NaNoWriMo 2020, Week 4, and the Home Stretch
Through Sunday, November 22, my total word count is 77,400 words. The NaNoWriMo pace for that period is 36,674 words, and the pace I set for myself of 2,000 words/day would have put me at 44,000. Although my pace is slowing from the blistering 4,000 words/day of the first week, I am continuing to make […]
NaNoWriMo 2020: Well, I Did It. Now What?
From the start of the month through Sunday, November 15, I wrote over 57,000 words on my next novel. Whew! So, I satisfied the NaNoWriMo target of 50,000 words in a month. I actually hit 50,000 on Friday the 13th, so I guess it was a lucky day for me. The NaNoWriMo pace through November […]
NaNoWriMo 2020, Week 2 Is Underway
On Sunday, November 8, I hit 30,000 words! The NaNoWriMo pace for that period is 13,336 words, and my personal pace of 2,000 words/day is 16,000. So I have blown past my goals. I have never written 30,000 words in a month, let alone in eight days. And I’ve been amazed at how much fun […]
NaNoWriMo 2020, Off To a Great Start
I’ve mentioned NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) before—the national endeavor by authors around the world to write 50,000 words on their novels during the month of November. I’ve always had excuses for why I shouldn’t participate. The timing never seemed right. I’ve never written more than 20,000 words in a month. Plus, there’s Thanksgiving and […]
Steamboat Competition on the Willamette River in the 1860s
I’m trying to find business interests for one of my characters in my next Oregon historical novel. The novel is set in 1864, and Oregon didn’t yet have any railroads, other than a few small portages around falls on the rivers. But there was active steamboat competition along the Columbia and Willamette Rivers. The People’s […]
Random Photo: My Ninja & Pumpkin . . . A Simpler World Before the Pandemic
I hadn’t intended to write about a random photo today. I was looking for a specific photo to write about, but in my (unsuccessful) search for that snapshot, I found these Halloween pictures. Since this is the season for all things pumpkin, I will write about them. Thus, while these photos were a random find, […]
Balancing Humility With Confidence
I saw a post recently titled “The Timeless Writing Struggle: Ego vs. Humility” by Karen Debonis on the Writers in the Storm website that struck home for me. Ms. Debonis had written a memoir, and she described how she went from believing that her early draft would be a “runaway bestseller,” to realizing she had […]
Hallmarket Is Virtual!
Since 2009, Hallmark Cards has held an annual art festival outside its headquarters facility in Kansas City. This festival, called Hallmarket, showcases the artistic creations of Hallmark employees and retirees apart from their work for Hallmark. And Hallmark employees have marvelous and varied talents. This year, because of the pandemic, Hallmarket is virtual. And for […]
Which Would I Rather Be—a Recluse or a Hermit?
I used to debate with myself whether I would rather be a recluse or a hermit after I retired. I could never decide for sure. All I knew was that I suspected I would want less human contact, rather than more, as I aged. The definitions of the two words are quite similar. Merriam-Webster says […]
An Autumn Walk at Sunset
Last Saturday evening I took a walk after dinner. I had intended to stay on the neighborhood sidewalks, but a gaggle of high-school girls all gussied up for homecoming pictures stopped me. They and their mothers were having such a good time, even during this pandemic, that I didn’t want to interrupt. So I turned […]