On Thanksgiving and Writing by Bonnie Le Hamilton

Have you ever said something, then instantly regretted it? And have you ever done that, then within minutes decide it wasn’t a mistake? I had this happen to me just last month.

A couple weeks before Nano started, I attended a meeting with my local Nano group, where one of our leaders first asked what they planned to write that year. As she went around the room for our responses, I didn’t think about my answer, even though I had no idea what I would write at all. I thought about how Konnie had recently finished the rough draft of a massive sci-fi.

With that on my mind, when my turn came, I announced I was going to break away from my norm and try my hand at sci-fi. Even as I said it I told myself I was being a fool. I never write anything that isn’t romance, and I still didn’t have an idea.

Then our leader presented us with several prompts and a time limit. I was drawing a blank. I still didn’t even know what I was going to write. Sci-fi? What was I thinking? Okay, I was thinking if Konnie can, so can I.

And well, I had started a sci-fi months ago, and set aside because researching and taking notes became too much for me, I’d been overwhelmed, so it was crazy to even think I could write a whole sci-fi, it was too much work.

I did try to work with the prompts, but still nothing, until one of them she gave us got me thinking. What would Nick have on him that reminded him of his missing brother? I didn’t get my answer right then, but it was a spark.

Her next set of prompts included writing a letter from the main character at the end of the book to the main character at the beginning of the book. Interesting.

I wrote two sentences. Two powerful sentences that really said it all. That night I went home, pulled out my computer, dug out my old discarded file, and started writing notes and two versions of an “ancient” tale from the worlds I was creating. I even wrote an outline! Me, the consummate pantser, wrote an outline, or at least a partial one. And I went through the two scenes I did have adding details, and information, I hadn’t had originally.

On November first, I thought I had enough outline to last me the month. I ran out of that during week two, but not ideas. I’ve a long way to go before I finish this story, or rather, these stories. 😊 And I’m already over seventy-five thousand words! Wahoo!

Have you ever been blessed with a story which won’t let go, or which snowballs on you into a massive tome? I know Konnie’s answer, what’s yours? And have you remembered to be thankful for this blessing?

Happy writing everyone!  😊

Of Being a Grandmother Or Not by Konnie Enos

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it or not, but I’m not yet a grandma even though I have relatives younger than I am who are. In fact, the oldest of my brothers has recently joined the ranks of younger relatives who are now grandparents. My eminent admission into that club has not been announced though I’m clearly old enough to join evidenced in the fact that my oldest is now married.

I have also known for nearly a decade that my three youngest kids have classmates whose grandparents are around the same age as my husband and I are. Not really surprising.

I can remember taking my oldest daughter to a mother/daughter activity at her school one year. I was one of the oldest mothers there. Only one mother was older than me, the one that was there with her youngest of several children. Those mothers who were there with their oldest child were all still in their twenties. At nearly 40 I really stuck out.

Since I am so much older than my youngest children, I have had a few instances where someone mistook me for my child’s grandmother. Once a couple of years ago Royce had to have his new glasses adjusted and went back into the busy office without me to accomplish it. A few minutes later he came out with a perplexed looked on his face.

I led him out of the building while I asked, “What’s the matter?”

“Do I have a grandma?”

Well that was kind of out of left field so I asked what brought it on. Apparently the lady who adjusted his glasses had told him to “go back to your grandma”.

Then just the other day he and I were again in a busy doctor’s office. This one was so busy there wasn’t enough seats to go around in the waiting room. He ended up sitting on the floor between the chair I was sitting in and the door to the office.

When we moved into another room, there was still a lack of chairs and he was, true to his nature, complaining, this time about having to sit on the floor. One of the workers essentially chewed him out for begrudging me the only remaining seat, finally saying, “You have to show your grandma some respect.”

I know I glared at the poor woman. “I am not his grandma.”

I kid you not, it was the next day before it even dawned on me that my father had his first grandchild when he was 38 years old. Now guess how old I was when my youngest son was born.

Guess.

I’m going to assume that you surmised I was 38, which is a great assumption. My youngest was born two months before my thirty-----NINETH birthday.

Of course there is also when my sister-in-law called to announce the birth of her granddaughter she told me I was finally a great aunt and asked if it made me feel old.

Sorry no. My oldest great niece is an adult. In fact so is her little brother. Though their cousins are still in grade school. Of course all of those are the grandkids of my husband’s youngest sister. On my side I’d have to admit this newest addition is my only great niece. Counting me and all five of my siblings, said brother is the only one who is a grandparent, so far.

Unless of course you’re counting grandbabies with fur or feathers, I’ve got a few of those.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

November 8th by Bonnie Le Hamilton

Its November, and I should be thinking about my Nano project, and adding to those 25,000+ words I already have written this month on my first every sci-fi, but well, today is November 8^th and I can’t help but think about what I was doing 31 years ago today.

All those years ago, I was a rather nervous young woman, who was so jittery she couldn’t even set a zipper in a dress. My mother insisted it was just nerves not my inability to do zippers, but frankly, I’m still positive it was my ineptness. She finally took the dress from me and put the zipper in herself, using Grandma’s old treadle machine.

And thus, started one of the most memorable days of my life.

The day I walked down the aisle and exchanged rings with the most wonderful man ever, and we should be celebrating; instead I’m missing him.

And instead of writing, instead of figuring out the next scene in my story, instead of wondering why I finally have a main character that is an identical twin for change, I’m sitting staring at wedding pictures. We were so young, so in love, and so unready for everything that life would throw at us, but we managed to stay together until cancer took him from me.

Sometimes, it isn’t easy to get over a loss like that.

Maybe one day I’ll write a story about that. Until then, happy writing, everybody!

Busy Mom by Bonnie Le Hamilton

Last week when I posted, Konnie recognized that today would be her turn, and it would also be payday, a busy day for her. Sunday she knew she had to get her post written in advance, because there was no way she'd have time this  morning. Then life got in the way and it is suddenly Wednesday morning! 

Be it known she's fine, just very busy shuttling kids hither and tither as well as paying bills and other such chores that always falls to her.

Happy writing everyone! 

Nano Advice by Bonnie Le Hamilton

It’s October. For most that means Halloween, and all that goes with it, but for a growing number of writers that means gearing up for National Novel Writer’s month, https://nanowrimo.org, especially if you’re a planner. I’m not much for doing that. I might draw a map or a floor plan, but I’ve never written an outline. So, I can’t give advice about how to do that.

As the days move quickly toward the start, I thought I’d impart some wisdom I’ve learned from all the years I’ve been doing this to all those first timers out there. And I think I’ll begin by saying, if you miss the start, don’t look at where others are and say you’ll never catch up, you don’t know what tomorrow will bring. Tomorrow they may hit a roadblock. Don’t give up. This is really more about what you can do, not what others can do. And it doesn’t matter who reaches the finish line first; everyone who accomplishes 50k in the month wins.

And if I can pound out 40k in just fourteen days, as I did this past July for Camp Nano, you can come from behind and produce 50k in whatever time you have left of the month. (If you type really fast, unlike me, you might even be able to manage 50k in a week.) Though I wouldn’t want to make a habit of it.

Which is my next point. Don’t leave it until the last minute. Just remember the old Aesop’s Fable about the Tortoise and Hare. The Hare was fast, but only in spurts, and he didn’t win. He got distracted; he lost focus. Keep that moral in mind. Over the years I’ve been participating, I’ve seen people who typed almost nonstop for the last twenty-four hours, madly trying to finish, and several didn't because they had too far to go. Even they couldn’t type that fast.

Then there’s me, I’ve completed all the Nano’s I’ve entered, except last year, and that was because I had a concussion and couldn’t. (One of those I wasn’t able validate my efforts, but I did meet the goal.) And the only time I was typing like mad was the aforementioned Camp Nano this past July, which was all my fault, because I spent too long editing instead of writing.

Generally, I take the tortoise approach to writing. Slow and steady wins the race. It won’t win a Word War, but it will get me to the finish line, often before the winners of all those Word Wars.

Actually, I know a lady who could type three or four times faster than I can, but she always ended up doing some all-nighters near the end, and not always to success. Sure, she could type fast − that didn’t help.

My advice is to make time to write at least six days a week. Notably, if you find you have minute, or two, take it! Because tomorrow you may not get that much. Steal every second you can find to reach your goal. That way, you won’t have to depend on some mythical chunk of time off somewhere in the future, which may disappear like a mirage; use what you know you have, it might be your only chance.

And most importantly, Happy writing everyone. 😊

Birthday Memories by Konnie Enos

This morning I woke up way too early to the jarring of my alarm. As I started moving through my morning I contemplated how that was the usual way to wake up, unless you didn’t have obligations like work or school.

Then I realized what day it was and clearly remembered waking up rather suddenly on this very day and it was fairly early in the morning. Not as early as today but considering at the time I had no place to be that day, I had no reason to get up before seven a.m.

I looked at the time while I wondered what had bolted me from sound asleep to sitting up and then I contemplated returning to sleep since it was so early. But then I decided I could just start tackling my nice long to-do list which I was bound and determined to finish before the pending arrival of my first child who was due in three days or better yet my husband, whose ship was due back in port the next day. I wanted to get most of it done that day.

So I got up and started with a bath.

While bathing I noticed when I moved sometimes I seemed to lose control of my bladder and squirted, just a little bit. It was bothersome but not irritating. Then while I was eating I felt a contraction about the same time I “squirted” a little bit again. Only this time I knew I didn’t have to use the bathroom.

Well it wasn’t that gush everyone had told me about and I had been having those “practice” contractions so being totally unsure I did the most logical thing I could. I called a nurse. Specifically my stepmother.

I called home and Dad said she was at work though in explaining why I was calling he said he thought I might be in labor and told me to call my stepmother at work. I did.

I told her why I was calling, even asked if she could get off early. I was in luck. It was a slow day and she’d just asked to be let off early if possible. She also believed I was in labor. By then I was starting to be able to time the contractions.

Since I wasn’t about to drive anywhere while in labor my to-do list went out the window. I don’t think I did much other than sit around and try to keep myself calm and entertained while I waited for her to get off work. I did call my best friend and she came over and kept me company while I waited.

Fortunately this was, after all, my first baby. We all figured I had plenty of time to get to the hospital.

Mom put in eight, rather than twelve hours, before she got off work then came right over. But my contractions were still far enough apart that the three of us just sat, visiting for some time after she arrived.

At around dinner time we finally took my friend home, then went to get gas and Mom some fast food. Then we started the half-hour drive to the hospital.

The funny part is because of my having a contraction, she missed the exit and we had to do a turn around. And we still made it to the hospital in plenty of time.

Clarissa Anne Enos Plagmann was born a few minutes before midnight, twenty-six years ago today.

Happy Birthday sweetie.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

Nano by Bonnie Le Hamitlon

National Novel Writer’s month is fast approaching, and I don’t have any innovative ideas for a story. In fact, of late all the stories I seem to be formulating have the same basic premise. Maybe if I ever manage to finish one of these stories, I’ll get that idea out of my head and I can move on to other things.

And I can’t get over how fast this year has gone. It seems like one minute it was June and I had plenty of time to come up with a premise, and the next it was October. Of course, back in July and August I did do a lot of writing.

I did do Camp Nano this year for the first time, and I worked on the story I started last November (the Nano I didn’t complete because a speeding drunk didn’t see the red light.) I did get quite a bit done on that story during Camp Nano, and I even finished the challenge, big time. I just didn’t reach “The End”.

And I should have continued working on it during August, but well, even before I dove into that challenge, my mind kept going back to another story of mine. (I know I already mentioned this.) I liked the premise for the story, I didn’t like how I had it opening.

Anyway, come August, I started over from scratch on that story and beat my July totals in like two weeks! I was moving right along, then long before I finished that story (though making more headway then I had previously) I got to thinking about another one of my unfinished stories.

All through the month of September I tried to stick to the August story, but kept going back to my latest one.

Frankly, I’m beginning to wonder how I ever managed to get any stories to “The End” at all the way I keep coming up blank on the story I’m trying to work on while yet another story invades my imagination. I have so many unfinished stories you would think I never finish anything.

But I have. I have reached “The End” six times, though I then later lost the first six chapters of one of those and I’ve yet to recreate or fix that problem. And I have a few which are way over the preferred word count for my genre, but they aren’t anywhere near a stopping point. And frankly, I think that might just be why I’m blocked on those stories, which is rather dumb after all the times I told Konnie not to worry about her word count and to just get her story down.

Maybe it’s time I took my own advice.

Happy writing everyone. 😊