Shanna Swendson's Blog, page 292

Depression vs. Book Brain

I've got a follow-up to yesterday's post about depression vs. Book Brain in writers and how to deal with the writers in your life (or yourself). One of my blog readers reminded me that, as I so often say, everyone's different, so some writers may still be productive while depressed, which means that's not always a clue to the difference between Book Brain and depression. This reader, who is a trained suicide crisis line counselor, offered these warning signs of depression:

Personal hygiene may...

Caring for Your Writer Friend

The newspaper is trying to ruin my day again. The paper that was delivered this morning was missing the important part: the comics and crossword puzzles. You know, the part that's not so easy to replicate online (you can get the New York Times puzzle online, but it's usually a week behind, and doing a puzzle online is not the same as using a pencil on the paper itself). I called to report it and schedule a redelivery, and it's now nearly an hour past the time it was supposed to be delivered, ...

Thinking About Publicity

I made lots of writing progress yesterday, though I think I still need to tinker with the scenes. Odd things that I didn't plan keep happening, which is good, but it's making me feel a little out of control. Today will likely be a less productive day, as I have to go grocery shopping and have choir practice, but since I'm in the middle of a scene I've more or less written in my head, I may still be able to churn out some words. Meanwhile, the combination of vine pulling, watermelon hauling an...

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

This is my absolute favorite time of year, weather-wise. Yesterday we had what would have been a perfect summer day for much of the world. It was pleasantly warm but not miserably hot. The sky was a perfectly clear cobalt blue. While the sun was warm, there was a cool breeze, so I could be warm and cool at the same time (my favorite ambient temperature). When I was walking to the bank, going around the pond across the street, the breeze rippled the water in such a way that the sunlight made t...

Avoiding Romance

The library talk is over, and people were there! There was even someone I didn't already know! Someday maybe I'll get to the point of standing room only or having to hand out wristbands, but for now, I'll take someone showing up. Now I can crawl back into my cave for the rest of the year and focus on the writing part of things. Crawl may be the operative word, as I did a fair amount of bending and pulling or lifting this weekend and am now really feeling it. Saturday I was pulling up the evil...

Fall TV Scorecard

First, an announcement: If you're in North Texas and for whatever reason have felt horribly bereft because I haven't had too many public appearances this year, you have one last chance Saturday. Saturday at 2 I'll be speaking at the Valley Ranch branch of the Irving Public Library, which is located at MacArthur Blvd. and Cimmaron Trail (if you're coming north on MacArthur, I'd recommend passing Cimmaron Trail and making the next right into the shopping center where the library is). I'm not su...

In Praise of Skirts

First, a moment of silence for my electric teakettle, which has shuffled off this mortal (electric) coil. It apparently sprang a leak, as I found large puddles of water under and around it on the countertop. I don't have a lot of expectations for an electric teakettle, but holding water would be high on the list. Plus, there are safety concerns with boiling water escaping its container (on the upside, my counter is now thoroughly clean and probably sanitized), and the water seemed to be leaki...

FenCon Recap

Now that I've had a chance to recover, I can do a rundown on the fun that was FenCon. All of this is more or less from memory, as I didn't try to take notes.

I had the somewhat intimidating experience of moderating a panel about a TV show with one of the people who writes for the show in the audience -- and with me probably being the least knowledgeable person on the panel. As I said on the panel, I was there mostly to play Oprah and keep the discussion going, and fortunately the show writer w...

Warehouse 13 and my Lists

It's fall, and it even feels like it today. Yay! It's a good day for a good TV marathon, so I'm rewatching the beginning of Warehouse 13, leading up to the season finale tonight. That show managed to become one of my favorites, which is funny because I wasn't planning to watch it until my mom told me to catch the rerun of the premiere. But when I think about it and match it against all those lists I've made as part of the Ongoing Quest for World Domination, it comes out to being the TV versio...

My Game Show Failure

I'm in my usual post-convention lag. I didn't even have to travel far, and I didn't stay up all that late at night, and yet I'm still more or less in zombie mode today. I feel like I ran a marathon over the weekend. My muscles are even sore, like I was doing a lot of physical activity.

I'm giving myself today to rest and recover, and then tomorrow I think I'll take care of some business-type stuff that I need to deal with, as well as my radio scripts, and then Wednesday I'll hit the new book h...