Loni Townsend's Blog, page 7

Life’s Roller Coaster #IWSG

Sheesh! It’s August already and the pandemic turmoil continues. Our school district decided yesterday to delay the start of school and won’t know until the 25th if they’ll do all online or an alternate day plan. The uncertainty of it all is stressful and frustrating, though I’m sure I’m not alone in that.

My digital art has improved this year, though I’m still slow to produce new works. I typically post them to my instagram account (@art_by_loni), but there are some revisions that I’ve uploaded to DeviantArt. Here’s a Pinterest board, since it doesn’t look like DeviantArt has any embed options.

I’ve managed to get some writing in, netting 10K in July toward book 3 of my big book series. I still haven’t touched the rewrites I’m supposed to be doing for book 2, but eh. Something that made me smile: I submitted book 3’s prologue and first chapter to my critique group during July… and they liked it. They actually liked it! This is big news considering the usual response to my writing is “well, I’m not your target audience so…” Not to say they didn’t have suggestions, but hey, it does help boost the confidence a bit.

On an ABSOLUTELY AWESOME note — my mom is officially in remission!! WOOT!! My parents are both retired and took the the road over a year ago to live a mobile life style. They’ve been going stir crazy for the past five months as they’ve remained in one place for my mom’s treatments. But with the good news, they’re ready to hit the road again and continue their adventure. Yippee!

IWSG Question of the Month – Have you ever written a piece that became a form, or even a genre, you hadn’t planned on writing in? Or do you choose a form/genre in advance?

Though I don’t strictly plan my form or genre, I tend to naturally gravitate toward fantasy or at very minimum supernatural. I did have a piece where I wanted to write the backstory for a side character named Jack. I figured I’d do like a 900 word blip of flash fiction just to get all the details down for myself. It turned into a 16K novella, written in dialect. Hadn’t planned on that.

Midway Point #IWSG

It’s the first and the first Wednesday of the month, making it Insecure Writer’s Support Group day!

Strangely, I’m not insecure.

When I started this year, I had high aspirations. I’d stick to intermittent fasting, I’d get regular exercise, and I’d finally finish all my book 2 revisions.

Thanks coronavirus. You really screwed up my plans.

But I’m not alone in the debacle created by a world-wide pandemic, so I don’t feel bad about not sticking to my goals. I also had bigger, more important things pop up, like my mom’s cancer. We cheered yesterday when she finished her last chemo treatment. It’s been hard on her, and at times, she couldn’t see how brave and strong she was. But she made it! And the world is a better place because of it.

On the writing front, I have actually been writing, it’s just not on what I’ve supposed to be working on. While I procrastinate on tackling the necessary yet daunting rewrites of book 2, my mind has wandered into book 3. And being back in the office for a couple of weeks has made it possible to actually get some writing done.

Therefore, no insecurities with me right now!

Do you tend to get side-tracked by one project when you’re supposed to be working on another? How are you holding up with life? Did you have to set aside personal goals because of covid?

About Insecure Writer’s Support Group



You can find the sign up for the IWSG here. We owe Alex J Cavanaugh a huge thank you for thinking this blog hop up.

The post Midway Point #IWSG appeared first on Squirrel Talk.

At the End of the Day #IWSG

I debated if I should even post a blog entry today. Over the last two months, I haven’t been able to get online and visit other blogs, and it’s terribly unfair to post something and have someone comment on mine without returning the visit. The fact of the matter is that between work and my kids, I just can’t do anything else. I started to visit blogs at 6:50 AM this morning, leaving myself 40 minutes before having to start work. I literally only visited one blog before my son walked in and all my blogging goals for the day went out the window. *sigh*

But it’s Insecure Writer’s Support Group Day, and I didn’t want to skip out. Am I an insecure writer this month? Yeah. I’m struggling with my rewrites, both in making it flow right and finding the time to actually get words down. I got less than 1K this past month, and I’m going to have to rewrite all of it. But every writer knows that struggle.

Instead of focusing on my insecurities, I want to shout out to everyone out there. 2020 hasn’t been a kind year, and for those of you who have had it harder than the rest of us, my thoughts are with you. It’s been a truly crappy year for many, and my lack of personal space and time is nothing compared to the greater struggles many of you face.

So tell me your victories, if you have any. Big or small. Maybe you finished a paragraph. Maybe you beat cancer (looking forward to that for my mom – only a few chemo treatments left). Help me fill my gratitude cup at the end of this day, and I hope there’s something I can help celebrate with you.

About Insecure Writer’s Support Group



You can find the sign up for the IWSG here. We owe Alex J Cavanaugh a huge thank you for thinking this blog hop up.

The post At the End of the Day #IWSG appeared first on Squirrel Talk.

Discoveries and Accomplishing Nothing #IWSG

I wrote 562 words in April. That’s not really a pace that’ll get me to The End this year. Then again, that’s not all that surprising. I’ve had to use sick leave to step into the role as teacher for my kids. Even now, I’m looking at the clock, knowing I have to finish this in three minutes, or I’m out of time and I’ll miss the monthly blog hop of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group.

Though I’ve accomplished nothing with regards to my writing goals (making me an insecure non-writer?), I have made a few discoveries about my son. If you’ve read my blog for a while, you would know my son has a history of school troubles that I’ve been trying to figure out. Well, it seems quarantine is what I needed to figure out that he’s a lot like me, only without the 30+ years of experience in controlling how we display emotions. We don’t handle stress or being overwhelmed well. We breakdown and go into disaster mode. I’ve learned how to fake a smile and not let it show. My son hasn’t gotten there yet. When I’m faced with something too hard, my first instinct is to hide. My college teachers could attest to that, often finding me under my desk while in C++ class. Little surprise that my son’s first reaction is to cover his head with his blanket. And we aren’t great with open-ended study or instructions. We like explicit directions or specifications.

Figuring that out has negated many of the problems I’ve had with my son. My husband might say otherwise, because he still catches my wild-eyed look as I fight to keep a calm exterior while chaos crumbles my inner world. But I’ll take getting overwhelmed by a hyper little boy who can’t sit still or stay on topic for a single worksheet if it means I’m not getting screamed at or hit or facing wailing and crying and the occasional “I hate you!”. That was a huge feat for April. Let’s see if May can bring about more changes, so that when he reenters society in June, he isn’t punching peers or acting out on his aggression.

And now that I’ve gone waaayyyyy past my 5 minutes, I’ll wrap up and hopefully score more computer time at lunch so that I can visit all of you.

Can you still call yourself a writer if you don’t actually write? Have you made any interesting discoveries while COVID-19 attacks the world? How are you doing mentally and emotionally?

About Insecure Writer’s Support Group



You can find the sign up for the IWSG here. We owe Alex J Cavanaugh a huge thank you for thinking this blog hop up.

The post Discoveries and Accomplishing Nothing #IWSG appeared first on Squirrel Talk.

We Didn’t Start The Fire #IWSG

IWSG Question of the Month – How are things in your world?

If the title did it’s job, then you probably have Billy Joel stuck in your head now. I discussed with my husband the other night about how COVID-19 would make it into a revised version of that song, likely rhymed with quarantine. I’d personally add earthquakes into the mix, considering Idaho got one yesterday (6.5 up by Challis), and it’s the first one I’ve felt in my life. It freaked my daughter out, and it took some coaxing to ensure her it was okay to go to bed last night.

Working from Home has been interesting. My office, which my husband built for me some years back, is in the garage, so the kids know not to bother Mama when she’s working. Unfortunately, this has led to an increased amount of screen usage, which undermines my goal of reducing screens over this year to only weekends. Combine that with my only productive writing time was at work… well, my book is certainly taking damage from this coronavirus.

That leads me into today’s post, which is for the Insecure Writer’s Support Group! (This happens the first Wednesday of every month.) I ended my exchange with brutal-honesty guy mentioned in last month’s post. I’d felt I’d missed an opportunity to increase the dramatic tension by not endangering the character’s daughter. Acknowledging this led to me pulling back my book from my beta readers and changing things around.

But that’s not all, folks! For a while now, a looooooong while, I’ve had an uneasy feeling about my main character’s subplot in this book. The book is called Isto, which reflects the mythical monsters who have arrived to kill everyone. Three of the four POVs have direct conflict with these monsters and it’s the primary focus of their POVs. My main character? Not so much. He’s dealing with an illness affecting his daughter and then ends up on some islands and then he’s exploding… all the while not circling back to the illness for the rest of the book. I’ve ignored this little niggle because the book works. I’ve indirectly tied the illness to the monsters. Except… it still hasn’t sat well with me.

Imagine how unimpressed my husband was when I told him I was going to rewrite the first half of my book.

I’ve laid out a complete scene-by-scene plan on how to accomplish the rewrite. There are certain things that must happen in this book in order for future books to work. The illness isn’t one of them. My biggest fear is that by taking out the illness, I’ll lose some of the compassion and reader sympathy I built up. One beta reader had specifically told me she liked a side character that’s in the illness subplot… and he’ll be cut in the rewrite. Sure, he can pop back up in a side story that has to do with the illness and my main character dealing with that, but he won’t be in Isto.

What will I lose by doing what I feel is right for the story?

That’s my big insecurity for the month. I know, I know. It’s like my husband says “at this rate, you’ll be working on it forever.” I’m just a hobby writer and I don’t plan on making writing full-time a career, so I can afford the time to get this book just how I want it. And, yes, I am aware that books will never be done and you’ve just gotta stop messing with it, because otherwise you’ll spend your life in pursuit of “perfect”, which doesn’t exist. I assure it, this isn’t that. The illness had been added in the early drafts as a “how do we get this character away from the others” scenario? I’ve decided that shifting the timeline so that he ends up on the islands from the beginning will accomplish what I need.

Though, with my writing time gone, who knows when I’ll accomplish any writing.

How is life for you? Have you experienced an earthquake before? Are you under quarantine?

I might be a bit slow to repay visits due to lack of personal computer time with the kids around.

About Insecure Writer’s Support Group



You can find the sign up for the IWSG here. We owe Alex J Cavanaugh a huge thank you for thinking this blog hop up.

The post We Didn’t Start The Fire #IWSG appeared first on Squirrel Talk.

Small Successes

Every year, we have the Colonel’s Challenge at work. It’s a exercise challenge spanning 10 weeks that includes resistance, aerobic, push-ups/sit-ups, and weight loss. In previous years, I focused on weight lifting routines and running with my sis-in-law to reach the goals. This year marks a shift in my priorities, abandoning any sort of predetermined schedule in favor of whatever I can accomplish while at work.

The challenge ended on Sunday.

As you can see, I didn’t reach all the goals. I gave up on the sit-ups and push-ups after my back started hurting, and I just don’t have time to get 3 hours of aerobic activity in a week. But I’ve improved on the number of pull-ups I can do, and I’ve been good with getting 50 kettle bell swings done before I break my fast. Intermittent fasting is going well. I lost 6 pounds over the 10 week challenge by limiting myself to eating only between the hours of 11 and 7, and then breaking my fast with collagen enhanced bone broth. I lost an additional 4 pounds when I got sick for three days and stopped eating all together. By end of challenge on Sunday, I was down 10 pounds from my initial weight.

I don’t recommend illness as a weight loss choice. It isn’t much fun. But hey, I’m getting closer to my goal weight, so at least there’s that!

Did you set any fitness goals? Have you been able to stick to them? Have you managed to stay healthy during a viral outbreak?

The post Small Successes appeared first on Squirrel Talk.

Fresh Eyes #IWSG

It’s the first Wednesday of the month, and we all know what that means… It’s Insecure Writer’s Support Group Day!

With everything that’s going on with my personal life, you’d think I wouldn’t have time to be an insecure writer. Alas, that’s not the case. I mentioned a few weeks ago that I had finally finished my rewrites of Isto. *cheer!* I announced this wonderful feat to my critique group, and Troy told me he had a contact for me. He’d met an epic fantasy writer while at the LTUE Writer’s Conference, and the writer was looking for a beta read. Troy’s not much for epic fantasy (he’s a suspense/mystery/horror guy), so he made a digital introduction and the other epic author and I agreed to a swap.

LTUE Guy certainly doesn’t pull his punches. “Please don’t be offended. I was yawning all through your chapter 4. It needs help.” Considering that the first ever writing feedback I got (10 years ago) was from my sister-in-law who told me she hated my main characters and wanted to rip out her eyeballs after reading my description… I figured this tidbit about tension was fair.

I wasn’t offended. In fact, I wasn’t even distraught. Chapter 4 is one of the handful of chapters that hasn’t been rewritten from scratch since I started this book. It was over 6 years old, and only received minor tweaks to the wording here and there because the three major timeline shifts that I’ve done don’t reach back far enough to affect this chapter.

So I rewrote it on Saturday, cut 800 words, and applied the conflict cycle to generate more tension. He said it’s better.

I reflect on this with pride in my personal growth. Tension has always been one of those fail points for me (along with inappropriately unconcerned characters). But here, I can compare my work from 6 years ago to my current writing and there’s a notable improvement.

Why I am still an insecure writer? Because I don’t know what other issues are lurking in my book. I thought Isto was pretty much ready. Clearly, I was wrong.

IWSG Question of the Month – Other than the obvious holiday traditions, have you ever included any personal or family traditions/customs in your stories?

Nope. Not really.

Do you have a thick skin when it comes to blunt feedback? Have you noticed personal growth in writing or something else? Do you find fresh eyes help?

About Insecure Writer’s Support Group



You can find the sign up for the IWSG here. We owe Alex J Cavanaugh a huge thank you for thinking this blog hop up.

The post Fresh Eyes #IWSG appeared first on Squirrel Talk.

About Us #NewRelease

Howdy All! Life’s been traumatic at the Town’s End, so I’m happy to bring a bit of good news to my blog.

The amazing and talented Elizabeth Seckman released a book! What’s more, you can get it for free!! *squee!!!* That’s news enough to brighten this squirrel’s day, so let me do the honor of filling you in if you haven’t heard.

About Us

Hayden Matthews isn’t looking for love—she’s trying to get as far from it as possible. She’s already wasted eight years in a failed marriage and is ready for a good life. A peaceful life. One where she can raise her daughter to be strong, independent, and happy. But to make that happen, she must fix her own life first.

Cam Vorelli has loved Hayden since he was in grade school. Always in the friend-zone, he stood on the sidelines, his heart breaking, as she said I do to the wrong man. A man he knew didn’t deserve her, who could never love her as he did. But what could he say? She was marrying into his family. Cam would never break a holy vow much less be disloyal to his kin.

Until he sees the bruises on Hayden. Abuse is a game changer.

Leaving a husband like Tag, who has a hot temper, a badge, and a gun is tricky. When Hayden calls Cam for help, she isn’t trying to lure him into any romantic webs. She needs someone she can trust and knowing her soon-to-be ex fears his former NFL cousin is a bonus.

When Cam comes to her rescue, he isn’t doing it to win her love. He does it because it’s the right thing to do. But if she starts to feel the same for him…couldn’t it be fate?

Having read the story myself, I definitely recommend it. It’s got complex and interesting characters, romance you can root for, and emotions that tug the heartstrings.

Here’s where to get it:

Kobo (Free) | Smashwords (Free) | Amazon (99 cents)

Of course, I couldn’t leave you without info about the author.

Elizabeth is a multi-published author of books for people who are believers in happily-ever-after, true love, and stories with a bit of fun and twists with their plots. The mother of four young men, she tackles laundry daily and is the keeper of the kitchen. She lives along the shores of the Ohio River in West Virginia, but dreams daily of the beach.

Be sure to find her online (I always look forward to what she posts):

Facebook | Blog | Website

In case you can’t read the excerpt too well in the header, I’ll link the image again and you can hopefully open it in a larger view:

Have you picked up your free book yet? Do you like second chance romances? Are you as big of a fan of Elizabeth’s as I am?

The post About Us #NewRelease appeared first on Squirrel Talk.

Crafting a Story of Mine

My son loves Minecraft. He loves it so much, he used his allowance to buy a picture-free Minecraft-themed chapter book from the school’s book fair. We’ve read it twice. It’s terrible. The plot is nonsensical, everything is telling, and the characters flip without a believable reason.

Last night, my son proposed we read it for a third time. I suggested we do one better and write a Minecraft story just for him. I pulled out my notebook, interrogated my son on what he wanted, and so far, this is what I’ve got:

Steve must find the orange diamond that gives him the power of a good wither to rescue his armored dog, Star, from a cage guarded by an iron golem. He’ll face skeletons and withers to accomplish his goal and save the day.

My daughter caught wind of our planning, exclaimed “I want to do that too!”, and set off to find her own notebook. When I found her camped out in my bedroom planning, she told me she was figuring out all the characters in her book. Considering she’s spent years watching me draw and map out my characters, this isn’t surprising. But I, having a MASSIVE cast of characters of my own, said, “your characters should serve a purpose in the story, otherwise you shouldn’t include them.”

Numerous characters never made it past the early drafts of Isto. There was Mae the elemental, Peter’s dad, and a village of Lasitans. Then the first shifting of timeline came around, and we lost Terrance, Glider, and the Tolvern family. Ocher disappeared too and her role was given to Huntress, who evaded the cut and appears in the current draft. As I worked to clear up some of the overwhelming factors of my prologue, Phillip and his three daughters left the scene.

I cut another character with the second timeline shift. Zinnia carried over from Thanmir War. As I reworked the later chapters, I couldn’t find a way for her to gracefully exit my scene without injury, so I removed her. And as I reread an early chapter, I realized she read like an author-intrusive device to deliver information about another character. *sigh* She does still appear in a fever dream for a total of three sentences, but she’s unnamed.

I don’t know if Zinnia will be back for later books. But I do know something…

I finished my Isto rewrites!!! WOOT! Now it’s removing unnecessary words, finding forgotten words, and making sure all my changes actually make sense. On the side, I’ll be laying out a new Minecraft-themed story for my son. It’ll be interesting. I’ve never written with a 6-year-old audience in mind. He wants pictures too, so we’ll see how that works out.

Do you tend to build up a large cast of characters? Have you ever cut a character you liked? Has reading something terrible inspired you to write something better?

The post Crafting a Story of Mine appeared first on Squirrel Talk.

Only Two More Chapters #IWSG

Sheesh! It’s Wednesday already. Worse than that, it’s February already! As the first Wednesday of the month, that makes today Insecure Writer’s Support Group Day.

What makes me an insecure writer today? As you may or may not know, I’ve been working on Isto, the sequel to Thanmir War, for six and a half years now. So what the heck has taken me so long? I could blame the fact that my son is six and a half years old. Going from one child to two really upped my attention requirements and writing at home became a thing of the past.

But honestly, it’s not just a parenting problem.

I didn’t have a clear vision for this book when I went into it. I knew it dealt with consequences. Every problem in the second book is a consequence from the first book. There’d be a mysterious illness and people dying, there’d be a monster in the making and the loss of identity.

But a plot, that didn’t make.

I rushed into writing Isto, trusting my pantsing skills to carry me onward. I wrote 60K of exciting and wild adventure, and I was just warming up. More and more words poured from my fingers until I feared this book would be over 300K. But as I hit the soggy middle, I realized some of the things I put in just didn’t work in a multi-POV story. I whined and cried and sat down to figure out my timeline. I removed events, characters, natural disasters, and scrapped over 100K of writing.

In August of 2018, I finished my first draft at 190K. With feedback from beta readers and critique partners, I reworked chapters to remove unnecessary world-building and clear up some of the entries that hindered believability. I changed where I needed to and stuck to my guns in other places.

Then, in July of 2019, my longest standing critique partner made an innocent comment on one of my chapters, and I realized I had a pacing problem. When it was time to ramp up, I dallied into side details. Nobody told me I needed to rearrange events. The book worked as it was. But how could I call it done when I knew this problem existed?

Once again, I set out to rearrange events.

Here we are, February 2020, and I am two chapters of revision away from being done. I started out with only needing to rework two chapters. And of those two chapters, I’ve rewritten twelve of them. But this time, I’m certain I’ve only got two chapters left.

IWSG Question of the Month – Has a single photo or work of art ever inspired a story? What was it and did you finish it?

My answer: Nope. That was easy.

Are you a pantser or a plotter? Does it ever seem like when you squash one problem, another pops up? Have you ever revised something so much, that it no longer resembles the beast you started with?

About Insecure Writer’s Support Group



You can find the sign up for the IWSG here. We owe Alex J Cavanaugh a huge thank you for thinking this blog hop up.

The post Only Two More Chapters #IWSG appeared first on Squirrel Talk.