Holiday Round-Up

In case I don't blog again until after the 25th, Merry Christmas!


Winston Churchill Said  by John Vorhaus

Writing and Hershey Kisses  by Laura Drake

Authors:  Don't Get Burned by Branding  by Chuck Wendig (Quite a bit of profanity, if that offends you.)

Be Thankful That You're a Writer  by James Scott Bell

It's High Time We Abandon The Printed Book Once and For All  by John Ramsey Miller  (Funny.)

Brain strain.

The photo above?  That's how I feel about writing in general lately.  Too many holiday activities turning my brain to mush.  I plan on posting the Round-Up Friday, but then I think I'll take a break from writing themed entries until the new year.  

In the meantime I'll continue to post on other topics, which require less brain strain. 

See you writers next year!  That means YOU Cindy since you're likely the only writer that visits.  ;-)

O Christmas tree.

Here she is in all her glory.  My tree's a girl apparently.

Because she's in the corner behind my desk I had to take the picture in the hallway past the bathroom in order to get a full shot.  

The burlap ribbon on the bottom left is looking a bit droopy because that's where the cat goes to hide and swat at ornaments while chewing on needles, the rotten thing.

More clay garland.  At this point I think my clay sickness rivals the cat's sickness for boxes. In my defense, I haven't come across garland that I like.  Plus it's way cheaper to make than to buy.

Not only did I do merry & bright like these wreaths, but also sleigh bells in the snow,...

....treetops glisten and dreaming of a white Christmas.  I hope you're sensing a theme by this point.  All lyrics from White Christmas.

In addition to the 4 strands of garland I made several dozen star and circle clay ornaments.  

Fake presents under the tree.

Here she is all lit up and feeling swanky.

What this elf's been up to.

In a few recent posts I've mentioned how busy I've been this month.  There was no rest period at the end of NaNo.  In fact, I put the Christmas tree up a few days after Thanksgiving and I've been crafting and decorating my cold little heart out ever since.

One of things that kept me busy this month was a series of wreaths.  13 in all.  1 front door wreath and 3 sets of chair wreaths.

Here's one from a set that I made for my mother:

Hey look, clay garland.  Are you surprised by this?  It says merry & bright. 

Here's the door wreath, also for my mother.  Sadly, no clay was involved in the making of it. But lots and lots of holly garland and a raffia bow.  That makes up for it a bit, no?

A group shot of 9 wreaths that I made for my mother.  The door wreath and 2 sets of the chair wreaths.  The merry & bright wreaths were tied onto the backs of her dining room chairs with pretty red and white ribbon and the mini wreaths were tied onto the kitchen chairs with white burlap ribbon that I made.  By made I mean I cut burlap fabric into strips and deconstructed the edges.  (See my chair wreaths below for reference.)

My wreaths.  Slightly larger versions of Mom's mini kitchen chair wreaths.  I also made the burlap table runner.  And, again, by made I mean I cut and deconstructed the fabric.  I've decided that next year I'll paint red stripes on it.

They're simple wreaths and though I generally like simple they're not what I originally had in mind when I set out to make them.  However, this is what happens when you decide during the month of December to make anything Christmasy and then attempt to shop at an arts and crafts store.  Ha!  The holiday accoutrements are picked over by that point. You can blame the clay garland on this.  Apparently you have to shop in September if you want in on the good stuff.  Who thinks about Christmas in September?  Everyone but me it seems.

It wouldn't quite feel like Christmas if there were no nuts to crack.  Yep, I said that.

I originally made this little guy as a tree topper, but it ended up not being quite big enough so it found a home elsewhere.  It was too darn cute to trash.

Tomorrow:  pics of the tree!

100 posts!

Wow.  As much as I like to believe that I was determined when I started this blog, 100 posts felt intangible then.  Now here I am, not even a year later.

It seems fitting that for my 100th post I feature pictures of the steamer trunk (and it's about 100 years old, what a coinkydink), which earned an honorable mention way back in ye ole original post.

I'm still up to my eyeballs in Christmas doodads and thingamabobs (the ornament count is now at 300+) so I didn't have time to edit the photos like I normally do.  Here they are in raw form:

The details.

The inside.

Is it wrong to be in love with a steamer trunk?

Real writers get rejected.

Hee.  I love Chuck's post on rejections.  Also digging Kristen's tough love post.


Aspiring is for Pansies—Tough Love & Being a Writer  by Kristen Lamb

How to Hook a Reader and NEVER Let Go  by Kristen Lamb

Write Tight:  3 Pieces of Advice I Wish I'd Known Earlier  by Jody Hedlund

How Not to Blog:  Beginning Blogging for Authors Part II  by Anne R. Allen

25 Things Writers Should Know About Rejection  by Chuck Wendig

NaNo success.

It's been 2 weeks since NaNoWriMo ended and I'm finally beginning to regain feeling in the space between my ears.  I'd probably be completely rehabilitated if it wasn't for Christmas. In the last 14 days I've made 13 wreaths, 230+ ornaments, and 9 strands of garland—but this is Writer Wednesday, so more on that another day.

NaNoWriMo teaches me something new each time.  Last year taught me that I could be passionate about projects other than the fantasy series.  This year I learned that writing scenes is much easier than writing chapters.  I came across the idea on Larry Brooks' blog a few days before NaNoWriMo began.  He recommended breaking down the story into 60 scenes.  I don't know why that had never occurred to me before since that's how screenwriting is approached.  And I've always found scriptwriting vastly less challenging. Perhaps that's why?  Duh.

I got to work planning scenes and when November arrived and it was time to actually write them I was shocked by how quickly they came.  I was writing 3 or 4 times faster than last year!

My hope for next NaNo:  That I learn how to maintain quality of prose for 1667 words 7 days a week for 30 days.

My hope for next month:  That I remember how to blog.  Or even how to form a coherent sentence.

Self and scene.

Most likely nobody reads these Round-Up posts, but even if that's true I'm building one heck of a writer database!


Is Your Novel a Spineless Weakling?  by Kristen Lamb

Big Revision  by Mary Kole

A Sense of Self  by Donald Maass

How to Make the Most of a Scene  by Jami Gold

How to Bring Your Characters Into Focus  by Susan Bearman

How Do You Come Up with Character Names?  An Exhaustive List  by T. N. Tobias  (awesome resource!)

The 5 Biggest Mistakes in Writing Scenes  by Diane O'Connell

Is the year over yet?

source

I realize that it's been entirely too long since I've written a proper post and I anticipated that life would settle down a bit once NaNoWriMo ended, but unfortunately that hasn't happened.  The to-do list has only multiplied and there's no end in sight.

The holidays can be mean that way.

Once time quits running away from me I'll share some of the things I've been up to, but until then, in honor of Writer Wednesday and the title of my last post, I leave you with this:

source

I need to do WHAT to my protagonist?

More checklists.

Antagonists—The Alpha and the Omega of the Story  by Kristen Lamb

Earning Your Readers' Tears  by Carrie Vaughn

How Low Can You Go?  The Important All is Lost Moment  by Sierra Godfrey

23 Inevitable Questions to Ask Yourself at the End of NaNoWriMo  by A. Victoria Mixon

41 Ways to Keep Readers Turning the Page  by Ian Irvine

5 Ways for Cleaning Up Your Writing Right Now  by Mark Nichol

Writer's Block:  The 12 Step Cure  by Joanna Penn

Body Language:  An Artistic Writing Tool  by Sharla Rae