burroughs Also Reading: Bright Lights, Big City by McInerney Watching: Out of the Past and some other old […]

Am I Still Curious?

Austin Kleon’s newsletter a week ago had an item about curiosity, and I started to wonder if maybe I’m becoming less curious as I grow older. Part of it grows out of the anxiety of being middle-aged. My life is half over, so I don’t have as much time to wander down wrong paths, and […]

Works in Progress April 2023

Since finishing both Avalon Summer and Gates to Illvelion, I haven’t been idle, though I do wish I was further along with my draft of the second Merlin book. I’ve written a few short stories that I’ve been sending out to different magazines, but so far, no luck. And I’ve started drafting another novel, Norse […]

Accomplishments

I finished reading two books today, and I must say, I feel a great sense of accomplishment whenever I finish a book. It’s not like finishing a book is some rare occasion for me — I finish books all the time — but it still gives me great satisfaction, like I’ve really done something with […]