Life in progress

Category Archives: Life


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JusJoJan25 & #SoCS the 18th – Packing it in

This post is part of Just Jot it January and my weekly prompt, Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Find the prompt and see how you can join in HERE.

Well, my laptop is starting to sound like it’s going to pack it in again. And today it got hot enough that I had to turn it off.

But how am I going to pick another computer that will serve me as well as this one has?

I’ve thought about buying a Mac.

But that sounds too much like having to relearn things I no longer have to think about.

But enough whining about technology.

I need prompts!

Go here and give me one if you’re planning to join in on the rest of Just Jot it January. Or if you’ve been participating up ’til now.

I’m making a list of people who have already submitted prompts this month in case I don’t get ten from bloggers who haven’t already done so.

I’ll start on that list at 10am Sunday (tomorrow).

Peck pock puck.

Yes, I cheated. *runs away with the bonus points*

This sneaky post is part of Just Jot it January and SoCS! Want to join in? Just click here to get to the prompt and drop your link. It’s fun!

2019-2020 SoCS Badge by Shelley! https://www.quaintrevival.com/

 


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JusJoJan25 the 17th – News and announcements

This post is part of Just Jot it January, and there’s no prompt word! Today is a free-for-all, whatever-you-want-to-write day. Find the post to link your post to here!

First, my most pressing news.

My laptop is fixed! For the time being.

I took it to Best Buy and found out the noise coming from it can’t be the hard drive because its an SSD and there are no moving parts inside.

Then I got the bad news—the fan, which is making the noise—can’t be replaced.

So the nice Geek (of Geek Squad fame) took my dear laptop to the back, took it apart, and blew air on the fan to clean the dust out.

And voila! No more horrible noise! For now at least.

I did some research on SSD hard drives though, and it seems when they die, it’s really hard to get data off of them. So I’m going to back up my stuff religiously from now on!

In announcements:

First off, I want to give everyone a heads-up that the second “Prompt Me” post is coming tomorrow, Saturday January 18th, at 10am EST. So make sure you get here early if you want to provide a prompt for one of the remaining ten (yes! only ten!) slots.

I’ll give first dibs to people who didn’t get in with their prompt word in the first half of the month, so if I’ve already used your word this year, please wait until it’s been at least 24 hours before you come back with a second one.

And finally, in book news, Rocked: A Romantic Comedy is free!

I’ll leave it that way through my birthday next week, then the price will go back up to $4.99. So if you don’t already have it, get it now!

Get it at the following retailers:

 
 
And that’s it for this premier free-for-all no-prompt prompt post.
 
Cheers with morning coffee!

This exciting post is part of Just Jot it January! Want to join in? Just click here to get to the prompt and drop your link. It’s fun!


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JusJoJan25 the 16th – Personalities

This post is part of Just Jot it January, and the prompt word, “personality,” comes to us from Astrid. Check out her blog here!

In a way, I’m jealous of authors who can plot and plan a novel or an entire series before they start writing. I haven’t published a full-length novel in a year because I’ve been busy writing three of them in a continuing series, and I’m afraid to release the first one in case the details in the third one require a change at the beginning of the overall story.

All this because I’m a discovery writer, or a “pantser,” as we often call writers who write by the seat of their pants. I love being a pantser—finding out what’s going to happen in my story and to my characters as I write is both fun and fascinating.

Many times for me, an entire book will start with a single personality. And often, that personality will come to me from listening to a character’s voice and seeing them in my head.

It’s basically how I wrote my “Second Seat on the Right” series. Click for a random episode.

Because my stories are character-driven, personality is essential to pin down. Personality can often help me to decide what situations to put them in.

In Creamed, my latest release for instance, Tom comes to town and inadvertently steals Mary’s business at the Christmas market where they both have booths. If not for Tom’s strong feelings on the subject of fairness (he hates unfairness), the story might have gone a completely different way.

In other words, the personalities of characters have a lot to do with conflict and its resolution, and therefore, plot.

And that’s my lecture story structure for the day. Not sure how I came to this point, but here we are.

(Seriously, I didn’t plot this post ahead of time. 😏)

This wandering post is part of Just Jot it January! Want to join in? Just click here to get to the prompt and drop your link. It’s fun!

Thanks again to Astrid for the prompt!


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JusJoJan25 the 14th – The initiative

This post is part of Just Jot it January, and the prompt word, “initiative,” comes to us from Fandango. Check out his blog here!

I never realized until I sat down to write this post how hard it is to take the initiative when you’re solely responsible for your work.

The first two definitions from Dictionary.com are:

1. the ability to assess and initiate things independently

If I didn’t, I’d do nothing at all.

2. the power or opportunity to act or take charge before others do.

There are no others. There’s only me.

Back when I worked for other people, I loved taking the initiative.

Thinking about it again, maybe now I’m taking all the initiative.

Hmm.

This pondering post is part of Just Jot it January! Want to join in? Just click here to get to the prompt and drop your link. It’s fun!

Thanks again to Fandango for the prompt!


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JusJoJan25 the 13th – Embrace the chaos

This post is part of Just Jot it January, and the prompt word, “embrace,” comes to us from Laura. Check out her blog here!

I’m trying. But it’s hard, I tell ya.

I mean, there’s always going to be chaos. Life is unpredictable, right? And no matter how determined we are to make our plans come to light, something is bound to throw its own brand of poopstorm into the mix.

So what is a girl to do?

Embrace the chaos.

Make friends with it, tell it to come on in and do its worst, because its going to come in whether it’s invited or not.

All the things that can go wrong, from the little stuff I’ve learned to deal with like WordPress absolutely refusing to change the title of a copied post unless I go out of it and come back in again (am I the only one?), or putting stress-related heartburn in my life almost every day for the last five years … I’ve got to try to go with the flow.

Because fighting it just isn’t helping.

This surrender-y post is part of Just Jot it January! Want to join in? Just click here to get to the prompt and drop your link. It’s fun!

Thanks again to Laura for the prompt!


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JusJoJan25 the 12th – Notifications on

This post is part of Just Jot it January, and the prompt word, “notifications,” comes to us courtesy of Sadje. Check out her blog here!

Sometime in the last week or so, I wrote about my poor old laptop and that I was going to take her into the shop to either get her fixed or replace her.

Well, I think she heard me. Or maybe she got upset that I wrote my JusJoJan post on another computer, because lo and behold, when I turned her on to get a file off her that day, she stopped making the horrible noise that made me determined to take her in.

In other words, she knew she was on notice to behave.

Well, today the noise came back.

So I’m here posting on my other computer again.

I’m tempted to try starting the old gal up again to see if she’ll behave for another week—after all, if I hadn’t done it last time, I’d have been at the Geek Squad counter swearing up and down that really, the hard drive was making a noise. Honest! Just like that rattle the car was making before you took it to the mechanic. Machines, I tell you!

So I’m not sure what I’ll do.

Either way, the saga will surely continue.

Stay tuned.

This rather frustrated post is part of Just Jot it January. Want to join in? Just click here to get to the prompt and drop your link. It’s fun!

Thanks again to Sadje for the prompt!


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JusJoJan25 & #SoCS the 11th – It’s the little things

This post is part of Just Jot it January and my weekly prompt, Stream of Consciousness Saturday. Find the prompt and see how you can join in HERE.

It’s the little things …

A row of knitting on top of a row of knitting that eventually makes a blanket.

A piece of paper I no longer need shredded and put out for recycling.

A word on my blog that leads to the next.

Without the little things, I’d never wrap my head around the idea that I can get the big things done.

Problem is, there’s always another big thing waiting to get done.

Still, I like the idea of the little things.

It’s the little things that make me happy.

This little post is part of Just Jot it January and SoCS! Want to join in? Just click here to get to the prompt and drop your link. It’s fun!

2019-2020 SoCS Badge by Shelley! https://www.quaintrevival.com/

 


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JusJoJan25 the 10th – Echoes of Past Posts

This post is part of Just Jot it January, and the prompt word, “echo,” comes to us courtesy of Dan. Check out his blog here!

I wonder sometimes if my posts are just echoes of posts I’ve already written. That I’m repeating myself.

I’m sure I do.

I’m slowly becoming one of those mums whose family rolls their eyes when I say at the dinner table, “I’m not sure if I’ve told you this …” and then proceed to tell a story they’ve heard a hundred times.

It’s the more friendly, more family and friend oriented version of “Get off my lawn!”

So yeah, I’m sure I’ve done it here. I have 3,772 posts on this blog, and only about 560 of them are Friday reminders for SoCS.

But you guys are like family, right?

You can put up with a bit of repetitiveness. ❤

 

This forgetful old lady-likenostalgic post is part of Just Jot it January. Want to join in? Just click here to get to the prompt and drop your link. It’s fun!

Thanks again to Dan for the prompt!


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JusJoJan25 the 9th – Shy?

This post is part of Just Jot it January, and the prompt word, “shy,” comes to us courtesy of Di. Check out her blog here!

I don’t think I’ve been shy since I was a child. I do remember being shy, but at some point I must have figured out that if I didn’t stand up for myself, I wasn’t going to get what I wanted.

Figure skating helped a fair bit too—yes, I was terrified to get out there on the ice and skate in front of people when I was doing a test, a competition, or a show, but I had no choice. I got over it.

Still don’t ask me to speak in public. My mouth won’t work properly.

So now, I’m quite vocal when I’m advocating for my kids. I hate conflict, but I’m not shy if it’s important.

But advocating for myself when it comes to selling my books?

Ugh.

I don’t know if it’s shyness as much as it is imposter syndrome or just not wanting to put anyone out, but yeah. After eight years of publishing, I still have a problem with it.

Unless I have a free book on offer.

(See how I slipped that in there?)

This rambling post is part of Just Jot it January. Want to join in? Just click here to get to the prompt and drop your link. It’s fun!

Thanks again to Di for the prompt!


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JusJoJan25 the 7th – Pernickety technology

This post is part of Just Jot it January, and the prompt word, “pernickety,” comes to us from Ritu. Check out her blog here!

I tell you, if it’s not one thing, it’s another.

My laptop is dying. The hard drive is gasping out its last laboured breaths. It’s old (in laptop years), it’s reliable, it’s fast (still Windows 10), and I’m reluctant to let it go. I’ll take it to Best Buy today and see if it’s worth replacing the hard drive in it. And the battery because that’s almost gone too. And maybe the fan …

In the meantime, I’m on my newest laptop, a pernickety thing that came with Windows 11 even though I suspect it only just passed the specs to handle it by a whisker.

It’s too slow to do a video chat on Facebook, which I do with a friend every evening while we do writing sprints. It shuts down every once in a while without warning, so writing this post on it is far from ideal. It’s just … okay as a word processor as long as Word is doing auto updates on One Drive.

So yeah.

Wish me luck at Best Buy today. Fingers crossed I won’t have to say goodbye to my old reliable Asus Windows 10 laptop.

This rather ranty post is part of Just Jot it January! Want to join in? Just click here to get to the prompt and drop your link. It’s fun!

Thanks again to Ritu for the prompt!