Book writing is definitely on my mind recently. Did you know that I am (or at least I claim to be) an aspiring novelist? Yes, indeed! In hopes of making it easier on me to one day reach the level of Actual Novelist, my husband recently found a great deal and bought me a netbook. Now I can write from wherever I happen to be! The beautiful little computer that I have named Eeeny-Weeeny, since it is, after all, an Eee PC, is just the right size for my hands. Ooooh I can’t wait for NaNoWriMo this year!

Thus Far

Second grade was the first time I got to write complete stories, as far as I remember. My teacher had this bright idea of stapling together a few sheets of unlined paper to make books, and we got to fill in as many as we wanted with stories and illustrations. My stories were all about the Pretty Pretty Princess(es), but I had a lot of them.

I stopped writing for some time after that, perhaps in part due to the dreaded Writing Wednesdays in fourth grade. That was tough. Ugh – writing prompts. My hands would get so sore – my fingers actually developed these hard, raised bumps from holding my pencil all day, and man, I hated Writing Wednesdays. Now, give me a computer and tell me to write all day, and I’d be happy to do my best to comply. But I think doing that in fourth grade was actually a bit of a hindrance to me.

A few years later, I participated in the Young Author competition and wrote/illustrated a story that won some sort of award. A year or two later, I wrote/illustrated another children’s story for school. I still have both of those, in laminated form.

But now writing has become more difficult. It’s not enough for my stories to be 10 pages long with a simple plot. As I’ve aged, I’ve become increasingly critical of my own work. That’s when I started that bad habit of writing a few lines or a few pages of a story, and then putting it aside. I would get stuck, and I couldn’t think of a satisfactory way to continue the story, so I just stopped working on it until the next half-baked idea came along. I guess I just never had the follow-through to finish them on my own.

NaNoWriMo has gotten me over that hump, in a way. I now have two complete drafts to work on.

What’s Coming

The first draft has no working title at all. It’s simply NaNoWriMo 2007. The basic plot and the characters I created are good, but the story itself needs so much work that rather than editing the novel, I’m actually in the process of re-writing it. It’s a fantasy “escapism” novel set in a world of my own creation.

The second draft is on the back-burner, still. When I look at it again I’ll be able to see it with fresh eyes – or so I hope. Its sad working title is Pickles From Space. It has nothing to do with either space or pickles, but there you have it. It is, in a way, kind of science-fictiony, only.. It’s really not science fiction at all. It takes place right here on Earth with regular-old humans.

This year for NaNoWriMo, I plan to write a military-related story, since my Hubby will be deployed, and I’m sure the military will be on my mind a lot. And I also have other ideas in mind for the future. Sequels to the fantasy story, possibly, and some more present-day ideas. I can barely wait to get started!

Unfortunately, thinking of ideas is much easier than sitting down and completing a novel. I just hope that, one day, I can actually call myself a published novelist, rather than just aspiring to be one.

If you enjoyed this post, do me a favor:
Use the link buttons below to share it
on your social networking site of choice!
Thanks, friends!

Previous Fridays

Here are the five reasons I love my hubby for this week!

1. I love how important it was to you to get me a laptop for my writing!

2. I love how you share with me.

3. I love that you’re so understanding.

4. I love your punny nature.

5. I love the color of your eyes.

I’m having trouble managing my time. I actually sat down yesterday thinking I could create some kind of budget to account for all the minutes I have available to me in a day. But it didn’t work.

Why doesn’t budgeting time work like budgeting money? If I know I have so much money coming in every month, I can put each dollar in a category, even if one category is “extra” or “spending money.” But with my time-chart, no matter what, I never seem to have enough time. By my estimation, I need about 35-40 hours a day to live comfortably. But I can’t just go adding hours to the day, can I? I mean, maybe if I change my sleep schedule up. It would be pretty difficult, though.

I think it’s good to have ambitions and goals for using your time that you might not actually reach, but it’s hard to be content with not reaching your goals! The truth is there just aren’t enough hours in the day. So what should we do?

Remember to Be

Let me remind both you and me again of the Importance of Being. We need to savor life, not rush through it. Be happy about each thing you accomplish, and think about the benefits of having done that.

So far today, I’ve:

1. …made the bed. This is a new habit I’m trying to develop. It feels really good to walk into our bedroom throughout the day and see a neat bed. It is complete with the decorative pillows that came with our set of bedding (a wedding present from some lovely friends of ours – who I am reminded of when I look at the bedding, all neatly made). It also makes me feel like Hubby will be better able to see my effort to take care of the house, and it is nice to pull back the covers on a neat bed at night and slip between unwrinkled sheets.

2. …started another load of laundry. We aren’t going to run out of clean undergarments, tshirts, or uniforms today. And now that I’m doing a little bit of laundry every day (almost), it’s a lot more manageable to keep up with the chore.

3. …loaded the dishwasher. The sink is empty, available for washing things, filling glasses with water, or whatever else we need. No stinky, dirty dishes in our noses.

4. …wrote 750 words. I’m on a 13-day streak, and I feel pride in that accomplishment. My thoughts also feel more organized.

Don’t Budget Every Minute

Don’t be like me and try to account for 1440 minutes each day. Even if you could squeeze everything you want to do into those 24 hours in theory, you very likely wouldn’t be able to do it in actuality. It takes time to move from one task to the next. Things can happen that you didn’t include in your plan, such as phone calls or spontaneous conversations. You just can’t account for what might happen. You can’t plan it in. And unlike with finances, you can’t keep a separate emergency fund of a few extra hours in case something comes up. It doesn’t work that way.

We should enjoy a slower pace, in my opinion.

My advice is to alternate which tasks are important on which days. For instance, I would like to have time to write on my novel, draw, crochet, deep-clean my house, and hang out with my friends every day. But since I know I’d run out of time trying to do all of it on one day, I can choose to spend Monday’s free hours on writing, Tuesday’s free hours on art, etc. If you’re like me and trying to figure out how to fit it all in, that’s the only advice I have.

Any Advice is Welcome

Time Management has never been one of my strong points. I’d like for it to be, but usually I… well, fail. I fail.

When I was younger, my time was always eaten by the TV. Then it was eaten by AIM and MSN Messenger. Now it’s eaten by Facebook, reading blogs, and reading novels. Is that ok? I don’t know. Don’t I look back fondly on those times I spent hours and hours on AIM? At least it’s a good memory.

What about you? Do you have any advice for managing time? Techniques? Thoughts? Or do you just sympathize with me? Leave a comment and let me know!

If you enjoyed this post, do me a favor:
Use the link buttons below to share it
on your social networking site of choice!
Thanks, friends!

Why should I sing in the choir? Can’t I sing just as well from the congregation?

Why should I go to church? I can read the Bible and pray at home.

Why should I pray? I mean, God already knows my thoughts, right? He knows what I would ask for.

Do you wonder about those things, too?

Once Upon A Time…

There you are, sitting at Bible study/church/youth group. You’re not close friends with the everyone there, but you see them twice a week, every week. You’ve even spent some time alone hanging out with a couple of them. You sit together before the lesson and chat about how your week has been going, and you laugh about things that have happened at work. Afterwards, you eat a meal together and chat some more. You go home feeling good about the experience.

Next week, Bible study time comes, and when you arrive, everyone else from the group is already there. You find out by piecing together pieces of their conversations that they have spent the day hanging out. Elsewhere. You weren’t ever invited.

Sure, you get to hear about how much fun they had, but you weren’t included. And no one singled you out to tell you about it.

Aren’t you hurt? Don’t you feel disappointed? Excluded?

Wouldn’t God feel the same?

Including Him

What I consider real friendships – deep, close, meaningful friendships – are those in which I can sit and talk about what’s going on with me. Here’s what I’m excited about, here’s what I’m worried about, here’s what I could use a second opinion on. I can laugh with my real friends and sometimes even cry with them. We can seethe together over some injustice. We can put on silly hats at Walmart.

This is why we pray.

God knows what happens in our day-to-day lives. He know which parts we liked and disliked, what we’re excited about, and what we’re nervous about. He knows what parts we tell our best friends about and what we write in our journals. But he doesn’t want to hear it through the grapevine or overhear us telling someone else. He wants the intimacy that comes from sharing a relationship with us.

He wants to cry with you and seethe over that injustice; that stupid event that happened at work. He wants to nod in understanding and remind you that it will be okay. He wants to share your joy in triumphs and be included in your life!

And, of course, he wants to hear more than “Please bless Bobby and please give the Grants safe travel. Oh and please bless this food. Amen.” When that was the only praying I was doing, it was no wonder I had a hard time understanding its importance.

Drift Happens

However, even I, though I feel I understand the importance of prayer, find it hard to keep up the habit. A few days of skipping prayer is sometimes all it takes to break the habit, a few days of being too tired or too busy to get around to it. I figure, well God knew how I felt about that. He understands I was too tired. I’ll catch him tomorrow. Before I know it, sometimes it’s weeks or months down the road and I haven’t had any real sit-down time with him, and I’m wondering why I don’t feel as close.

I have to remind myself of the importance, and then I have to sometimes just force myself to do it. Then, at the end of a long conversation I can sit back and say ,“Wow! That was great! Man, I didn’t realize how much I’ve missed talking to him. Why did we ever drift apart?”

It’s natural to go through phases of feeling more distant from God, but it’s important to remember why and how we stay close. So, here I am, reminding you – and myself.

This is a recipe Hubby has experimented with for baked wings and home-made honey BBQ sauce. We used Tyson’s frozen wings for this recipe.

Ingredients

• ½ cup barbeque sauce
• cooking oil
• garlic powder
• ½ cup honey
• 1-2 tbsp hot sauce (Texas Pete is our preference)
• ½ cup ketchup
• 3 tbsp margarine
• pepper
• salt
• wings (2 dozen, thawed)
• ½ tsp worcestershire sauce

Directions

1. Rinse the wings and pat dry. Preheat oven to 375ºF.

2. In a small mixing bowl, combine salt, pepper, and garlic powder mixture. Use about twice as much pepper as salt and half as much garlic as salt (½ tsp. garlic powder, 1 tsp. salt, 2 tsp. pepper, for instance) Pat on a coating of the mixture to each wing.

3. Place the wings on a slightly oiled tray for baking. Bake at 375º for 50 minutes or until wings turn golden brown. You can cut into one to make sure it is cooked all the way through before removing from oven.

4. To prepare the sauce, combine margarine, ketchup, bbq sauce, hot sauce, honey, and worcestershire in a bowl or measuring cup, whisking to mix all ingredients.

5. Pour enough sauce into a skillet or wok to make a thick coat on the bottom, and warm it over medium heat. Add a few wings and sauté for about 2 minutes, until coated with the sauce. Continue adding a few wings at a time until the sauce in the pan is used up, then add more sauce and continue until all of the wings are coated. The remaining sauce may be heated up and poured over the wings, used for dipping, or frozen to use again another time. The sauce also goes well on hamburgers! Arrange the wings however you like on a serving dish and enjoy! Should make 2-4 servings, depending on whether you serve a side dish (fries!) and how hungry everyone is!

Tumbles: I wasn’t sleeping, okay?! I was just trying to make them think I was sleeping. And it’s a comfy box.

Previous Fridays

I feel bad that I missed posting this last week! Hubby had just gotten home, and I was too busy not letting him out of my sight, but here are my five reasons I love my hubby this week.

1. I love you because you’re home!!!

2. I love the flowers you got me.

3. I love how you rubbed my back for like an hour.

4. I love the compromise you came up with for this weekend.

5. I love that you watch all kinds of chick flicks for me.