Hi Everyone! Here is a link if you want to keep track of my writing progress on Book 11 in the DOTM series. I will update my word count every day and you will be able to see how much I have completed and the estimated date for when it will be finished.

Okay, so this is as much of a surprise to me as it is to you, but guess what? I guess I'm not finished writing the DOTM series after all. In the process of preparing these ten books for the boxed set and getting in touch with all of these characters again, more stories started to form! More drama, more situations, and more excitement! By the time the ten books were ready to go, I had the first chapter written for book 11! So, for those of you who have been loyally following my blog, I'll let you in on a little secret. Book 11 in the DOTM series is going to be my Nanowrimo novel this month!

Time has passed and Emma and Lance have been married for three years now. When the twins start school, Emma realizes she has free time that she hasn't had since Paris was born. She wants to do something that she's never done, but she just doesn't know what that is. Lance would like to have his own biological child with Emma to carry on his family name, but Emma has just found freedom. Maybe going into business with Lance will get his mind off a baby. When her book store goes out of business, her newfound freedom from toddlers and work gives her lots of choices. Whatever she does, she and Lance are in it together! Together they'll weather the chaos of finding their place in this new paradigm, as their kids try to find theirs.

Book 11 is so full of possibilities. I'm not 100% sure what paths everyone will take, but I do know that Lance and Emma are in it for the long haul.

If you get the boxed set (only $9.99), please let me know what you think of chapter 1 of book 11. I appreciate your input and it's so early in the process that I can make changes!

I'm so glad that Emma is back! Now, off to update my Nanowrimo page!

Keeping up with the blog has been hectic with all my projects I'm working on. I'm still writing Bridgeport book 1 and...this weekend, my series Diary of a Teenage Mom will be available on Kindle as a boxed set that is a collection of all ten books! Yay! For those of you who may not have purchased every book in the series, or haven't purchased at all, or have but would like to have the entire collection together (with a bonus at the end!) you may want to get this.

There will be a few bonuses included with it as well: Chapter 1 of my Bridgeport series book 1 and some other bonuses that I'm still working on.

Meanwhile...I'm also going to be adding some new stuff to my website and will bring back the Fun Page! I am working on a Sims video series of my DOTM series and will be posting them on my Fun Page. The video series won't be exactly like the books. They will be more like a TV drama series but using the Sims. The script I'm working with is the hour-long drama script that I had submitted to Amazon Studios. Since that is not going to happen and I want to create something fun, I'm going to make this in the Sims. Each episode is probably not going to be an hour long, that is just too long for a sims video and I want to be able to put up an episode every week. So, each episode will probably be 20 minutes.

In other news: I'm working on a magazine for female entrepreneurs called Bring It! Magazine (www.bringitmagazine.com ) The first issue is supposed to be out in January 2019. This is a rough draft image of the first issue.

So, all these things that I'm working on sometimes makes me a little late with the blog post.

I'm looking forward to getting my fun page going again!!
Thanks for reading and have a safe and happy Halloween!

I love to read, as much as I love to write. Yesterday, Those Who Live by the Sea by author Marsha Curry was released on Kindle and that is such a fun read. It is a romance and the main character, Glory Kennedy is so likeable!

If you're interested in checking it out, you can click on the picture and it should take you to the Kindle page.

The print book will be out in late November but this is definitely worth the read! The characters are lively, well-developed, and 'real'. The eclectic mixture of the small town residents creates a compelling story. There are very few books that I can really enjoy these days.

If you read this book, let me know what you think about it. :)

Routines
I thrive on routines. I love my planners. Seriously, I regularly
use about six planners to keep me on track, and that’s not even
counting my writing planner, where I plot out books and
characters.
I used to make a fall schedule, winter schedule, spring schedule,
and summer schedule and stick to them religiously. Of course my
kids were small and sticking to schedules was very important. I
had reading time on the daily schedule and we read daily. We
read a lot of books. Reading is important. As far as I can
remember, we lived by the schedule religiously. We had to.
Sometimes there were soccer practices. Sometimes church. But now
they are not little and they make and have their own schedules.
I’ve gone a long time without seasonal schedules because my work
schedules always ignored the seasons. But now I’ve created a new
fall schedule. It feels good to have a change, even if it’s just a
small one like get groceries on a different day, or have a
different sleeping schedule, or even throw in a library day. Or
maybe a coffee day. There is something comforting about a
schedule. A routine. Something to count on. I like knowing
what’s going to happen next.
This is why I always enjoy a movie better the second time
around if there’s a lot of action in it. I don’t like tension and
I like to know if someone’s going to die in a movie. That’s why
once I see it, I will really enjoy seeing it again. If I’m with
someone who’s already seen the movie before, I need them to tell
me in advance who dies, etc. I’m weird like that. I’m the
opposite way with books. I don’t want to know anything until it
happens.
But back to schedules and routines. I always feel happier when
I’m in a routine. There is security to it. I think that’s why I
feel so good about my 12-week-year experiment. I have my next
twelve weeks laid out and I know what I’m going to be working
on each week.
I’m going to focus on getting one area in line at a time,
starting with my writing career. Once my work hours are under
control, then I’ll focus on getting my housework systems under
control again.
The good thing is, I’m an optimist.

(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 . . .