Lauralynn Elliott's Blog, page 68

New Walking Shoes

Since I decided I was going back to walking, especially in light of the recent sunny weather, I knew I needed some new walking shoes. I've been a big fan of New Balance for years, but my friend decided to get some Shape Ups by Skechers. She loves hers. So I thought I would give them a try. I ended up actually getting Tone Ups instead of Shape Ups because the tongue of the shoe bothered me on the Shape Ups. Otherwise, they were really comfy. Anyway, these shoes are supposed to tone up your legs and butt. And I'm telling you…my muscles were definitely feeling it after about a 45 minute walk. And there was so much cushion in these shoes!

So, wasn't that an exciting post? LOL. I'm just really psyched about getting back into exercise. Thanks, Kait, for inspiring me even more. Although I was going to start walking again, anyway, it helps to know I'm not alone. :0)

As far as eating goes…I'm still working on those portion sizes.

An ROW80 Update…Sort of

I really don't have a lot to say. Most of you know that I had to put my WIP on the backburner when my mom had a heart attack. As soon as she was back to normal, the craziness broke loose at my full time job, causing me to take work home nearly every day. There's no way I can work all day, work at night, and THEN try to write. (Maybe when I was younger, LOL.) Anyway, things are slowing down just a tad here at the office, so I'm trying not to take work home this week. Now my main concern is whether or not to try to finish my WIP from Round One or put it aside until I finish my Round Two project. Or maybe try to do both at the same time. We'll see.

Typos

I want to talk about one of my pet peeves. Typographical errors. I've read a lot of indie books lately, and that's been one of my biggest problems with them. Do my books have them? Yep. My mother was reading one of my books the other day and caught two. She's the best "typo catcher" I know. I have no idea why I haven't used her as one of my proofreaders. That book that she caught the errors in had already had three different sets of eyes on it and still had at least two errors. I can live with two without freaking out, but I need to fix them and reload the books. (The beauty of ebooks!)

When I read a book published the indie way or the trad way, I expect to see errors. Today's books have them, regardless of how they're published. I don't know if paid editors are getting sloppier or if this world is getting so rushed that everything sufferers. But I don't mind if I see three or four errors in a book. Not a big deal. But I just finished a book last week that really disappointed me in the amount of typos I found. This book was long and I lost count of the typos. I would guess 50 or more. Seriously. I have only read one other book that had that many. I'm not going to mention the name of the book or author, because…well, you understand why. I wouldn't want to embarrass an author that I like so well. This book was absolutely wonderful. Well written, interesting, great action, great interaction of the character. It was imaginative and well thought out. An outstanding novel. But the typos….wow….

Whether you pay someone to proofread or have people that will do it for free, I would suggest having more than one person look at it. I saw a review on a book by a really well known indie author that said that the book was full of typos (this is true because I read it and saw them, too), and the author's response was that she paid an editor. So even paid editors aren't perfect, although whoever it was shouldn't have let THAT many errors go through. That's why more than one person should look at it.

I really, really want to tell this author about all the typos. But I'm sure he already knows it by now. And I don't want to alienate anyone, especially someone I seriously like and whose books I love. Sometimes, I guess it's just best to keep your mouth shut.

ROW80 Check In A Day Late

Most of you know that my mom had a heart attack and has been in the hospital. I haven't written anything in about two weeks. And now I'm so busy at my full time job, I have been bringing work home with me. Spring is never a good time to try to do anything but my job.

Anyway, I'm setting new goals. For this round, my goal is to not beat myself up over what I haven't gotten done. For round two, one of my goals is to finish round one's project if I didn't get finished, then work on something new. See, I can stay positive about things!

And can I rant a little about why I dislike Blogspot (I'm sorry for those of you who use it, but…)? Anyway, I can deal with having to key in my "open id" and specify that it's WordPress. I don't mind keying in the captcha letters (WordPress does this, too), but I run in to constant glitches. One is that sometimes the captcha letters don't show up until I've clicked "post" several times. Then, today, as a ROW80 sponsor, I tried to comment on one of the posts to give encouragement, even though my time is limited right now. And I got this crazy message that my open ID credentials could not be verified! And I had just commented on another post on Blogspot and it worked fine. I tried several times, but to no avail. Now I can't comment on the blog that I'm supposed to be a sponsor for this week. So, for those of you who use Blogspot…do you have issues like this when you're commenting on WordPress blogs? Or is it just the other way around?

ROW80 Fail

Due to my mom being in the hospital, I haven't touched my book in ten days. I had my laptop at the hospital one day, but there are way too many distractions to do anything but a crossword puzzle. I thought she was going to get to go home yesterday, but she's having breathing issues that a really sharp nurse noticed and told the doctor. So now they're trying to figure out what's going on with that. (She's really been having those issues for a long while, but her primary care doctor is useless.)

Anway, now I'm trying to decide if I'll be able to catch up or if I should wait for the next round of ROW80 and start on a new project. Still undecided.

Update on Mom

My mom now has a pacemaker and is doing well. They don't know if they are going to do surgery for the blockages in her arteries because they can't fix all of them. Maybe medication. Her heart function is good, though, and they said that was a good sign.

Mom's Heart Attack

I just wanted to stop in quickly and let you know what's going on. I would like to email some of you individually, but I'm really pressed for time right now. If you've not seen me around or if I haven't commented on posts the last couple of days, it's because my mom had a heart attack and I'm dealing with that. I was out of town when it happened, so I had to come back early and, luckily, made it by the last visiting hour at the ICU. They are trying to determine treatment option right now and are leaning toward a pacemaker. I came to work this morning, and now I'm waiting for the word so I can rush to the hospital if she ends up having surgery today.

I would appreciate good thoughts and/or prayers for us right now. I hope to be back posting and commenting soon!

Favorite Lines From Buffy

Let's have some blog fun today! I'm tired of being so serious lately. Comment and tell me your favorite line or lines from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Come on, everybody play!

I'll start.

"I didn't jump to conclusions. I took a small step and there conclusions were." -Buffy

"Cuppa tea, cuppa tea, almost got shagged, cuppa tea." -Spike (when speaking of Giles' life flashing before his eyes)

ROW80 Check In Feb 16

Okay, so I took a day off yesterday. But Monday, I was only about a day behind, even though I had been taking multiple days off. Part of the reason for that is that on Monday, I sat down, really got into the story, and wrote somewhere between 1700 and 1800 words! If I could do that several times, I would feel fine about a few days off. And now I'm finally loving my story!

Religion and the Paranormal

This is a post that I've been thinking about for a long time. I wasn't really sure how to say what I wanted to say, but someone recently made a remark to me, or rather asked me a question, that brought this whole thing to a head. The question was this: "How can you be a Christian and write about vampires?"

So…a little background on me. Yes, I'm a Christian, and I consider myself a religious person. I'm not aggressive about it because I don't feel like that's the way to be. I don't force my beliefs on others, but am glad to tell you about them if you want to hear it. That's how I'm able to get along with my friends who are Jewish, Pagan, agnostic, and atheist. I don't push my religion on them. Everyone has a choice as to what they want to hear and do. Do I wish everyone believed the same way I do? Sure. But that's not the way the world works.

Anyway, back to the topic, which is basically how one can be both religious and still write paranormal stories. My question in return would be…why not? The way I answered the person that asked me about how I could be a Christian and write about vampires was "It's fiction!" I don't understand why people don't get that. I don't believe in vampires, ghosts, wizards, fairies, or anything like that. I'm way too skeptical to believe in them. And that's what makes this whole thing fun to me. I get to step into this great fantasy world and make up whatever I want to. A reviewer recently mentioned that I didn't "explain how the vampire could eat real food and walk in the daylight". (Hey, Spike ate real food!) Why do I have to explain that? Vampires aren't real; therefore, I don't have to adhere to any rule (although I don't want to be totally stupid about it). People give Meyer a hard time because her vampires sparkle. Yeah, that's kind of weird, but it was her book, her rules. I love the world of fantasy and see no reason why a Christian can't write about it!

So now you know the biggest reason I write under a pen name. This just kills my mom because she wants to tell everyone that her daughter writes books. And she has told quite a few people. I just hope the ones that she tells don't spread the word so that it gets around to the people who wouldn't understand. Because I have friends who believe it's wrong to write about this stuff. So I have to live two different lives and keep them separate. I don't understand why people can't understand that it's fiction, and that's all.

So what do you all think? Do you see anything wrong with a Christian writing about the paranormal???