Category: Writing

Yoga and throwing Photoshop pots

A bit cloudy during the thinking walk

This week, I did the Photoshop equivalent of “throwing lots of pots,” to borrow a pottery phrase. I followed along with the instructor in my Photoshop tutorials and made I don’t know how many covers. After I completed one, I zipped off to create another.

By Friday, I felt I’d done enough inputting that I decided to play around with a concept for The Pansy Paradox. And … I think I have one. Maybe. It’s not at the sharing stage yet, but I’m pleased that I have something that someday may resemble a cover.

In any case, I’m looking forward to what else may pop up in the coming week.

In other news, I’ve started up yoga again. I fell off for a bit, for a variety of reasons (balance issues, injury, Italy). But it was one of the things that helped me survive the day job. So, I wondered whether it would help me thrive in my new full-time writing gig.

So far? I think yes. It’s been about two weeks, and I already feel better physically. And, people! Breath work! I’d forgotten how important breath work is.

So today, I’m going to breathe a little bit more and have Sunday brunch with my kids. Hope your Sunday is just as enjoyable.

Seven months in: another reality check

A view from my thinking-walk route

January 3rd of this year was my last day of work. After my final check-in with my manager, she told me to go ahead and log off at noon. So I did, and had my work laptop boxed and at FedEx in less than thirty minutes.

Note: It helped that the closest FedEx Office is about two miles away.

I figured that August 3rd is a good day to do another reality check. So, how’s it going?

In retrospect, pretty good.

  • I completed two paper edits of The Pansy Paradox and one of the bonus novella, The Capstone Conundrum. Yes, I love me some alliteration.
  • I’ve sent both books to my proofreader.
  • I regularly have coffee dates with a friend from my former workplace who is also a writer. This has been wonderful.
  • I attended the Author Platform Growth Summit, which focused on mindset, resiliency, sustainability, and alignment in an author career, rather than tactics, toxic productivity, and the hustle and grind.
  • I finally bought my Mac Studio and have dived headfirst into Photoshop.
  • I completed a read-through of The Marigold Miracle, and now I’m musing and bread-machining my way to a second draft.
  • I planted my cottage garden.
  • I’ve been taking lots of long (thinking) walks.

One thing that really stands out: None of the above feels like work. That doesn’t mean it’s without effort, or that I don’t get tired, or overwhelmed by information.

What doesn’t exist anymore in my day-to-day working life is this:

No context switching (h/t Cal Newport). The first thing I do with technology in the day is either write or use Photoshop. No email and no social media. I may have a browser open to a stock image site or Adobe fonts, or whatever. But that’s it.

No hyper-active hive mind and no pseudo productivity (h/t also Cal Newport). I do not miss Microsoft Teams or VPs/senior directors sliding into Teams chat on the regular. I really don’t miss unending email threads where someone copies me on a discussion because it “might” be a documentation issue. (And to be clear, everyone involved would love to make it a documentation issue—well, except documentation.)

So work? Doesn’t feel like work. I do want to stress that I still get tired, still need weekends to give my brain a break. But I don’t get the Sunday scaries. In fact, I really love Monday mornings.

And I couldn’t be more grateful.

Author Platform Growth Summit

I’ve been attending the virtual Author Platform Growth Summit for the past five days, hosted by the Better-Faster Academy and Becca Syme.

It’s been amazing. But.

My brain is mush.

Still, it was an extraordinary conference. I’m so glad I attended, and now I need to stare at some wildflowers and process all the information.

Returning wildflowers (that we planted last year)

Rainbows, sunsets, and bread machines

So on Monday evening, the sky decided to present us with this:

A rainbow to the east and a sunset to the west!

Rainbow over our house
Sunset from the back deck

I’ve been decidedly in bread machine mode with book two (The Marigold Miracle). I’ve been reviewing the draft—slowly—making notes, and then letting everything simmer or churn or do whatever it is my brain does when I’m not paying attention.

It’s nice to really embrace and refine my bread-machine way of writing. I already have some (what I hope are) nifty ideas for draft two. When I wrote the original draft, I knew that the initial scenes would not be the first scenes of the book. But, at the time, I simply needed a way into the story and those scenes worked for that.

It’s not flashy, but I’m pleased with this progress. I’ve also made a dent in all those Photoshop tutorials as well this week. And since the air quality here is awful and I’m stuck inside, that’s what I’m going to do next.

A clean sweep

So this feels bigger than quitting my job. This week, I took the plunge and bought a brand-new desktop system.

Y’all, it took me forever to decide to do this. (Okay, more like five and a half months—but it felt like forever.) I’ve needed a new system for a while now. My all-in-one PC is fine for admin and hobbies, but not for Photoshop.

Even after researching new PCs and having my son help with some of the specs, I was still undecided. It took a while (again, forever), but I finally realized why.

What I actually needed was a Mac.

Cue additional thinking here.

While I use Vellum (Mac only) to create ebook and print files, I could get along fine with a PC setup. I could always rent a Mac in Cloud and do it that way. But it isn’t exactly a streamlined process. And since I’m going all in, I might as well go all in.

So this week, I bought a Mac Studio. Y’all, it’s a beast. 64 GB of RAM. I also have a 27-inch monitor. It didn’t like talking to my Logitech keyboard at first, but it all worked out after some time and (much) swearing.

Since the heat dome means that I can’t garden this weekend (except to water), I’ve been setting up my new system and also clearing out and reorganizing my desk.

Because here’s the other thing: part of it is psychological as well. My desk still looks like the setup I had for when I was working remotely. I couldn’t write there—at all. I do my drafting at the kitchen table, and really, that’s not an ergonomic solution.

So, here’s hoping! I’m going to finish up clearing out my desk today. I have a stack of Photoshop tutorials just waiting for me. I’m excited to get started.

Wish me luck.

Briefly

Brief update today, as I’ve seemed to have picked up a slight summer cold.

  • Admin day worked well this past week. I ended up scoring another Chirp deal, and I’m pleased about that.
  • I (nearly) finished the revision of the bonus novella (which has a name: The Capstone Conundrum). I have one or two notions that I want to add, but then I’m moving on to The Pansy Paradox.
  • Because … I’m thinking I can publish both The Pansy Paradox and The Capstone Conundrum this October. Fingers crossed.

And, of course, a duckling check-in. Look how they’ve grown!

Mama duck and her growing ducklings!

Make way for admin days and ducklings

This week, I tried something a little bit different. I decided to take an admin day during the week, one where I didn’t write, but used that morning focus time for writing and publishing-related tasks instead.

Usually, I’d tackle one or two of those after my writing session. But you know what? After my writing session (about 3 – 4 hours of deep work), my brain is done. I don’t want to sit at the computer and do more stuff. It’s enough to clear out my email, comment on a blog post or two, and then head outside.

So, I thought, why not try an admin day during the week, use that focus time to knock out several publishing and personal admin tasks. Not only will I get things done (that need doing), but I can bring fresh energy to the tasks.

Additionally, if I schedule the day mid-week, I can also let my subconscious do some story simmering as well.

I think this might work. At any rate, I’m going to experiment with one admin day per week this month and evaluate the results once July arrives.

In other news? Well, ducklings!

Mama duck and all her ducklings, in a pond along the park/nature trail

The wisdom of weekends

I’ve been experimenting with time management and how I want my days to look like now that I can set my own schedule.

One thing is becoming clear:

There’s wisdom in taking weekends and time off.

Back in January and February, I was writing seven days a week. I was so darn excited to have the time and head space (especially the head space) to write. Book two was simply waiting for the cognitive overload from my corporate job to clear out so I could write.

Then, I needed a break. I know this about myself. I’m what Becca Syme calls a bread machine writer. In her article Why Isn’t This Easier, she writes about bread machines (the writers, not the appliance):

Your brain is wired like a bread machine, so the easier books to work on are the ones where you’ve had more time to put all the ingredients inside the machine and let it sit for a long time. But when you become a professional writer (even if you’re not writing full-time), you don’t get to spend years thinking about a book, unless you’re GRRM. So, when you take away part of the way your brain functions creatively best, it becomes more and more difficult to complete the process.

I need time to think, both long term—hey, I’ve been musing on The Pansy Paradox and the series for a decade, y’all—and short term.

So, maybe it’s an afternoon when I head to the garden center and look at all the plants (I know, I know; I’m running out of space.) Maybe it’s a trip to Half-Price Books to restock the Little Free Library.

In any case, I’m taking a conscious look at my schedule. I’m questioning why I do things when I do them and considering whether there’s a better way for me to do what I want and need to do.

Today? The siren song of the garden center is calling my name. (Can you hear it? I can definitely hear it.) Yesterday was the Guthrie Theater and Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap.

All in all, not a bad weekend. (And would you look at the Mississippi. We got a lot of rain last week.)

A study in contrasts

This week, Tuesday morning:

This week, Wednesday morning:

There’s still snow on the ground, but the roads are clear and dry enough for walking. And most importantly? No patches of ice. And while there’s a wintery mix in our future for Saturday, this week looks amazing for walking. I’m planning on doing a lot.

Also? Daylight Saving Time. I used to hate losing that extra hour of sleep, but now I’m so grateful to have more sunshine later in the day that I don’t mind so much.

In writing, I worked on those debriefing transcripts I mentioned last week. It’s almost like I’m a fly on the wall, listening in. (I mean, assuming flies care about eavesdropping and not simply their next meal.) There are plot points I need to address. But I also want these conversations to unfold naturally, depending on who’s doing the debriefing.

In other news, I have embarked on spring cleaning. Wish me luck.

Another art adventure

I went on another art adventure this week, this time to the Minneapolis Institute of Art. It’s been ages since I’ve been, and I really need to go again later in the year. I want to revisit the Otto Dix War Portfolio before it leaves in August.

For some reason, this painting by Eugene-Louis Boudin caught my eye, so I went in for a closer look. It’s called Vacationers on the Beach at Trouville. It is also the first painting purchased by the MIA after it opened in 1915.

This Van Gogh. That’s all. This Van Gogh.

Also, apparently, the MIA thought I was in the market for a new writing desk because they kept offering up a variety of options:

In writing-related news (without a fancy new desk), I’ve been working on that second plotline for The Marigold Miracle. Some of the scenes are actually debriefing transcripts, so they’re dialogue-heavy with some sound effects. They’ve been challenging and fun to write.