My 2011 Christmas Newsletter

I've never done a Christmas newsletter. Some people do and some don't. I have received them off and on, from family and friends. This year I received one from a friend of my dads. What do you put in one? I mean, you either have great news you want to brag about, or sad news, or, maybe you just want to get everything out and have a sympathetic ear, or shoulder to cry on. So I thought I'd do mine here, but do it more as a conversation between me and you. We'll see where it goes and what happens! :-))

Karen tells her readers, "Oh I hate the thought of a new year."
And they want to know, "Why?"
"Because it's always depressing."
"I don't get it. Why is a new year depressing when it's a brand new year, a new beginning, a way to start over?"
"Well for one, I'll be another year older! And then there are all the things we leave behind."
"What kind of things? I know, tell me how 2011 was for you."
"Well in January it's a new year! Haha! Sorry, guess I should be serious. There are all the decorations that have to come down which seem to leave everything looking bare and empty. And since I had my gift shop, there was double the work and emptiness. February wasn't too bad. No wait, I turned another year older and closed down my gift shop in February!"
"Oh I'm sorry to hear that. Why did you close your shop?"
"Well for one thing, my business partner started flaking out on me in August the year before. He was going through a nasty divorce and evidently hadn't been paying the rent, which I found out in February. Luckily I had an awesome landlord. Yes, I'm responsible for the back rent, but at least he's taking payments. I could have stayed open. I had someone else that wanted to come in and be partners with me, but I decided it was time to close that door."
"Well it sounds like you were dealing with it in a positive way."
"It was just one of those things. Everything happens for a reason, right?"
"What happened after that?"
"Well, March and April were pretty quiet, except my oldest son turned 35. May had it's good and bad.
On Mother's day my middle son called me to wish me a Happy Mother's day and in the next breath, told me his dog, Slick, had been hit by a car. Now Slick is my only grand baby, none of my boys are married, and I was devastated. I told my son, "I'll have to call you back, when I can compose myself a little", I did call him back later that night and we both spent some crying time together. But there was good in May also. I started writing. I was tired of cleaning and laundry. There's only so much you can do, you know, and I had this story in my head for months, so I thought, "Might as well put it on paper." And that's what I did. Actually finished the first draft of that book on the 30th of October. Right in time too, because I started NaNoWriMo on the first of November. But let's go back to June. My son got a new puppy and her name is Sandi. Now I have never been a lover of pitbulls, but she is sweet and shy and I have grown to love her. July, August, and September, pretty much flew by. (Both my younger boys had birthdays in September. One is now 27 and the other is 22.)  Writing tends to do that to you. You seem to get lost in the story and when you hit that final period, you look up and say, "Wow where did the time go?"

And this is Sandi, who loves to smile!

"So is there anything else about 2011 that you want to tell us?"
"Well let's see...Spent Memorial day, 4th of July, and Labor Day weekends in San Diego. Got my little dog Duggy, neutered the first week of December, and I finished writing and editing my second book! So will be submitting it this coming week, so hopefully next year's newsletter, will be a little more exciting and not soooo boring! And how was your 2011?"

This is Slick and Duggy

May you all have a Merry Christmas and a safe, healthy, happy and Wonderful New Year!

Was it good for you too?

Okay now that I have got your attention...Get your minds out of the gutter! I'm talking about NaNoWriMo.

I've been seeing blogs and posts on comment boards, or is that comments on post boards, (Shaking head) Hmmm...
Anyway whichever way you look at it, Some say they enjoyed NaNo and some say they didn't.
Personally I thought it was a lot of fun and I'm kind of sad to see it done.
It was my first time...
I wasn't sure I could do it, but I prevailed and look forward to next year.

I wrote my 50,000 plus words. I decided my book would only have 4 main chapters, so I finished the first, third, and final chapter. And got the beginning and end of the second chapter, but need to fill in the center.

The hardest part about nanowrimo for me is writing in a straight line...beginning to end. I tend to skip around some.

The book I wrote is actually the first book in a series of four books. I decided to write it, because I had just finished the fourth book. But on the plus side I have started on the first chapter of book too and have the ending chapter of book three done! Did I mention I skip around a lot?

Oh Well, I hope to see everyone back writing next year!

Here are a couple of blogs from fellow NaNo writers! Check them out!

Simon's Blog This was his first year too!
http://simontall.com/2011/11/30/november-a-novel-and-death-of-the-author/



And Cheryl captures the writers block/procrastinator in all of us with her short videos! http://www.cherylreif.com/2011/12/01/for-all-you-fellow-wrimos/#comment-3843

Happy Dec. 1st You survived, you may all get up from your chairs now! Take a bow and pat yourself on the back!

For those of you that like the comraderie that goes with NaNoWriMo here is a link on FB where you can continue writing your nano
https://www.facebook.com/pages/IE-After-NaNo-Writers-Group/218931721510267

Back up and Save, Back up and Save!

I can not say this enough. Back up and Save. Back up and Save everything!

I can't begin to tell you how important this is and yet....
Yep, that's right, it takes a near catastrophe to remind myself to
 back up and save certain things on my computer.

I purchased a brand new desk top PC in July 2006.
 I had just started my new business of creating custom designed gift baskets in Oct. 2005
 and needed a new computer for my new website.
That computer got a virus and crashed in 2008, the day after my virus protection expired.
Here's another thing to remember check your emails frequently,
 so you'll know when your protection is expiring!
(I still haven't learned this rule either, hence the 1500 + new unread emails
I have sitting in my inbox waiting to be read) And I am giving advice! Sheesh!

Well I got the pc to run in safe mode and saved what I needed.
And then my son brought his PC in and I started using it,
until Windows did their little thing of new updates need to be downloaded/uploaded whatever,
you know those little notifications.
Anyway his PC went through all of them at once and fried the hard drive.

Well to make a long story short. Oops! Too late for that. Sorry...
I have a new laptop. Well my son bought it for me for Christmas 2009.
It's nice and has Windows 7 but I'm cheap and when my trial ran out for MS Works...
And Windows 7 is not compatible with my Yahoo Sitebuider program for my website.
I use this computer for mainly surfing the web. Facebook, twitter, blogging, etc.

I have an old laptop, Not a lot of memory, slow processor, small hard drive,
But it has Microsoft works 2003 And I Type my novels on it.
Oct. 30th...I had just finished my first MS 200+ pages, 96,000+ words and was going to do a read through, so I decided I'd get my lap desk and sit on the couch with my feet, instead here at the dining room table, and my little dog Duggy decided he wanted to play. He got tangled up in my mouse cord and my laptop went flying across the room face down on the floor. He ran off and hid under the dining room table, scared him and on my knees I turned over my laptop and there was a huge section highlighted, my mouse wouldn't work, my eraser wouldn't work and I figured it had froze. OMG! What am I going to do, I had not backed up and saved all that I had written! I finally got another mouse to work and everything was okay.
Did I immediately back up and save? Nope!

I am doing NaNoWriMo and they tell you back up and save often!
I am 30,000+ words into it and get up this morning, turn on the computer, and what do I see,
A black screen with blue words telling me, There is something wrong with my computer!
OMG! Heart attack time!
It says shut it down and restart and if that doesn't work, blah, blah, blah
I didn't take time to read it all, I shut it down and restarted and as soon as it worked...
Yep, you're right, I BACKED UP AND SAVED! Both novels.
Grabbed my little memory stick and Did it right then and there!

Please remember to back up and save!

Emotions, Coincidences, You!

Good afternoon and Happy Saturday! Shh! I'm not supposed to be here, I am supposed to be on my other laptop writing, but I just had to stop by and visit for just a minute.

I want to talk about emotions, coincidences, you, and your writing, but first a message from our sponsor,
                                                 No wait that can't be right!
But first a little peek into my crazy mixed up head is more like it!

I finished my first novel last week, well there are a couple of paragraphs that I feel I need to tweak just a little.
When I started writing it I knew it could be a stand alone novel, ( It has a beginning, a middle, and a very Happily ever after, but it also has questions unanswered that would be answer in previous books),  even though in my head there are at least two more ahead of it and that should go with it, but at that time I decided not to write them. I didn't think they would have the impact like the third one. That is until I signed up for NaNoWriMo and figured I'd write the first one for the challenge.
                            Talk about emotional!
Here it is 5 days into it and I am at 15,340 words, And I have laughed and cried more than once. And I haven't even gotten to the saddest part. I get ready to go to the grocery store with the story swirling around in my head waiting to be written and I'm in tears....
"What can I say, I'm the emotional, sensitive type..."

Okay now for the coincidence. A line in my current writing has the heroine looking down at her big toe, peeking out at her from the hole in her shoe. The reason it's there is because her shoes are too small.
Okay, got that? Okay good.

Hours after I had written that line, I had put on my favorite tennis shoes. Looking down at them I had to laugh at my big toe peeking out at me. No my shoes aren't too small. These are my Duggy shoes and that hole has been in there for about a year now, ever since my sweet little dog Duggy chewed it there.

Okay now you.....

How much of "you" do you put into your writing?
Stop and think about it for a moment, and then let me know.

Well I have really got to go! Catch you all later!