Lauralynn Elliott's Blog, page 5

ROW Update 10/12/15

Here I am posting faithfully, if a day late. Wednesdays and Sundays are the worst possible days for me to do posts, so I often post the next day.

I actually got some words in Saturday. It had been a while since I had worked on the sequel to Soul of a Vampire (I seriously need a title!). In fact, looking at my spreadsheet, I realized I hadn’t touched it since August. Unbelievable. But I enjoyed jumping back into the story. I didn’t get a lot of words in, but it wasn’t too shabby.

I’m sporadic with exercise, but I’m doing better with it. Baby steps.

On a totally unrelated note, a friend, her son, and I went to a Barnes & Noble about 30 miles away to get an autograph from Dr. Ben Carson. He autographed the book, shook our hands, and posed for a picture with us. We were all fangirl. I have no idea what I said to him.

ROW Update 10/8/15

I’ve determined to try my best to post an update twice a week like I’m supposed to do. I’ve found I do SO much better when I’m sponsoring a round. Even if there’s not much to say, I can at least check in.

I haven’t started back to writing on my sequel to Soul of a Vampire yet. We’ve had a revival at church this week (through yesterday), and I just can’t write after it get past 8:00 or so. I have a morning brain, which still works okay if I write as soon as I get home from work. I’ve been using all my free time editing this week. Tonight, my mom, my mother-in-law, and I are going to see my new (3 1/2 week old) granddaughter, so tonight will also be a wash. I did my editing during lunch so I would have some of that done. Writing will resume tomorrow night. I’ll be able to edit AND write if I use my time wisely.

Oh, and I bought a new laptop to be used just for writing and editing. That way, that one can stay in my office, which will force me to actually WORK in my office My old laptop will stay in the living room and be used for recreation. The new one has a bigger screen, which will help with the seeing. :) I got a KILLER deal on it. $299! (And yet my credit card is groaning.)

Another goal of mine is daily exercise. So far, so good on this front.

How are y’all doing?

ROW80 – Stating Goals a Day Late

I’ve been so late on so many things lately. Ugh. So here are my goals.

1) Write on my sequel to Soul of a Vampire at least 15 minutes a day, five days a week. I want to do more than that, but I’ve been tied up with a lot of line editing for clients, and that’s more profitable right now than writing. But I NEED to write, too.

2) Publish a blog post at least once in addition to my ROW80 post. That’s three times a week total.

3) Exercise at least five days a week. (Not directly related to writing, but part of life and more related than you might think.)

I’m taking baby steps again, so I’m only listing these three for right now. I hope I can get my life in order (I HAVE to stop procrastinating!) so that I can set some more challenging goals at the beginning of 2016.

Johnny Winter

I just recently found out that Johnny Winter had passed away last year. I was saddened by this because Johnny was an awesome blues singer and guitarist. I had the privilege back in the early 90’s to hear him in concert. It was a very small, intimate setting, and I enjoyed it so much more than the huge rock concerts I’d attended in earlier days.

I imagine more people have heard of his brother Edgar Winter. He had a couple of big hits in the early seventies, “Frankenstein” and “Free Ride”. (Those are the two I remember most, but I’m sure there were more.) Edgar was more main stream, but I much prefer Johnny’s style.

For your listening pleasure, I’ve picked out a few of Johnny’s songs.

This first one is “Sound the Bell”. I picked it mostly because of his speed on the guitar in this song.

 

This next one is “Be Careful With a Fool”. Very bluesy.

 

And this one is a real treat for me. Two of my favorite blues singers/guitarists TOGETHER. Johnny Winter and Muddy Waters! I think that first song is called “Mannish Boy”, but I’m not 100% sure. The second one is “Got My Mojo Working”. The video quality is poor, but the music…pure bliss.

ROW80 Update 8/12/15

I’ve been neglectful in my ROW postings lately. I’ve been very busy at work getting ready for new software, which I know is going to be a nightmare. There’s been SO much data entry for things that couldn’t be imported from our old system. Hours and days of mind-numbing data entry.

Anyway, quick update. I typed “The End” on a novella written under my other pen name. Now comes the editing.

I’ve had a story for an anthology finished for a long time under that same pen name. Due to beta readers vehemently disagreeing with each other on major points in that story, I’ve let it percolate for awhile, hoping I can see it with new eyes. The first beta reader really tore it apart, which has never happened to me before. But then three other beta readers completely disagreed with the first one’s assessment. Then two of THOSE three beta readers disagreed on another point. Three beta readers loved my hero, one hated him. One beta reader had a problem with rich/poor class differences in the story, none of the others did. I’m at the point right now that I think I’m going to chuck most of what any of them said and do it my way. Not really. I always consider the advice of beta readers. I just won’t know until I look at it again, which I’m going to have to do soon because the deadline is coming up. I think this is the last anthology I’m going to do. It’s too much stress.

I’ve started writing more on the Soul of a Vampire sequel since I finished my other WIP.

And I have so many books to line edit for clients right now! This is a good thing.

Okay. Done now.

Donny Osmond Sings With Himself

I couldn’t figure out whether to feature Donny Osmond or Johnny Winter today. Yes, my musical taste is as eclectic as my reading taste. So many genres, so little time, both in music and in books. Anyway, I digress. I was looking for a Donny Osmond song today because of a post a friend of mine wrote. I was so blown away by watching older Donny Osmond sing along with his younger self. It gave me chills. So I’m sharing it with you.

ROW80 7/26/15 and Centipedes

This is what I found on my bedroom wall this morning. Centipedes creep me out worse than spiders. This is the kind of thing that happens since I live practically in the woods. Being in the boonies has its advantages and disadvantages. *shudders*

I haven’t done any writing for several days. I had a line editing job I wanted to get done because I have several coming up, and I needed to make sure I got this one done in a timely manner. I have a little breather for a couple of weeks, so I can work on writing. I have a current editing job, but I can go a little slower on it because the deadline is a little ways out. That way I can work on both writing and editing. I don’t think I’ll make my monthly quota for July, but I’m going to be close.

I’ll be in Philadelphia on a business trip Tuesday through Friday, and I’ll probably get some work done in the hotel room. They usually have some kind of reception for two nights, and I always skip out of those early because I can only stand all the people for so long. LOL

Some Inspirational Thoughts

I received these in an mail from one of our vendors here at work. I thought they were too good not to share.

The Storms You Don’t See

from Reflections by Mark Vittert in St Louis Biz Journal

• The older I get, the less I listen to what people say and the more I watch what they do.

• Be silent sometimes. You will learn a lot.

• The first to apologize is the bravest. The first to forgive is the strongest. The first to forget is the happiest.

• It takes red meat and pork about 48 to 52 minutes to go through your system. It takes a banana 90 minutes to go through. Eat fruits and vegetables.

• Humble yourself. Nobody likes arrogant people. Even arrogant people don’t like arrogant people. Quit thinking you’re better than others, you’re not.

• Never be ashamed or scared of doing the right thing. It’s the storms you don’t see coming that change you.

• If you can’t stand to see others happy, you need help. Being happy upon the happiness or success of others is a sign of purity of the heart.

• Kindness is free to give and priceless when received.

• Some of us could improve our whole lives if we just put down our phones for a few hours. Spend some time each day away from your cell phone.

• Don’t try to rush things that need time to grow.

• Life is not about how hard you can hit, but how much you can get hit and still keep moving forward.

• You can’t let praise or criticism get to you. It’s a weakness to get caught up in either one.

• Character is how you treat those who can do nothing for you.

• The biggest communication problem is we do not listen to understand. We listen to reply.

• The saddest thing in the world is that we take advantage of how much someone loves us and don’t recognize the moment may never, ever come again.

• The confident leader asks questions, always wanting to learn from others. The weak leader does all the talking to prove how much they know.

• Ask yourself once a day: “What are you so afraid of?”

• The longer we dwell on our misfortunes the greater is their power to harm us.

• Everybody wants to save the earth; nobody wants to help mom do the dishes.

• If you want to free someone forgive. If you want to free yourself forget.

• Anger is a bad adviser.

• Every situation does not need your comment.

ROW80 Update 7/19/15

Well, I finally broke down and got a new iPhone. I got the iPhone 6, and I’m pleased that it’s much bigger than my 4 (I skipped the 5). I didn’t want one as big as the 6 Plus, though. I got the 16 GB one, which was the least expensive one. My 4 only had 8 GB, so I think 16 is plenty for me. Verizon has stopped doing the two year contracts. What you do now is pay full price for your phone in 24 months. Then they give you a credit on your phone bill each month. I also lowered my data plan to 2 GB since we had 4 GB of data and usually only use a half GB. So doing it this way, my phone bill will only be $2 more more month, and I have a brand new phone. Yay, me.

Wow, I’m sure you all skimmed that part of the post. How boring!

So onto ROW80. Here were my goals for the round:

1. Make my monthly word count goal of 12,739 for July, 12,740 for August, and 12,329 for September. (Based on 150,000 words for the year.) So far, I’m pretty much on track with this.

 2. Finish writing the second in the mystery series written under my other pen name. It looks like this is going to happen unless I get swamped with editing jobs. I have one going and three coming up, but as long as they don’t all send them to me at once, I’m good.

3. Write at least 250 words a day on the sequel to Soul of a Vampire until I’m finished with the mystery, then readjust the goal when I’m writing ONLY that. (I have trouble writing two stories at once, but I’m going to try to write a LITTLE on that second story.) I’m behind on this one. I’m still trying to adjust to writing more than one story at a time. I did write 346 words on it today, so I’m getting there.

How did the rest of you do last week?

Back From Gatlinburg

Hubby and I are on vacation this week. We spent part of Tuesday, all of Wednesday, and part of Thursday in Gatlinburg. It looks like Oz wants me to pay attention to him instead of being on the computer. You can see in the picture, he’s on top of the mouse pad and has knocked the mouse askew.

We usually try to stay out of the art gallery in Gatlinburg because we can’t really afford anything there, and then we get depressed because we can’t. We both love good art. This year, they were featuring a new artist who is only 22 years old, and he is completely self taught. His name is Abraham Hunter. We immediately fell in love with his art. They happened to have some canvas wraps (I think that’s what they’re called; they are square and the canvas wraps around the sides) that were only $89, so we bought one. The picture I really wanted was $550, but we just couldn’t afford that (it was 18 x 27 signed and numbered) and if you’re interested in seeing that one, here’s the link: Light of Faith.

And here’s the canvas wrap I bought. It’s called Sunset Cove. This picture does NOT do it justice.

What about you? Do you love good art? Do you have any pieces at home that are special to you?