The Ready Writer

Hey everyone! It was a quiet writing week for me this week. I'm starting to get back into my writing groove so I'm trying to accept the slow progress as long as I'm making SOME progress. I'm also trying to limit myself to only 1 (guilt free) non-writing day. Okay. Here is what I did this week: Monday: +192 words to my Haunted Hotel project. Tuesday: +82 words to the Haunted Hotel project. This means that the handwritten draft of Chapter 1 is done. Chapter 1 word count is 1,201 words. Wednesday: no writing progress. Thursday: Typed up the handwritten chapter 1 for the Haunted House project. Official word count is 2,180 words. Friday: +57 words to Haunted Hotel project. Started chapter 2. Saturday: This was a bad day for me anxiety wise but I went ahead and wrote some mission statements for my projects. This listed out what I wanted my readers to get out of my writing aside from just a good story. Sunday: No active writing today, but I did a lot of character development.

So I am going through a bible study for writers, and it asked me to read Matthew 1 thru 17.  As I was reading through it I kept trying to figure out what this all had to do with writing. I'm pretty new to all this Bible stuff, and although I've read and analyzed a lot of literature, this piece is a toughy. But this book has Parables.  Simply defined, a parable is a simple story to illustrate a moral or spiritual lesson. Well that's not just in the bible.  A lot of stories do this.  Fables. Fairy Tales.  Children's books.  They all use story to illustrate lessons. And isn't that the point of fiction? Not only to tell a good story but to teach....something? Obviously, you don't want to beat people over the head with moral.  Readers don't want to be lectured.  But they should come out of your story a changed person.  Even a little. I write speculative fiction..closer to the horror genre than anything.  And even I want people to learn something from my

One of the things I have an issue with is introducing myself as a writer.  When I have small talk, people tend to ask "What do you do?" And I would say "I'm a student" or "I work at the library" or "I work in a copy & print shop." But I would rarely say (and still rarely say) "I'm a writer."   Why is that? I've published 2 sets of poems. I've published an essay. I've had 4 soon to be 5 short stories published. Won 2 writing contests. And I've even self-published a book! Not to mention my BA in writing. I've done WAY more in the writing world than I have the library world and yet I am never shy about saying "I just finished library school." or "I'm working on becoming a librarian." Again I ask: Why is that? I think it has to do with worth and respect.  In introductions I jump to what gives me a paycheck, what pays the bills. That's what I "do&

First off, never in my life did I think I would write something with the word "stats" in it.  Though Pre-Stats was the only math class that I got a B in since 5th grade.  No joke.  Math is hard guys. Okay, so Mondays are stats days.  However, I don't have a tremendous amount of stats to share today, just some starting points, and next week the progress can be shown a little better. Here's a little bit about my projects first.  So, I am working on 2 projects: Haunted House (as it will be called here) and Haunted Hotel (as it will be called here).  I know, they don't sound very original, but for now simplicity is good. The Haunted House project I started back in October and I wrote quite a bit...but then grad school got crazy and I tucked it away for like 3 months.  During that 3 months I revised my outline, and while I didn't have to scrap the whole thing, I definitely am not just jumping in where I left off.  So I'm going through chapter by chapte

So last Sunday, I finalized a decision I had been wanting to make for a little while now. I got baptized. My parents never baptized me as a child, and I am grateful for that because it allowed me to make that decision on my own.   For me, baptism wasn't and isn't about washing away the old me.  I liked the old me.  I was still a good person without faith, before faith, and after faith.  For me, baptism was the same as watering a flower.  Having the water flow down into the roots to feed it.  It was also a physical act that would prove my faith.  Before I got baptized, Pastor Christina asked me if I wanted to say a few words, and below is what I said in front of the congregation: "I like to think of people as gardeners.  Every time we accomplish something in life, we plant a seed, and our experiences, and the people around us help that little seed to grow.   For example, in 2013 I graduated from Southern Oregon University with a BA in Creative Writing

Hello Readers! So I am officially done with school, which has me thinking a lot about my life as a writer.  I don't have school work or anything to deal with, and though I will be picking up more hours at work eventually (that's the goal, right? To work full time? That's what adults do?) writing is now my focus.  I am working on some writing goals and deadlines, but one of them is this blog! I want to post as often as I can, so here is my schedule: Monday: A Quick Writing Update.  This will be me just briefly discussing how many words I've written, what kind of editing I've done.  That kind of thing. Friday:  Writing Blog.  This will be a longer post, discussing me as a writer, my method (do I even have one of those?) and other writing related things. Sunday:  Faith Based Blog.  This blog is about my writing and my faith, because I believe they influence each other.  So Sunday's blog will be faith centered. Part of the reason for me creating a schedu

I'd like to take some time here and chat about WHY I write and how I came about being brave enough to call myself a writer. I've been writing my whole life.  I remember writing stories as a young kid.  I had Barbies, but rather than play with them, I would dress them up, and then write stories about them.  I was also in love with dinosaurs.  A lot of my stories revolved around a paleontologist type character (who just so happened to resemble me...a lot) who somehow brought dinosaurs back to life and was friends with them. Later, I wrote angsty teen fiction and poetry, which isn't unusual for most teens, and was often a reflection of the types of things I was feeling inside.  Writing was therapy. Writing was a hobby.  Writing wasn't a job. I wanted to be a paleontologist, a counselor, a teacher, a librarian.  I never wanted be a writer.  Being a writer wasn't a real job.  But it was always something I did.  I took creative writing classes alongside all of m