I listen to podcasts or audiobooks pretty much every day – while walking, doing puzzles, or driving (three activities I seem to spend a lot of time doing).
I’ve gotten addicted to a podcast called Primal Potential. I found it because I was trying to figure out how to lose the menopause/COVID/drinking-too-much-wine-weight that is not going away even though two out of those three causes have.
Continue reading “Impact Hour”I listened to a podcast recently in which the author reflected on applying social media algorithms to her life.
Her basic point was this – When you click/react/comment/share clothing ads or true crime or dog rescue or particular politics or people, Facebook (and the other social media feeds) fills your feed with more of the same.
So, the more you click on one topic/opinion/person, the more you are bombarded with more of the same, and the less you see of opposing viewpoints or other topics or particular ‘friends’.
Which explains how when a person spends a lot of time on social media, our world can become skewed. We might begin to see the world through a different lens—the lens being curated by a bot that feeds back to you more of the same. Just like a Pandora playlist.
Continue reading “Curating Your Life Reel”
I was recently reminded of the value of taking little steps to achieve a big goal. If you’re a football fan, you are probably familiar with the phrase, “It’s a game of inches,” made popular by a screaming Al Pacino in the 1999 film, Any Given Sunday.
I truly believe that writing is also a game of inches. That’s how I wrote my very first novel. I had no idea what I was doing and it would be another ten years before that book actually became a published novel, but I started by simply telling myself to write a few paragraphs every day.
Writing a book seemed impossible, even writing a chapter, but a paragraph? I could do that.
Continue reading “A Game of Inches”It’s down to the wire now on my Goodreads goal. How about you- will you make it?
Last year, I upped my Goodreads goal number to 100 books this year. (and for those of you uninitiated, if you are on goodreads, you can set an annual goal and Goodreads will track your progress all year, letting you know if you’re on track to reach your goal).
I raised my goal this year because I wanted to challenge myself to read more and mess around on my phone less. I’ve still got six books to go, but I’ve got three weeks (and four books in progress) so it seems doable.
Continue reading “Did You Make It?”On Wednesday I attended a book fair at our local community college to represent and sell my books.
I have to tell you that as a writer, these experiences are the worst and the best. The worst being the preparation (packing, finding everything, schlepping it all over there) and then sitting there hoping people will stop at my table. Many people hurry by, averting their eyes, or smiling apologetically, making me feel like a sleezy salesman pushing overpriced, cheap products.
I feel awkward, uncomfortable, ridiculous, and I pretty much always tell myself I’m never doing this again. The handful of sales I’ll make are never worth the time and torture. And really, why do I have to do it? Will it make any difference in the big scheme of things? Will it make or break my ‘success’ as a writer? Probably definitely not.
But then there are moments that remind me of the best part of writing. A little girl, probably 10 or 11, appeared in front of my table with twinkly eyes and a shy smile. “I found you!” she said.
Continue reading “Choosing Your Own World”Lackluster.
That’s how I’ve been feeling lately.
Maybe it’s my age. At fifty-six (fifty-six!), I’m feeling what everyone probably feels at this age—past my prime.
Everything is harder.
Continue reading “Getting My Sparkly Back”My dream came true.
I am now a steward of a Little Free Library!
In all my years of living in the country, driving skinny back roads through the woods and past expansive cornfields, dodging deer and the occasional ground hog, I’d never actually hit an animal.
Until this past Wednesday.
In fact, miraculously (and not to jinx them) no one in my family had ever hit a deer. So maybe we were due.
Continue reading “In An Instant”Are you wasting all your time with all these words? #areyoustillwriting #amwriting #writerswrite
I have gotten out of the habit of writing.
And serious writing depends on just that—habit. Not waiting for inspiration or time or a good night’s sleep or a better outline or the dog to shut up or until you take some class/webinar/retreat.
Writing requires that you sit down and do it. No matter what. As often as possible, every day if you can. You start where you are and spill your jumbled thoughts, wandering storylines, and vast emotions on the page. Your fingers tap along as your heart and mind try to make sense of it. (or maybe that’s just how it works for me.)
If you keep going, pressing past the doubt and frustration and discouragement and that little nagging bird fluttering all around you chirping that you’re wasting so much time, if you wave her away and type on, I promise something will come of it.
Continue reading “Writing or Wasting Time?”Last night I got the call.
Once again, my bad boy horse has outworn his welcome. This is the fourth time, I’ve sent him to a new home, with great hopes that this would be the one, but like a furry boomerang he is coming back. Only this time, I don’t have a pasture to put him in.
Continue reading “Fuzzy Boomerang”
My Life in Paragraphs 