Category: The Blog

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

I can’t say enough good things about this book. I also bought The Artist’s Way because I loved the first book so much. I even bought a nice journal at B&N over the weekend and I started using it this week to get my Morning Pages.

I’d heard of Morning Pages before but hadn’t bought into the idea. I get up D&E to write as it is — I wasn’t too excited about the prospect of taking precious time to “brain dump” into a journal. However, as soon as I started doing it, some amazing things have come up, and I have a feeling it’s just the tip of the iceberg.

I’m not very good at doing things for myself. I don’t think most Moms are. We’re so busy taking care of kids, working, cooking, folding laundry, homework… Then maybe 1 or 2 hours a day (if we get up at the butt crack of dawn before anyone else in the house is alive) we have a tiny bit of time to pursue our hobbies or dreams. Our families often resent even that much. To do something nice on top of that little bit of personal time seems… selfish. At least it does to me.

Working from home, I hardly ever go anywhere. Rarely by myself. I work. I take and pick up kids from school. I cook dinner and on bad nights, work around the bake time. I do homework with the kids after school and dinner. When the EDJ is really demanding, I work after that or after they go to bed. On a good night, we watch American Idol and I tinker with e-mail and might edit a section or two, but by then, I’m usually too tired to get many new words. (Plus the TV is on, which is really distracting, even when I hate the show That Man is watching.) Since I don’t have to go into the office, I never put on makeup. The only place I do go that I even have to “dress up” for is church, and I really don’t “dress” up either (our church is pretty casual).

When was the last time I did something for ME?

I realized last night that I hadn’t colored my hair since before Christmas. It takes too long. I had too much to do. Nobody really cares anyway, do they? Ah, but I care. I put on about 20 years of age when I don’t color my hair, if not more. So I dumped the dye on my head and then read The Artist’s Way while waiting for it to soak in. Another shocker: I haven’t had a hair cut since Sept of last year. *boggles* That was when I went to the home office. So that’s the next thing on the Taking Care of Me list to accomplish before this weekend.

And I’m going to plan a small outing for just me. No kids. No That Man. I have no idea what I’ll do yet, but I’m going to do SOMETHING.

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

For the chance to win a free copy of The Rose of Shanhasson, The Fire Within, or Confessions of the Creature, comment on the Drollerie Press blog here in honor of Read an E-Book Week! Stories will be 15% off if you order directly from the DP Bookshop or 10% off from Mobipocket.

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

February in Review

It wasn’t the greatest month but not bad. I wrote 16,500 words, about 10K new words to expand Letters to an English Professor. (About half of what I planned.) I don’t know that I’m going to get the 30K I needed or not. I wasn’t able to finish the revisions by 2/29 like I hoped, but that’s okay.

The Evil Day Job was crazy and demanding, so that took a toll on my desire to get up D&E to write. I did make it several times, but I wasn’t as productive as usual. I was simply too tired. This month will hopefully be better, although I have several big things due by 4/1.

This month will be huge for a lot of reasons. My first novel will be released 3/9, the dreaded book of my heart. The first book I wrote and completed, the book that haunted me until I got it right. To say I love the book is an understatement, and I’m so thrilled to see it coming out shortly! Of course, that means I’ll be busy getting promo items lined up, requesting reviews, etc. If you have a blog and are interested in reviewing either The Rose of Shanhasson or The Fire Within, please let me know. (Ann, I already sent the ARCs to you, my dear. Hopefully you got them.)

This month, I’m not sure exactly how the writing will all play out. I’ll be straddling two projects: the Letters revision and The Road to Shanhasson, book 2, otherwise known as Gregar’s book. I don’t have an outline prepared for the second so it might be touch and go. In this case, knowing exactly how the book ends doesn’t guarantee writing the middle will be a piece of cake. Let alone the beginning, in this case. But I did start wading through notes and old files this morning and made a little headway. I’ll continue muddling my way through a plan the rest of this week.

Sven: 2501 words

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

I have a dilemma. Round 3 of 70 Days of Sweat has started, and I’m already behind. I’m torn. I don’t know what to do, which has allowed me to dither.

I’d hoped to have Letters revised by 3/1 so I could move perfectly into Gregar’s book for Sven. However, that hasn’t happened. I might not even be halfway through the revisions. The Evil Day Job took a toll on me in Feb and my D&E sessions just weren’t as productive as I’d hoped, and definitely fewer and farther between than I planned.

After sleeping in yesterday (no basketball!) and today (oops, overslept and missed church), I’m ready to begin a month of hard writing. Yet I still can’t get my mind in gear. I’ve done NO OUTLINING whatsoever for Gregar’s story. I know it inside and out… yet there are several sticky points. One just happens to be the beginning. To claim on the page or not… (Inside joke — read Rose to find out what the big deal is about a claiming.)

Letters isn’t in an any better place right now. It’s hard to change scenes around to another POV. I’ve added some nice layers and texture, definitely, but I’m in a Dark Valley where I’m really wondering whether I’m doing the right thing, if I should have just left it alone.

Well, enough whining. I’m going to make a decision tonight and get up D&E tomorrow ready to work. I’m just not sure on which project yet.

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

Tonight, That Man picked out We Own the Night to watch. I agreed simply because of Joaquin Phoenix, even though I really don’t like Mark Wahlberg or Eva Mendes at all. Of course, Robert Duvall is always a great choice too. Unless he dies. Grrr.

Not as dark as Eastern Promises, this movie was about Russian drug runners instead of the mob. Joaquin played Robert Green, an irresponsible, fun-loving bar manager who turns a blind eye to the drugs passing through the nightclub. He pays a great price for that blind eye. At one point, he’d lost everything: his life, his career, his friends, his father, even his brother, played by Mark, who was nearly killed by the bad guys. And yes, Eva left him too.

He did get the bad guy in the end, joined the police force, and stood up when his brother crumbled during a gun fight. The flighty party lover turned into a cop. However, he didn’t get the girl and his dad died. Not a feel good movie, although it was okay. I wouldn’t watch it again.

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

Last week was a toughie. I did get a little written each morning (around 500 words) so it wasn’t a total loss, but I’ve been under a huge amount of stress at the Evil Day Job. Slinging code as fast as possible, so much I even moved my ergonomic keyboard and mouse over to my work station because my wrists were killing me again. (Once you’ve been a computer programmer for over ten years, you don’t actually do much straight coding! So my wrists are out of practice.)

Then on Friday late afternoon (when I’m supposed to be ready to turn everything over for testing next week), all my work blew up in my face with an unrecoverable error. My design is flawed. Big time.

Needless to say, I wasn’t in a good place mentally this weekend.

Littlest Monster got up Sat. sick and I took her to the doctor (ear infection) while That Man took the other two kids to basketball. We ran errands all weekend. Every moment, my brain was chewing on my work issue, trying to think around this wall and come up with a fix. (I might have — but man am I behind now.) No writing done — how could I with my brain crammed full of logic?

Then whammo… The zombie story suddenly made perfect sense. Anyone who finds it ironic that I figured out a ZOMBIE story after a hard week of work, raise their hand. Anyway, I slammed out 3K of it last night and am nearly finished — I just need the big climax/resolution. Maybe it’ll come to me after slinging code all day today…

So not a huge writing week for me until last night, but I did manage to get up 4 days D&E and accomplish a little progress in Letters. I’m behind there and I’m not going to be ready to start Gregar’s story in March if I don’t find time to outline.

This week, I’d like to finish up the zombie story and get back hard to Letters. What’s on tap for you this week?

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

I’m in the mood for a little poetry. This is from Longfellow’s The Day is Done.

Read from some humbler poet,
Whose songs gushed from his heart,
As showers from the clouds of summer,
Or tears from the eyelids start;

Who, through long days of labor,
And nights devoid of ease,
Still heard in his soul the music
Of wonderful melodies.

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

Thirteen Monster Tales We have three girl monsters aged 9 (Princess Monster), 6 (Middle Monster) and 4 (Littlest Monster, soon to be 5). Here are a few reasons I call them MONSTERS. 1.”Mom, the tub is clogged.” Princess Monster gave the dog a bath — and a haircut at the same time. 2.”Mom, the toilet is flooding!” Middle Monster flushed hair bands and a wash cloth down the toilet and blew up the sump pump. Not once, but twice. 3.*screaming, wailing* “Mom, Middle Monster shut Littlest Monster’s hand in the door!” 4.”But Mom, why can’t I sit on top of the swing set?” 5.Princess Monster came home with a bucket of snapping turtle eggs she found at Papa’s farm. Thank GOD they never hatched. 6. After we looked high and low for TWO DAYS trying to find Princess Monster’s brand new stuffed poodle, Littlest Monster admitted *with a very cute grin* that she’d hid it so SHE could sleep with it. 7.At basketball practice, I suddenly realized that Middle Monster wasn’t wearing any pants. “I forgot.” 8.”Mom, Dad’s pool chemicals taste yuck!” *Hello, Poison Control???* 9.”Mom, can I wear flip flops to school today?” *three inches of ice on the ground* 10.Middle Monster ripped open her diaper and ate poop when she was a toddler, but refuses to eat * because it’s yucky. (Insert random normal food) 11.Nasty dark footprints tracked all over the carpet: “But Mom, you told me stay on the sidewalk. You never told me to stay off the grass.” *where the dog poops* 12.It’s not a family dinner if we don’t discuss poop and pee at least once with lots of giggles. 13. I never knew something so cute would out-belch and out-fart their father.

Get the Thursday Thirteen code here! The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

I’m setting this up the night before in case we don’t have power. Remember that terrible ice storm about a year ago where we lost power for a week? Well…. we’re having ice again. The monsters were out of school today (Monday) and they’ve closed schools tomorrow, too. We’ve got about 3-4 inches of sleet, frozen rain, slush frozen over and over on the ground. It’s lumpier this time — last time we had straight freezing rain.

The odd thing: the rain today came in a THUNDERSTORM. It was so odd to hear the crashing boom of thunder and know it was slicker than snot outside. Some of the breakers in the house blew and the lights flickered several times, but so far we still have power. Whether we will in the morning or not, I don’t know. It was raining again last time we took the dog outside after dinner and it’s in the twenties.

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

Edited: We lost power temporarily around 4:30 a.m. but were only down an hour. Praying the lines hold…

Originally published at Joely Sue Burkhart. You can comment here or there.

Since the beginning of 2008, I’ve really been struggling to get up Dark and Early (D&E) again, and my writing has really suffered. With three kids, a full-time job, and That Man, I just can’t depend on having any time at all in the evenings to write. If I stay up late, then I get up later in the morning, and I hate that rushed, late feeling all day. I really do better when I’m up early. If I can actually get up…

That’s where having an accountability partner can help. I made an appointment with my friend Anna to meet just 1-2 days last week at 5:30 a.m. I knew she’d be up, waiting for me, and so the last thing I was going to do was sleep in and blow her off. As a result, I ended up getting over 6K last week.

Anna and I both work, and in between snow/ice storms this week, we could only make appointments with each other 2 days. However, I still got up this morning. I’m getting into the habit again.

Even better: I stuck to my diet plan despite getting up D&E again. In the past, that’s been a real challenge for me. (See my diet blog.) This week, I plan to continue getting up D&E at least 4 days and I’m stepping up my commitment to exercise. Meanwhile, Letters is progressing nicely. I’ve completed 4 brand new sections and revised several others into Conn’s POV. Still in good shape to finish up the revision this month.