(Feel free to let me know if you prefer shorter blog posts. They have been getting a lot longer lately lol)

I’ve nearly always struggled with my weight. When I was a
child, I was skinny. I was always outside running around and
climbing trees. I was busy using my imagination to put me on
another planet, back in time, far into the future, etc. I am sure
I was a born writer. I imagined myself as a Native American
traveling across the prairies (my great grandmother was a fullblooded
Cherokee so maybe she was my inspiration), but was
equally often a pioneer traveling the Oregon trail with my ma and
pa, out to the wild west—a place in which I was also sometimes a
cowboy fighting ‘Indians’ and at others, the ‘Indian’ fighting
the cowboys.

My brother and I played cops and robbers (he was
always the robber). Sometimes we played that my father and his
lawn mower were a monster from another planet and we ran away
from the lawnmower—which is better than running towards it,  but
it drove my father nuts and he was always yelling at us to stop
running in front of the mower.

Okay, I know, it seems like my imagination could have been
dangerous to my health and it likely could’ve been. Running in
front of the lawn mower was the least dangerous thing we did.

When we were playing cops and robbers, we needed ‘diamonds’, so
we went down to the junkyard back in the woods behind my father's garage. (Dad was a mechanic and towed the wrecks back to this junkyard way behind
his garage out of sight). So, anyway, my brother and I would go
back there, feeling even more adventurous because that was
strictly off limits to us.

So first we had to sneak past Dad’s garage without him seeing us, and if we made it (sometimes he caught us and sent us home), then we had the luxury of tons of wrecked vehicles from which we pulled shattered glass and put
it in little velvet pouches (no idea where I got those from, possibly Avon lol) and voila—pouches of diamonds just like on Mission Impossible or Kojak.

Once we’d collected our diamonds (imagine! Kids playing with
shattered glass! It kind of explains why we had to keep getting
new diamonds, Dad kept taking them from us). So, anyway, once we
had our booty, we’d race off chasing each other in a game of
cops and robbers. Sometimes those games were launched by seeing
who could jump the farthest from the roof of one wrecked car to
another. The roofs and hoods were all crumpled up with rusty
doors hanging out or totally missing. Keep in mind, I was only
around six or seven. Probably both 6 AND 7, because I am sure we did this
for a few years before we stopped.

I have no idea why I wasn’t scared to jump from one rusty
jagged roof to another. We’d get full of wood ticks, but I don’t
ever remember even getting scratched from our car-jumping.

So, in short, I was very active as a kid. If I wasn’t pursuing or
being pursued in some game of A vs B, then we were exploring
islands aka Swiss Family Robinson scenarios or exploring
planets aka Star Trek scenarios, or sometimes we spent weeks on
Planet of the Apes.

All this action kept me skinny and energetic. When I was 13, my
parents divorced and we moved. We were in a new town. We lived
in an apartment. We didn’t have five acres to run around on.
Although, by the time I was 13, I was more into reading and less
into running around. Still, my activity had me walking to
school, up and down a huge hill, walking six blocks to the local
library after schools and on weekends. So, still, my imagination
was keeping me active. Not to mention the muscles I was building
carrying home 12 library books each week, usually hardcovers,
some coffee table books. I read voraciously. I’d go through two
novels a week. I had no interest in school sports, but my
library activity kept me exercised.

But, then, I got into eating junk food. I would eat chips and
candy while I read. I lived on Pepsi. Soon, my library trips
could barely win over the junk food. The new A vs B was
junkfood & Libraries.

I started to gain weight. I noticed. I didn’t like it. Especially
after my first school picture where I noticed I’d gained weight.
I hated it But I couldn’t give up junk food. But then, in my
ocean of reading, I discovered Fit For Life by Harvey and
Marilyn Diamond. I read that with the same appetite that I did
the fiction novels, and lo and behold, I was on a diet. I lost
weight. I felt good.

I was fine until the 2000s. Then, I really started gaining
weight. I was distracted by my imagination. I was writing. I was
working. I was busy. And I was eating. I was published by
Highlights for Children in April 1999 (Ben Gets to Help by
Elizabeth Trigg) and then in 2000 or 2001 by CTB McGraw-Hill.
They published two of my stories, and I was also working 17 hours a day in a news job.

Then I went through a breakup and gained weight. Then my best
friend since we were 14 died and I gained weight. Things
happened left and right. I was overworked, overweight, and exhausted.

Then my mother died, and I gained weight. Two years later, Dad died and I was an orphan. Age doesn’t matter when both parents are gone. You feel like an orphan. It is a disorienting feeling.

Anyway, the point is, I gained weight. No matter what I tried, I
couldn’t lose weight. I exercised. I cut out junk food. I
slept more. I walked more. I ate less. I could not lose weight!
No matter what I did!

Now, over the past year, I’ve discovered Dr. Berg on Youtube and
I discovered the Keto diet. It sounded too good to be true! I can
eat bacon?? Butter? Fat? Exercise isn’t going to contribute to
weight loss? This sounded too good to be true, but I gave it a
try. (I could actually blame my weight gain on my low-fat diets!)

In a couple months, I lost 18 lbs. Then for some weird crazy
reason, I went back to eating junk food. I have no idea why. So,
I was stuck at that 18 lbs I lost. I couldn’t go down another
pound.

It took me months to get myself back into the right mind-frame
and I went back on the keto diet. I was still having
inflammation though and I couldn’t figure it out. I was eating
healthy!

The reason I’d quit the keto diet earlier in the year was
because I was still having inflammation and I thought eating so
much fat was what was causing that. I’d read or heard that fat
can cause inflammation. So that was why I’d quit before.
But then, I realized that I’d been on the high fat diet for
awhile with no inflammation and sometimes I had it and
sometimes I didn’t. I kept a food log and discovered that it was
actually the broccoli and spinach that was giving me
inflammation! I found out a few days ago that I'm also allergic to cocoa! Ugh!

I could not believe that anyone could be allergic to broccoli and spinach! Broccoli and spinach were the healthiest foods known to man! But I was in excruciating pain. Every single bone and joint in my body was in so much pain that I was totally useless for an entire week.

So, I did an experiment. I cut out all the greens. No more broccoli or
spinach or kale. I was going to try just eating the fat and
meat and see what happens.

Lo and behold, in three days my entire inflammation was gone!
With no pain medications! Nothing! I was allergic to broccoli
and spinach??? I was in shock.

So, now I’ve stuck to the fat and meat only diet for the past
week or so and I’ve lost another five pounds. And I’m sleeping
better! And I was sometimes having anxiety attacks; those are
gone now. I feel much calmer. Focusing is much easier too. I’m
able now to get stuff done!

So, it’s weird how some people can eat some things and others
can’t. I know that for most people, broccoli and spinach are the
best things for them. For me, it isn’t.

So now I’m just experimenting. I know what I can eat for sure
(butter, eggs, bacon, beef, pork, cheese, cream) and I’m just
adding greens back one at a time to see how/if they affect me. I
think I can handle romaine lettuce but I’m not taking any
chances.

My diet may sound weird to some people, but it is making me feel
healthier and I can focus on my writing far better than when I
was trying to eat a ‘healthy’ diet. The great thing is, I’m
never hungry, I’m not counting calories. If I’m hungry, I eat
bacon and eggs, or a steak, etc. I never feel hungry, I’m
sleeping better, I focus better, and I’m losing weight. That’s a
win/win! I’m making sure I’m getting all my vitamins and
electrolytes. That is really important!

Okay, that's enough rambling for one day! Back to writing for me!

The struggle is real, folks! If you read my last post, you can
see how crazy my work days can get. That leaves very little time
for house work. I try the best I can, but let’s be honest here,
I’ve never actually loved doing house work—except in those
moments where I fantasize what the 1950s were like and how nice
it must have been to be a housewife and not have all the
pressure to bring in income. In those moments, which are pretty
rare, I enjoy doing the housework, cooking the meals, shopping
for groceries, making everything shine! On those days, I get zero
business work done.

I’ve tried routines, which are truly the only thing that keeps
the house livable. As soon as I finish a cup of coffee, I wash
the cup right away, dry it and put it back in the cupboard. As
soon as supper is prepared and put in the plates, I wash the
pots and pans and leave them in the tray. Before I go to bed I
do the dishes. Yes, it seems the dishes are my downfall, my arch
enemy of sorts. We are living in a tiny beach cottage and I
don’t have the dishwasher that I once had—sometimes visualized
as the love of my life. Oh how I miss my dishwasher.
Someday . . .someday!

So, I try to call housework ‘exercise’ and that helps on some
days. Except when I have weeks like last week (and you should
have seen the weeks before that! Seriously! 5 migraines in one
week—got bit by a mouse and feared I had tetanus...drama never
ends in a writer’s house).

So, yeah, back to tricking myself into thinking housework is
exercise. I don’t like exercise either, but it looks nice when I
write it in my planner. Especially if I call it ‘gym’. Seriously,
I don’t have time in the day to go to a gym, much less pay
money for activity that I can get for free in a rushed fifteen-minute
whirlwind housecleaning frenzy! Especially if someone is coming
to visit!

I’ve discovered (thanks to the Flylady) that if I put on the
William Tell Overture while I clean, it acts as a time limit and
the music makes me move faster. I sweep at a furious pace. I wash
and dry dishes at a marvellous speed. I destroy clutter with
style, and sweep and mop like it’s a dance! Thankfully, our place
is small so the floors take less time. Although, when I’m
vacuuming, I sometimes can’t hear the change from one overture
to another and I once thought that the William Tell Overture
was twenty minutes long—which really didn’t surprise me.

I still haven’t actually mastered the housework, at least not anything other than making sure the dishes are done as soon as they’re used. All my lovely coffee cups are clean. The bathroom shines—although to be honest, that
is last on my list.

Most days, though, it’s a struggle. No matter how many dishes I
wash, there are always more as if by magic. No matter how much
clutter I throw away, my husband always plops something down on
the kitchen table.

I’ve decided to focus on priorities. I have a strict laundry
routine. Sunday mornings my laundry gets washed, dried, and
put away. Done for the week! (Plus, electricity is half the price
on weekends and holidays, just in case you don’t know). My
husband does his own laundry. That was one of my conditions
when we got married.

Everything other than laundry, I battle with daily. On
Saturdays I’m tired and they have to wait. My spirit is willing,
but my body is weak. (And I’m still dealing with nerve damage
in my leg and can only stand up so long before my leg goes numb
and hurts and I have to sit down.)

Today, Sunday, I have just finished my coffee, written my blog
post, have to get my laundry done and then get outside and wash
the stupid deck railings. Seriously. Then get the dishes and the
floors done, shower, and relax! Thank heavens for weekends!

Have a great week!

P.S. Sorry for missing the Friday blog post.

Years ago, when I was working on an Ed Wood spoof with a film friend, he said to me, “My morning self hates my night self.” I’ve thought of that often and use it myself. It’s true that sometimes, although less often these days, my morning self hates my night self.

My night self has often stayed awake writing down amazing ideas and plans for the next day. I’ve lain awake with big ideas and great plans! Only to wake up the next morning exhausted from lack of sleep and no enthusiasm whatsoever for the scribbled notes from some middle-of-the-night maniac who thought I was going to be superwoman in the morning.

Other things my night self has done that has pissed off my morning self was staying up way past midnight watching Star Trek! I’m binge watching the series on Netflix and sometimes my night self gets away with a lot.

My night self used to eat junk food in the evening while watching television. This sucked for me in the morning. I had a headache, slept in, and was grouchy.

No, I don’t have a split personality. I just generally lack discipline the later it gets. (I once had a theory that later I stay up, the farther away tomorrow is.) So, I’ve had to force myself to get very strict about a bedtime. I find that I feel much healthier in the morning and sleep better if I go to bed around 10pm.
Now, there are still some nights when I’m working on a project for a client—when I’m freelancing, I turn into a major workaholic—that I stay up until the project is finished, whether that’s midnight or 3 or 4 a.m.; I just hate the feeling of leaving something unfinished.

My night self has a lot more self-control now and I get up early, often at 5 a.m., but 7 a.m. at the latest, so by evening, my night self is ready for bed! I exercise my brain fully in the daytime so there is nothing left over for my night self! I don’t get great ideas in the middle of the night hardly at all now; now I get them early in the morning as I’m getting up and I have a brain dump section in my notebook specifically for those ideas.

I’m also finding that my ideas in the morning are far better than most of the ideas I’d had in the night.

So there, take THAT, Night self!

I hate work. No, really, I hate work. Work is the devil that keeps me away from thinking and creating and writing. Sometimes I get myself into freelance projects that require my focus and time.

Perhaps I’m self-sabotaging. So, I’ve solved my problem. I’ve given up freelance work. (I know, I know, in the last post I said that I was going to start ghostwriting books for people, but I’ve decided against that now.) I really just want to write my own books and I cannot write other people’s books for them. If a person is not willing to take the time to read books and learn what they need to learn to create a coherent and cohesive work, then maybe it is best if they do not write a book.

Becoming a good writer—few are actually great, I think—requires practice time. This is where you will write and suck, but you will keep writing just because you love it. This time in the trenches is what will teach you how to write. This is what will improve your skill.

But in the beginning, you have to at least have a knack for storytelling of some sort. If you were the kid that told fantastic fabrications for the enjoyment of your friends, then you are a born writer. If you haven’t the slightest desire to tell a story, then coming up with an idea and wanting someone else to tell the story, is not being a writer.

So, I’ve decided quite firmly that I will not be a ghostwriter. And, despite my previous paragraphs, it isn’t really a question of my opinion of whether a non-writer should have a book out. I really couldn’t care less what others wish to do. My reason is that I just don’t have the time or desire to be taken away from my own writing projects.

I’ve had many jobs in my life. I spent 13 years monitoring news stations for a media company. It reached a point that all I wanted to was write my books and quit my job. So, I did.

Six months later, I started working for a publishing company and worked for them for five years. That was hectic. I worked more than 60 hours a week and directly under the CEO so I was always answering emails, even in the middle of the night because I felt like I had to. My boss never said I had to, but that’s the way I am. When I’m working on something, I work nonstop. I’m a workaholic. I like being like that. Fully immersed in my experience. That’s why I must love whatever job I’m doing.

After five years of working for that publishing company at that hectic pace, I just wanted to write my books, so I left my job to focus on my own writing again.

After a few months, I got writer’s block and decided to start freelancing. The money was terrific, and I was my own boss, in charge of my time and having the money flowing in like that was amazing.

Because it was so great to be so in charge of my income, I kept going and focused on making money. It was great! Until I realized that I’d gone two years without writing a book!!!

So, I stopped freelancing and focused on writing. But then I got sidetracked doing background acting on the TV show Haven. I only did three episodes, and then hurt my back and ended up with nerve damage in my leg that still bothers me to this day (3years later).

I went back to freelancing, doing various things and not knowing really what I wanted to do. Or at least thinking that I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I wrote a few books in those three years, but nothing compared to my previous production.

Now, after being obligated to other people’s projects, I have a plan! I am now trying the 12-week-year plan. Last week was week 1. My main goal in week 1 was to clean off my plate. To tie up loose ends and finish up all projects that I was working on for other people. And I did!

This week is a brand-new week (week 2) in my plan. My goal this week is working on my book! I’m going to focus on that! From now on I’m focusing on my own books and my own writing and my own passion. Life is too short to tell someone else’s stories instead of your own.

I've finally gotten my system organized and new blog posts will be coming out every Friday morning! For sure. Guaranteed. I already have this week's written.

Stay tuned . . .

I've been busy working on my new series Bridgeport. Although the main characters are brand new, I'm going to be working in a lot of the characters from my DOTM series. Even Emma may make an appearance occasionally. The characters from my old series that will have more of a focus in this series are Ethan and his family and Tank. All the other characters are brand new.

The main character is Delaney Page and she inherits a publishing company when her father dies, which is the catalyst for her moving to Bridgeport, reuniting with her estranged brothers, battling her father's first wife for control of the company, and sorting out her relationship with her previously 'perfect' fiance.

I'm excited about the characters and it will be good to see Ethan again! He has been hired at the publishing company on the day Delaney's father dies. Tank fits in by writing a book and becoming one of the company's authors.

The new ensemble of characters are exciting and are what get me out of bed each morning and anxious to write! I love my life!

In other news, not much has been happening. I've just been doing some freelance work, suffering from migraines for the past ten days, and (as usual) trying to get organized. I don't know if being a writer makes chaos a criteria, but no matter how hard I try, I always seem to be disorganized. I'm like the mad professor of writing. But writing brings me peace and joy, so I know that's my destiny.

Have a great week, everyone! I'll try to force myself to be back here on Friday!

Elizabeth Ann

Please note the Opt out of cookies button that popped up on this page. I don't actually collect information, but when people comment on the blog, it logs your email address I think, or maybe it logs it if you fill out a contact form. In any case, just to be on the safe side, I have the cookie policy there. The only tracking that I'm aware of is the ability for me to see how many visitors my website and blog have had in certain time periods.

Also, I do not keep emails from contact forms or anything and I never send out sales emails because I hate them myself. This blog is just a way for me to connect with my readers and get feedback on my books and characters, etc.

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Have a great weekend!!

So . . . I'm working on building my own film production company so I can produce my own scripts. I've cast 90% of my first sitcom pilot and about 2% of the one-hour drama script I have. I'm working towards filming the sitcom pilot this summer and it will be available on Amazon Prime Video. Once I get the full season done, I will pitch it to Netflix (they only look at entire seasons at once).

So, working on this stuff in the background over the past year is what made DOTM 10 take so long to get finished. I think DOTM 10 took me about two years to write, which is unusual. I can usually write a book in a month.

So, I'm looking forward to this new phase of my life, and I may even pitch the  DOTM series to networks and see what they think. If it gets ordered, I'll definitely keep you guys up to date on what's happening. I am very excited about this new phase I'm moving into.

Let's read DOTM  10 together!! I'm on my Facebook page today and let's all read DOTM 10 together, posting where we are in the book from time to time and updating the post with what you guys think so far as you read it.

You can take part in the discussion on my Facebook Page ...just click the picture!

Book 10 is NOW available in the Kindle store!!
US:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07CJRTB2K

Canada:
https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B07CJRTB2K

When Emma is abandoned by her husband, she has to move back with her parents to give birth to twins. As she pines away for Lance, the love of her life, she decides to make her family her first priority. Getting a regular job isn't as easy as she expected and when a handsome coworker lives right next door, is it worth waiting for someone who she may never get? Or is it just possible to have it all?