Of Headaches and Writing by Bonnie Le Hamilton

 

I hate blank pages. It can be hard to think about what to write, and lately, thinking hasn’t been easy. You see, I have a headache. I’ve had this headache for just over a week.

Try to do any writing when you can’t even think.

Of course, you can't edit a blank page, so I have to find the words somewhere.

Regarding writing in general, I haven’t done much more than rereading some of my older stories. It isn’t like I don’t have ideas running through my head, it's just that when faced with this screen, the ideas run away leaving me with the pain in my head.

For instance, I opened one of my unfinished manuscripts and I knew I really needed to add one detail in, and in several places rework things. I reread the whole thing and didn’t make a single change! Even when I got to the place, I knew I needed to make the most significant change, I just read it and moved on.

And when it comes to my sci-fi, well, I’m still on the first book, but my brain, when it wants to work is stuck on the second book.

Do you remember when I lamented that the twin brother of the hero in my first book wasn’t talking to me? Well, he’s talking now! I’m not ready for his POV.

And with a headache, I can’t think straight enough to work on my sci-fi anyway.

So, anyway, I haven’t gotten much done at all the last couple of weeks other than trying to get rid of this headache. My doctor prescribed me pain meds and is working on getting me a sleep study done. Looks like I need a C-PAP machine.

Man, I didn’t want to go there.

Hopefully, once I can get a decent night’s sleep again, I will be able to concentrate enough to do more than just stare at the screen.

Even now I doubt I’ll be able to get a full post done. My head hurts too much and frankly, I didn’t get enough sleep last night fretting over this post.

Anyway, I tried.

I hope all of you are doing better than I am.

Happy writing everyone.

Of Knowledge and Over Confidence by Konnie Enos

Not only am I a college-educated person, but I grew up in a household with a person we affectionately nicknamed Dictionary. This is because she loved to read the dictionary and learn new words, which she took great pleasure in teaching to us, her younger sisters. We, of course, eagerly soaked up as much of her knowledge as we could.

We became accustomed to using the big, fancy words she taught us. This is very evident in all the early drafts of Bonnie’s work. As are the long wordy sentences. I’ve had to work hard with her to tone it down because her early draft writing tends to come off as more erudite than the general population of fiction readers. (Yes, I know what erudite means, and yes, I don’t generally use such big words.)

Since this is our background, I have often come across people who do not know words I consider to be common.

As an example, when I was newly wed (over thirty years ago) I was having a conversation with Jerry, my husband, and said something evidently about either mine or my husband’s siblings. With that one word, siblings, I confused Jerry to the point he had to stop me and ask what it meant. I was flabbergasted that anyone as old as we were didn’t know that simple word.

I have since learned that there are a lot of words we consider to be everyday words that others have never heard, or at least not retained a knowledge of them. I’m sure Bonnie and I could, together, come up with multiple times in our lives we have learned someone didn’t have the same knowledge of words that we do.

Now in the same vein, I have in my lifetime learned new words, generally when said words were added to our lexicon. Such as all the words we’ve added in my lifetime because of advances in technology, such as ‘internet’.

I have, however, not encountered a new word that has been in the dictionary for longer than my lifetime since I was a teenager. So I would consider such an event noteworthy.

So, several months ago when Melinda, the youngest of my beautiful daughters, used a word I’d never heard of I was stunned. At the time, we had a brief conversation about it and its meaning which included the fact that it was in the dictionary. I did not check. I assumed she would not tease me in this manner or lie about it.

I did, however, mull it over and decided it was a much easier word to use than what it replaces. Only then did I decide to look it up. You can do so yourself on dictionary.com.

The word in question is nibbling. It is essentially the same kind of word that sibling is. While sibling is gender neutral for bother or sister, nibbling is gender neutral for niece or nephew. When you are writing about brothers and sisters or nieces and nephews it’d be a lot easier, and less wordy, to use siblings or nibblings.

And, though the word nibblings was added to the lexicon in the last century, it is still older than Bonnie and I are. According to Dictionary.com, it was coined by U.S. linguist Samuel E. Martin in 1951. So in our parents’ lifetime, but well before ours.

Now for something which isn’t as surprising as it should be. Tony, the oldest of my sons, was talking to me not long ago (but after I happened to look it up) and mentioned he’d seen some post on the internet somewhere (Reddit maybe) where the word nibblings was used and someone else informed them that it wasn’t a word. This person even told them to read a dictionary.

Obviously, he is the person who needs to read a dictionary.

Of course, that got me and my three children at home into an entire conversation about know-it-alls online that can’t seem to comprehend that they aren’t as smart as they think they are. Such as all the posts that are asking readers to solve simple algebraic equations and most of the responses show a clear lack of understanding of PEMDAS.

In this day and age when information is easy to locate, why are there still people who think they know it all? If you can’t be bothered to check, or double-check, your information then you probably remember less than you thought.

One thing I do know is that by stating any information with total confidence and a bit of a condescending attitude, you come off as an idiotic jerk.  Personally, I know my data bank has been corrupted with age. I don’t tend to state things with confidence unless I’ve looked it up.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

Backups and brainstorming by Bonnie Le Hamilton

 

Okay, in my last post, I mentioned that I’d lost a scene I know I wrote. Well, I mentioned it to Konnie, and she asked if I’d checked our shared files. I said I had, but also mentioned that I know I wrote it and shared it with her because she had once commented on the bit about my main female character sitting on the shoulders of the main male character. 

Konnie asked me how long ago I shared it with her, but I couldn’t remember. I did however remember that I shared it via email because it was before we acquired the ability to share our changes automatically through a program she is paying for. 

So, Konnie searched through her old emails! And I have my scene restored! Not only that, but it has changes in it I’d forgotten about, so now I’m working to combine the best parts of the previous version and the current version. 

This isn’t as easy as it seems because the current version has several significant changes in it, including the names of half the men in the story which needs to be dealt with. 

And then when I am rereading the old version, I noticed I had a feature in there that I hadn’t carried over to the current version that was excellent, and I had to rework the feature of the hero’s ship into the current version and work in a short bit of scene into the current version, which required changes because it's happening at a different time than I originally had it.  

Of course, that different time is the big issue because between writing the previous version and the current version, I decided some of the things they do need to take days longer than what I had. Ergo, that excellent interaction between the hero and heroine takes place days after I originally had it happen. 

And that will continue to be an issue, as well as the fact that I added details that weren’t in the previous version. And all of that makes a difference. 

The best part is I was afraid to scan ahead in the current version to see if I lost another fantastic scene that happens later in the story. And frankly, I still haven’t checked, but in rereading the obsolete version, I found I still had that scene as well. 

This is such great news. I can’t tell you how glad I am that Konnie is my backup. But now we have to be sure we are always saving the newest version! Or we’ll lose our changes. 

Just remember when Word tells you, you already have a file by that name, please remember to save the current version, not the older one! Then you won’t have this issue. 

I might add, Konnie and I have used each other as backup before. Once I had to send Konnie all her stories that I had stored on my flash drive because her computer or her flash drive crashed. And this isn’t the first time she happened to have the version of a story that I managed to lose somehow.

Do any of you have a friend or family member you can share your work with, so you have it stored somewhere else? 

For that matter, do any of you have a family member with which you can brainstorm?

Not too long ago, Konnie called me because she was editing her sci-fi and she realized she needed one character to have a first name, not just a title and last name. And she’d already exhausted her list of alien names. 

Hence the reason she called me. 

Yeah, my strong suits are male POVs and alien names even though most of what I write is contemporary romance.  

The thing is Konnie’s strong suits are meek and timid female characters and making up titles. She’s even better at blurbs than I am. 

I do have a couple of female characters with phobias, and Konnie had to help me get those scenes right in the way I help her with male POVs. 

On the other hand, my best blurbs are in reality her work, and most of my titles are her work as well. I have one where the title for my story came from a friend, but the story idea was his too, he just insisted I was better suited to write it. And I have another one that the title came to me along with the main character. 

As much as we work together and complement each other, it's no wonder people have wondered why we don’t collaborate on a story.

All I can say is we work better alone, except when we need help. 

Anyway, happy writing everyone!

Of Sleep and Word Flows by Konnie Enos

Have you ever tried to go to sleep and found all you did was toss for a while?

 You realize the sun’s been down for hours and only the night owls are moving about. It’s bedtime and you should be sleeping, not reading, doing sudoku or puzzles, or maybe even watching something. None of them help you shut off your brain so you can sleep, but I think the worst offender is writing.

You’re not sleeping if you’re thinking about the next word, sentence, or scene. You’re brain is going a million miles a minute. It’s those times when attempting to sleep will just have you tossing for hours getting little to no actual rest.

I’m sure sleepless nights happen to everyone, but you can’t go forever without sleep.

What do you do when you’ve been up half the night, or longer, and now you need sleep?

When I was younger, I’d just hide in my bedroom and hope the household noises didn’t disturb me. It doesn’t work anymore, because all the ruckus of several animals and humans moving about their day is sure to disrupt any attempts to sleep. Either that or the sun is a deterrent.

Recently, I had places to go the next day but I could not get to sleep. I sat up all night, doing little of nothing, but otherwise occupying my time until morning. Just as the sun was coming up I forced myself to go to bed but sleep never really came.

Yes, I got comfortable and closed my eyes. And no, I never managed to sleep. My brain just never fully shut off. Between the bright light and others talking, I finally gave up after only a few hours. Needless to say, I went to bed much earlier that night.

Then there are other times when I think I’m simply not going to get tired enough to sleep and decide to write something, only to fall asleep in the middle of typing a word. And no matter how hard you try when you get back to it, it’s impossible to remember what you were trying to say.

I have one story that I got interrupted on in the middle of a word and I still have not been able to get my train of thought back since. It’s been years.

I can also remember times when getting some rest or stopping for any other activity didn’t stem the flow of words for days, even weeks. Days when you spend nearly every waking moment typing the words onto the page, and when you’re not typing you’re thinking about the next word, sentence, or scene, never losing your train of thought even when interrupted.

The last time that happened to me, my one story turned into five.

Sometimes the lack of adequate sleep conspires against you to stem the flow of words while others, you have to fight to stay awake long enough to keep up with the flow.

The only constant about sleepless nights is you end up dragging, your head aching and your body fighting to be in a more comfortable position, so rest can be obtained.

I don’t know about anybody else but those times when it happens too frequently are the worst. You barely recover from one sleepless night and find yourself stuck in another one before you fully recover, making the whole experience much worse. This happens enough and soon it’s obvious you’re not getting enough sleep to everyone around you.

What brought this train of thought on?

One, some of my recent sleepless nights. Two, I’m working on some scenes to show one side character’s extreme tiredness. So, yes, I’m thinking about all the reasons that might cause it but also what signs and symptoms your friends and family might see.

How long can you keep going without others noticing?

How soon do those close to you start to worry?

Though one thing I’ve realized is that in a story, you have to pinpoint what is causing it. In real life, sometimes it can be harder to define.

True. Most of the time you know.

That night when you are just too interested in reading that really good book or binge-watching that great show. Or maybe concern about a family, or all those things you need to do. Or it just might be the inability to get comfortable and all the reasons that might occur.

Or just a combination of several factors.

Last night started with attempting to write about that sleepless character. Then it segued onto fixing some errors in the story, which required backtracking. When I gave up, I tried to write this post. Tried being the operative word.

Oh well. Maybe I can sneak in a nap later.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

 

Of Weather and Writing by Bonnie Le Hamilton

Well, here it is the middle of July, and there are heat advisories out for my area. Yes, my area. I do not want to know how bad it is in Vegas. Though I get the feeling it’s cooler here than down south in Vegas. So, I’m not going to complain too much.

And if that wasn’t enough, I’ve got a much longer tale of woe. Starting with I am on IV antibiotics, again. Yip, I spent another three days in the hospital, for the same reason as last time. At least this time they didn’t need to cut open my ankle. I can count that as a blessing.

However, my poor cat is so stressed out about me being gone that long, he’s pulling his hair out again. And I haven’t even finished with all my problems.

I was still in the hospital when my landlord called me and because he hadn’t as yet received the one hundred dollars of my rent my local church leader promised to pay for me. I had already paid five hundred dollars, and he threatened me with eviction over one hundred dollars!

Let alone it turned out that my landlord is stubbornly refusing to present my local church leader with an invoice for the amount I need help with before he gets the money, yet our rules say we need the invoice before a check can be sent, and my landlord has been told this.

And now I’m going to need church help with rent next month, as in for all of it, just like last time I ended up in the hospital, I’m not going to have enough money to meet all my bills. Just great.

And then, two days after I got home, my landlord up and surprises everyone in the building by putting up a for sale sign! Wonderful. This is the cheapest place in town that isn’t subsidized housing. It is also a dump with an access road badly in need of repaving. My hope is it doesn’t sell anytime soon, especially since every place in town has long waiting lists, and one-bedrooms around here are going for more than my two-bedroom. I have no savings for things like the deposit and the first month’s rent.

Anyway, between more doctor’s visits (I am now seeing my podiatrist regularly as well as my primary) and trying to bury myself in reading to take my mind off my worries (starting before the issues with the landlord) I haven’t done any writing or editing in a week or more. I have been rereading the few Linda Goodnight books I have on my reader.

At least when I asked my friend to take me to the ER this last time, I decided to be prepared for an overnight stay. I packed my laptop, my reader, and my phone along with all their chargers into my backpack. I also packed my eyeglass case and a few other things. And I’m glad I did.

The problem is I never once took my laptop out of the bag! I just read my books. I really need to finish editing my sci-fi manuscript. Then again, right before my foot got so bad again, I discovered that I’d somehow lost a scene I know I wrote. I don’t have it anywhere, and it was so good! Now I have to rewrite it from memory.

I hate having to do that.

And I have no idea how I lost it unless I just failed to save those changes. I have had issues lately about having several versions of the manuscript, and I honestly think I either didn’t save that scene or when I was confronted with two files of the same name, I mistakenly saved the older file, not the newer one. I’m sure it’s something like that because I’ve had that issue a few times before, I finally renamed the file I was working on by adding the word “current” to the file to save it when that happened the last time, but that version clearly didn’t have this really good scene in it.

Between wishing I didn’t have to start from scratch on that scene and trying to stay cool in this heat wave (Konnie, I don’t want to hear how bad you have it. This is hot here and I no longer have trees shading my apartment!) I hate triple-digit temps. They are awful.

Plus, I’ve been thinking more about a couple of my romance manuscripts than I have my sci-fi. Maybe I should stop reading romances and dig out my sci-fi novels instead. Maybe that will get me back into my sci-fi, even though I read more mysteries than anything, and I can’t write those!

Anyway, happy writing everyone!

Of Energy and Obstacles by Konnie Enos

 

I was feeling industrious Monday and decided to get some laundry done.

First, I stripped my bed and otherwise gathered sheets, pillowcases, and blankets that needed washing. Due to the size of the blankets, I had two loads. Only then did I think to check if the washer was in use.

I was in luck. It was empty. I dumped the first load in the machine then went and gathered two more loads of laundry.

I’m sure I’ve mentioned it, but because of my lack of stature, I cannot retrieve anything from the bottom of the washer. Switching that first load to the dryer required getting help from a family member. This time Melinda assisted me.

I put the first load in the dryer and then dumped the second load in. I was surprised at how quickly I was able to switch the loads because I often have to wait for assistance with emptying the washer. However, on Monday, I was able to get both loads of bedding into the dryer and back out again, and my third load into the dryer with a fourth load in the washer.

Now, I had managed to strip the bed without Jerry’s help, but making a bed is so much easier if I have help. While I was busy doing something on my computer and had several things spread on the still unmade bed, he decided he was too tired to wait for me to finish or make the bed. He was fast asleep before I could think to put away everything. So we ended up sleeping without sheets and the washer was still going when I went to bed.

On Tuesday morning, Royce mentioned needing to do a load of laundry. I explained that I had a load in both machines and gave him directions for bringing me what was in the dryer. He then asked for directions on what to do with the load now in the dryer.

An hour or so later, he then brought me my last load of laundry. At this point, I had two baskets of clean laundry and a pile of clean sheets on my unmade bed. And the burst of energy I’d had the day before was long gone. I figured the laundry could wait.

It was after I learned that Melinda made dinner without any help from me and I’d washed up all the dinner dishes that I finally decided to fold all that laundry with the intent to put it all away and clear the bed so we could properly make it.

Do you know what happened?

Melinda took her nightly bath while I was still sorting and folding it. Some of that laundry is stored in the bathroom so now I had to wait to put it away. Jerry decided he was again too tired to wait for me to clear off the bed before I noticed that Melinda was now out of the bathroom.

One more night sleeping on an unmade bed.

After he was sound asleep, I was able to put all the laundry away (I wasn’t going to sleep with it) but I also realized a couple of things. One, I had not at any time, even during my burst of energy on Monday, made any attempts to write this post. Two, it was now late. I could either go to bed myself then get up early and work on my post (pure procrastination, again) or I could try to write it before going to bed.

The thing is, I’ve learned that trying to type up my post at night requires several hours and possibly the whole night. This might be because I tend to dose off while I’m attempting to think of the next line or word.

So, sleep it is. I made sure my alarm was set so I’d get up earlier than usual so I would have plenty of time to type, whatever I was going to write about. Yes, I had still not come up with an idea. Due to the hour, it meant I’d be getting about six hours of sleep. That is if you didn’t count the one or two trips to the bathroom my body would wake me up for.

The first time woke up this morning I realized the sun was already starting to come up.

By the time I found my phone and figured out just how early in the morning it was, I was already awake. So I pulled out my laptop and opened Word.

And, of course, the first thing I think about is all the reasons why I’d slept two nights in an unmade bed. Maybe today, I should get Jerry to help me make it while the sun’s still shining.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

Writing About Birthdays by Bonnie Le Hamilton

Today I am remembering my birthday. And there are so many birthdays to remember.

Way back in 1976, I was in the summer band. My band class always met on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. That year the 5^th fell on Monday. Everyone in the clarinet section knew this.

I can still picture the look of utter confusion on our band leader’s face at the end of the parade right after he announced there would be no band classes on Monday. And it must have been really confusing because every other section cheered except the clarinet section. All but one of the girls snapped their fingers and stomped their feet in the classic, “uh shoot!” expression while one girl dang near collapsed to the ground in utter relief, and the lone boy in the section just stood there unfazed.

I was the one sighing with relief. And believe me, until he announced no classes on Monday, I was seriously considering skipping class that Monday, because all those girls were planning to ambush me so all of them, could spank me fourteen times and each give me a pinch to grow an inch. I even know why they were planning to do it.

I had done the very unwise thing of mentioning I hadn’t received any birthday spankings in years, let alone a pinch to grow an inch.

Considering how short I am, that was very stupid of me to mention. I was the oldest, and shortest, kid in our band. All the kids in the clarinet section knew this, and they were prepared to make sure I got all those pinches in order for me to grow at least an inch.

I tried to tell them I didn’t think that old myth would work, but they wouldn’t listen, and I wasn’t about to endure their attack just to prove it didn’t work.

Thankfully I didn’t have to.

Though I think Konnie will agree with me when I say our worst birthday is still our 6th birthday, and that’s surpassing last year when I had COVID or the year before when she had COVID, or back in ’88 because I was stuck at home waiting for my husband to get off watch to come home and give my present which was in the trunk of our car, when our dad called, and, without preamble, announced, “He’s taller than you.”

Not fun, but still not as horrible as opening two of everything on our 6^th birthday.

How do you feel about birthdays? Do you have a worst one?

For that matter, how do your characters feel about their birthdays?

Some families have traditions that only make a fuss over the birthdays of the children, never the adults, who are lucky to get a card, and simple well wishes. While others don’t celebrate birthdays at all.

What sort of birthday traditions do you have? What sort of birthday traditions do your characters have?

I honestly don’t know for most of my characters, though for most of them, their birthdays don’t occur during the story, so that isn’t too bad that I don’t know. I do know for one character that her father (who raised her) didn’t pay attention to birthdays at all, but I know that because the story starts on her birthday, and she doesn’t realize it until she sees a calendar noting the date.

I have another character who probably didn’t have birthday celebrations at all, just not sure about her. I know they didn’t celebrate Christmas in her family. And no, they were not Jewish or any known religion that doesn’t celebrate Christmas. Her stepfather was more like a cult leader, but it was a very small cult.

I do have one story where the birthdays of several characters are mentioned and celebrated, but I really don’t have the main characters feeling about their birthdays except for the one depicted in the story in which her father ruined everything. Can’t help but know her feelings when she’s bawling her eyes out.

And one (in an unfinished story) who hates her birthday because for all the ones she could remember, something tragic happened to her on her birthday. I have a scene where she doesn’t want to live through another birthday.

The thing is everyone views their birthday differently, depending on their family traditions and or traumatic past.

Konnie and I could hate our birthdays because of the events on our 6^th birthday, but well, bad things did happen, but they could have happened on any other day, it was just made worse, and notable because it was our birthday.

Some people avoid even mentioning their birthday because of their traumatic past, while others look forward to theirs and make sure everyone knows when it is.

Anyway, happy writing everyone!