Michele Venne's Blog, page 15

Ebb and Flow

My life is more content when I accept the ebb and flow of energy and time and opportunities. The last month has seen an increase in paid hours. Certainly something to celebrate! I’ve also helped a friend by taking care of their horse while they were out of town. Now that they’re back, and I’m settling into longer hours in front of the computer for a reason other than project creation...

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Course Correction

Because nothing is static, I prefer to think of life balance as a constant tilting this way, then making a choice to shift that way, then another decision tips me in yet a different direction. I planned to lean towards my writing projects this week, but then life tasks popped up and demanded to be dealt with. After crossing a few off the list each day, the time and energy left over was...

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Near the Edge

Completing one project means I’m a step away from beginning the next in the (thankfully) never-ending queue. I’ve been working on a list of character names I’ve used in my stories, so I don’t duplicate. Too late! If I had thought of this years ago, I wouldn’t have multiple “Jones” or “Jacob” or “Shelly” or “Cindy” in my work. I’m down to the last story, Of Warriors and Wisdom, book 3 in the...

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Looking or Not

It’s only the second week of this new year and I’ve noticed changes, whether I’m looking directly at the change or not. Practicing my habit of setting an alarm so I don’t stay too long on one project never stuck. I forget to set the alarm. Or I set it, but then keep working after I turn it off. I think it’s best that I give up a habit I can’t seem to practice enough to make stick.

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Hello 2023!

Happy 2023! I hope sparks of joy and good health have already showered your life. With my renewed clarity, I greeted the new year with open arms. The fact that I’m already behind on my writing projects isn’t a surprise. Haha! I’ve scheduled two admin tasks to finish this month and FOUR stories to work on. On paper, it looked like I would have enough time. But I always forget to schedule life.

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Finally. Clarity.

After months of knowing something wasn’t right… then weeks of thinking about it, and days of reading and journaling, I finally have clarity. My new why shines like a light in the darkness where I wandered for far too long. And since not much is in isolation, my why led to a definition of success, which led to goals, which brought me back to my why. I’m not celebrating or sharing the details...

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Winding In

I’ve been “winding down” since September. With the purchase of a 2023 calendar and reviewing 2022, I’ve already made intentions for next year. For the past 3 weeks, I should have been “winding up” in order to finish the projects I wanted to publish in 2022. Instead, I’m “winding in.” This probably isn’t an actual phrase, but it’s what I’m feeling, what I’ve been circling around for months now.

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Just a Little Experiment

I’ve done more investigating into my writing process this year than I have since I began this adventure. Last week was one more experiment. I mentioned that to get myself to stop spending so much time on an “easy” project and spread my attention around to make progress on everything on my calendar, I would set a timer on my phone. When it went off, I would stop, get up, and move to the next task.

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Time Limits

More days than not, I’ve put a check in front of projects listed in my calendar. I’ve logged a lot of time with the next math book. Not much creative thought involved with that at this time. I’m just transferring a few years’ worth of warm up problems to a Word doc. The creative part will come later when I include a bit of introduction at the beginning of each section to remind students how to do...

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Multiple Choice Projects

Seven days ago I stared at the beginning of the next short story for Patreon and the muse revealed the tale. In the last seven days, I’ve dabbled with SG, and I started a project I tentatively had in the wings for 2023. This other project is nonfiction, so no concern for characters or setting or dialogue or story arc. In this next math workbook, I looked at pages of math problems I’d created when...

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