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September 27, 2007

Work Spaces

I like the space around me to feel orderly. Not too long ago I used to keep everything very organized - it's one of my few talents. In fact, my younger sister used to hate it because when we were children, if she went into my room and touched any of my things, I could always tell. Now, however, life is much busier, so it's harder to keep on top of everything. Not that my house is a big mess, but sometimes months will go by before I go through the growing pile on my desk.

I am a very visual person, so I took a picture of my office the other day and decided to post it.

My office is actually our unused formal dining room, hence the odd looking light fixture. (We're going to change that one of these days.) My favorite thing in here are the bookshelves we recently bought from a newly opened IKEA store. It feels good to have a place to put all my photo albums and some of my favorite books, as well as keep my works-in-progress organized.

What I'd really like to do is turn our living room into a library with mostly wall to wall bookshelves filled with all the books that are now in boxes in the basement. I also want to have a nice reading corner with a comfortable chair. But in the meantime, I love my office. And really, one of the big reasons I have such a nice one is because for my day job I work from my home office. I probably spend ten hours a day sitting at that desk, so I wanted to make it something I would enjoy.

Truly though, it doesn't matter where I am when I write my novels. In fact, my first two novels were written in a corner of my bedroom. And sometimes I'll unplug my laptop and go to a different room when it's time to do some writing. The point is, as great as it is to have a work space you love, and even if you have one you hate, when it comes to writing, you probably get so lost in your story that it doesn't matter where you are when you are writing it.

September 24, 2007

Setting Goals

Goals are admirable. They help you get things accomplished. That is, assuming you have the discipline to follow through. Maybe that's why I've never been big on setting goals. Why set myself up for failure? Or maybe I'm just lazy and if I change my mind no one has to know. I think the latter reason is the most accurate.

I prefer to just jump into projects and work on them when the desire strikes. For example, when I began writing my first novel I didn't tell anyone I was doing it. I wanted to see how far I could get first. Once I was well into it I think I told my husband, mother, and sister. (It's been ten years so I can't remember exactly.) They were all supportive, but I didn't tell anyone else until finishing the book was pretty much assured.

Anyhow, it all worked out, because I finished that first book and went on to write another that same year, which after many, many revisions was finally published. You can learn more about it here, on my website.

The only problem with this method is that it can take just a touch longer to get things done than if I had an end date in mind. Lest you think I'm completely lazy, keep in mind that once I get my mind set on doing something, I stick to it with the tenaciousness of a pitbull grabbing onto the leg of an unsuspecting passerby.

Now that I've started this blog, I realize that I need to post regularly or no one will bother to check for new posts. Hence, I am officially setting a goal to post at least three times a week. There, I've said it. I've even written it down. Hopefully I can stick to it.

September 19, 2007

Getting on the Blogging Bandwagon

I love reading other people's blogs, especially ones related to writing. I've decided it's high time I start my own blog. The trouble is, I'm so bad about writing in my personal journal (once a year if I'm lucky) it might be a challenge to keep up on this.

But here goes nothing!

Hmmm. What to talk about. I've been reading a fun suspense novel by Traci Hunter Abramson called The Deep End. It's the third in a series and I enjoyed the first two as well. It's about a world class swimmer who is in the Federal Witness Protection Program. CJ, the main character, wants to qualify for the Olympics, but every time she competes she puts herself in danger. There is also the complication of her major league baseball husband, who can't acknowledge that he knows her, let alone is married to her. If you want to know what happens you can read the book for yourself, but it is a fun read.

I've been working on a new novel myself. It's been two years since my first book came out and I'm hopeful that I'll have more published. I don't want to talk about what this book is about because that kind of takes the excitement out of writing it, but it is LDS fiction with romance and suspense.

Other things going on - my husband and I are remodeling one of our bathrooms. It's the bathroom our children use, but it really needs it. We (I use that term loosely since I mostly give suggestions while my husband does all the hard work) gutted the existing bathroom. I mean we took it down to the studs. I'll post some before and after pictures once there is an after. Right now it's going on three weeks and all that "we've" done is put in some wiring for the jetted tub and moved some plumbing so said tub will fit properly. Oh yeah, my husband also put a window in. This bathroom is on an outer wall, so I don't know why it didn't have a window to start with, but it looks so much better already.


Ok. I couldn't resist showing you how yucky the bathroom looked. It's nearly 25 years old. But below is how it looks so far. You can't really tell much, but you can see the pretty new window.

This room is pretty tiny, but I'm sure it will look good after the new tile, vanity, granite countertop, toilet, tub are put in. You name it, it's new. I hope the kids appreciate it.