Michele Venne's Blog, page 4

A touchstone

One of the first suggestions a veteran writer may offer to a new writer is to find their why. Even if the writer only wants to jot a story about Grandma’s trip across the country to meet Grandpa, or to pen a short book to give away to potential customers, being able to state the reason why the project is being written serves many purposes. And if the writer plans to make a career from their words…

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Facts in Fiction

Last week I mentioned that I finished the anthology story. This week, I thought I might need to start again. An old piece of writing advice is, “Write what you know.” Some still believe writers should stick to this, meaning having a character who is male when I’m female shouldn’t be allowed. What do I know about being a man? Or being a doctor? Or a pilot? Or living in New York City?

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Finishing Energy

Joanna Penn, a successful indie author, coined the term “finishing energy” to describe how she feels as she closes in on completing a project. I’ve noticed I feel the same. Though I’ve often mentioned that the finish line moves, there is an internal push to keep going, to write that last word, to do one more editing check, to verify all the pieces are in the manuscript before I hit “publish.” It’…

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Time

“You never step into the same river twice.” A saying that at first seems illogical, until someone explains that the water is always flowing, so it’s never the same from moment to moment. The same could be said about time. Once a moment has passed, we can’t get it back. Time is a strange thing. Humans named components of time (seconds, minutes, years, etc.) perhaps as a way to control it.

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Attention

The saying “where attention goes, energy flows” can be used to help or hinder our days. For example, if we focus on things out of our control, negative thoughts, and worst-case scenarios, we end up seeing/having more of that in our lives. The opposite is also true. Putting our attention on habits and routines we control, on pleasant (or at least neutral) thoughts/things, and keeping a positive…

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A Light Heart

It seems that the heavy fog of January has lifted. Holly’s ankle is just about back to normal. I received positive news about a troubling issue. And my clients have returned to usual, stable behavior. Some tech struggles have been resolved. I’ve made a bit of progress on some admin tasks. As has almost always been the case, when I procrastinate on a project, and then focus on getting it done…

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Still Sliding

Sometimes the next week smooths out after a rough one. And sometimes week two is a continuation of “rough”. I prefer to solve one problem at a time and have the ordeal be done. Like my car. I noticed a shimmy in the steering wheel. I texted my mechanic. He suggested the tires. I made an appointment for the place that takes care of that for me, and the problem was easily solved. Done.

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Holding Together

I thought it was just me that felt this week, maybe the last 2 weeks, have been weird. It’s not a full moon. Maybe a bunch of planets were aligned? I’m not sure, but these last days have been… strange. Several of my clients were off. I thought it best to alert my boss. I didn’t expect him to do anything, just wanted him to be aware. He agreed that things have been weird. My horse wasn’t herself.

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Small Wins

I finally finished the second part of the anthology story 🙂 I knew I would be over my 5K word limit we loosely agreed on for each part, totaling 20K words. I’m over by 2K. I need to fix a few plot threads, so that will add words. I’m sure the others will make suggestions as to where I can cut a sentence or phrase. I can usually work on several projects at once, even different fiction stories.

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Unicorns

In the publishing industry, when an author makes it big with their first book, especially if they haven’t done any marketing, we call them a “unicorn.” We know what they are. We may doubt they exist until we become one or know first hand of one that exists. Well, I’m an observer of a unicorn. Someone I’ve know for a decade published her first book. Not a novel, but a collection of short stories.

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