Wow, y'all. 

Today has already really gotten away from me and I'm in shock that I haven't been able to get this post out and it's almost dinner time!

I have gotten a lot done, but I still feel so behind. 

However, despite my growing hunger and desire to eat, I am staying at the office to finish this blog post. I have made a commitment and I'm going to follow through with it. 

It takes a lot of dedication to write and publish a book. Then again, so does life. Life takes a lot of discipline, and I feel like that's a trait that society is losing. 

It's easy enough. I know I've had my moments where it would just be easier to stop. To give up or take a break. 

Don't get me wrong, taking breaks are important. But it does require discipline to start again. 

Which isn't always easy. 

Then it takes even MORE discipline to stay focused once you have started. 

Life it hard, y'all. But it's harder when you aren't putting in any effort. 

So I'm going to post this soap box I'm currently on, go to the store, make dinner for me and hubby, then try to get some actual writing in. It's the one thing I didn't accomplish today and I want that. I'm not sure if I will come back to the office, I might just take my laptop home. Either way, I've made a commitment and a promise to myself and I will see it through.

Happy Saturday!

Hey friends! I'm a bit later today posting because, well, it's FINALLY so BEAUTIFUL outside! I had a hard time sitting in front of my laptop when I could be outside going for walks or connecting with business folks.

I've wandered up and down Main for several hours, finding goodies to put in the gift boxes for the Reader's Escape, stopping for a quick bite to eat, and meeting new people. I'm just such a fan of this kind of activity and I'm beginning to think I'm more of an extrovert than I have ever realized. 

Don't get me wrong, I love my time alone. I need space to read, to write, and now, to crochet. 

But oh, how I love talking with people and learning new things and seeing the town in a new way. It's really quite marvelous.

As far as an update, I had my first crochet lesson and loved it. Huge fan so far. I also met with another author friend of mine and we are considering some work together. I've asked her to be a developmental editor for me and she has some work that I might be able to help with, but nothing is set there, so more on that later. I hope.

I'm finally sitting down to do some of my own writing. Now that I'm doing TWO Reader's Escape Weekends (did I mention this? The first sold out, so I opened another!), I have been trying to keep things straight and organized. So far I'm surviving. 

But I'm getting very excited for this coming week and to be able to see the progress with how everything is coming together.

I hope you are doing something today that absolutely lights you up and that you have a marvelous week!

Unusual Perks

I have a lot of things that I love about having Tourette syndrome. Don't believe me? I literally wrote a book about it. (You can get it here)

NOT included in the book is something I realized just this week while at work. Being a bank teller is awesome and I love it. However, there are some days that are slow. In those days, I've noticed that Paula is much more active. Which is great, it helps keep all of us awake and it breaks up the monotony.

That's when it hit me just how great having TS really can be. 

It doesn't just break up the monotony of the work day, it does this to my LIFE. 

It is constantly evolving, keeping me on my toes, giving me opportunities to laugh and to meet people. 

Isn't it wonderful to have something like that?

Life can be such a struggle sometimes. It's easy to fall into a routine, to feel stuck, to do the same thing day after day and week after week. It's frustrating, especially for someone like me who gets bored easily.

Lucky for me, Paula is really good at shaking things up and giving me new experiences. 

Side Quest Idea

So I am part of a writing group that meets on Tuesday evenings. I love these ladies and have been making huge progress on Madamn thanks to their input. One piece of advice I'm constantly getting is more description. It is a first draft, so I was mostly sketching out the storyline, so that makes sense. 

But after a few rounds with the group, each chapter is getting some real depth and I'm super happy with it by them the time I'm finished. However, it's a bit slower, we've only gone over chapters one and two as well as the Prologue and Epilogue. We are currently in chapter three.

Anywho, during this week's gathering, there was a lot of discussion around Em's mother, Eulalie (pronounced OO-la-lee). I shared a bit of her back story as to why she is the way she is... and they wanted more. 

So now I have a tiny side quest going on, where I'm going to start writing a novella with Eulalie's story. She really is such a fascinating character to learn about and write. She was only ten years old during the French Revolution. She married and had children young, so I have tried to portray her with unresolved trauma and PTSD, which was also not a thing at the time, and just as misunderstood as what is now Tourette syndrome that her daughter deals with.

I don't want to make this a full series, so this will be s short little precursor. I love that the characters I am creating are getting such a response from the readers, but I have other incredible women I want to write about and lots of characters to create. But I do think this will be a fun side project to infuse some new energy in to a project that is feeling a bit stalled and dull to me. 

Glitchy

Hello there friend!

Sorry I missed Saturday, I tried and tried, but apparently either Blogger was down, or there was some other tech glitches. So you get a midweek post instead! 

But I've decided I need to get my life together when it comes to working on Madamn. I feel like most of my life has been pretty glitchy. I try and wake up in the mornings, but end up sleeping an extra hour. I make plans, but life interrupts and says, "sorry, try again."

However, I've noticed that I have been pretty wishy-washy in my commitments to begin with. So now I'm setting things in stone and making a firm commitment. I have given myself deadlines and have gotten the ball rolling so that I can keep those.

I've finally hired a developmental editor and am doing a ton of rewrites. 

The thing is, life is still throwing things at me. I've had a ton of pain already this week, lots of meetings popping up, and work getting all sorts of crazy. 

I've noticed the more committed I am, the more these outside forces slow down.

However, today is not the day for these things to slow down. Which means I'm off to get some writing done!

Thanks for being here!

Hello Again

Oh hey there friend. Sorry I missed last week. It had been a long, rough week and I didn't have the bandwidth to do much at all, much less do any writing. 

Thankfully, a weekend of good rest did wonders, and an easier week at work means I am back!!

So lots of good news, this week I filled my Reader's Escape! This is the 4th time I've run this retreat and it has grown each year, but this is the first time I've sold out.

And I still have people asking about it! So I'm considering doing another one in August. Would you come if I did? Comment and let me know.

More good news, I've felt so good this week, meaning my health is improving. After last year and all the issues I had, it's exciting to finally feel like I'm on the mend and improving. 

I had a wonderful experience this week where I saw a mentor of mine speaking on stage and I was so excited to chat with him afterwards. However, I woke up before that actually happened. 

But it left me feeling... grounded. Grateful. Centered. Peaceful. 

This mentor is someone I worked with from about 2016/2017 ish until about 2019. He was the first mentor I really invested in a lot. He introduced me to some awesome key players in my life. Once, he noticed I was having a bad day and he even called me.

However, at the time, I was inconsolable. And then a few months later, my brother was murdered, which put me in a deep, dark hole. 

I haven't actually talked to this mentor since that last phone call in 2019, so he never knew how helpful it really was or how grateful I was for it.

He has gone on to do big things and is virtually untouchable at this point. So I have no way to really communicate with him without spending more than I am comfortable with. So I wrote a letter to him in my journal.

I wished him well and I love seeing him succeed and create such an awesome life for him and his family. I'll always be a fan and cheer him on. 

However, in the past few years, I've noticed a big change in me. One that is no longer wanting to hustle. I'm still doing the same things, but at my own, much slower, pace. 

It's comfortable. Peaceful. Happy. 

I've been studying the biological difference between men and women, and while his program is effective, it is certainly better suited for men. 

The more I lean into my own unique talents and abilities as a woman, I see more success. And it's a much more broad sense of success. 

Not only do I see more book sales, which is awesome and what I was trying to achieve working with this mentor, but I see greater health, I see deeper relationships, I see more of who I actually want to be.

Meaning, in a way, this was actually a bit of a break up letter. 

So it's been a great couple of weeks for me. I hope they have been wonderful for you as well.

And I'm excited to see where this week takes me!

Time and Change and Reminders.

So this week was interesting for me in many ways...

First of all, the changes that Paula has adopted. She has been very active this week and quite loud. My poor coworkers have done a lot of jumping. But over the course of the week, instead of the high-pitched sounds that people around me have come to associate with Paula, they have deepened into my normal register.

Which isn't particularly saying much, I do sing high soprano, but it's getting harder to distinguish between sounds I'm making and sounds Paula is making. 

I can still tell, but my coworkers aren't entirely sure.

So that's exciting.

Second, I had a weird experience with time. I have some eye issues (obviously, I wear glasses). You know how when you accidentally look at a glare, you see that shape and are temporarily blinded? I did that with a shampoo bottle the other day. 

Which sent me into this weird spiral about losing my vision, and how many years I have left to live as I currently do. Not only that, but knowing that is the best case scenario. I've lost several siblings and friends before their time. 

You just never know when your time is up. 

Then I started thinking about how quickly time flies. We are already a quarter of the way through 2024. We are almost a quarter of the way through this century!

I realized the other day that I'm as far from attending high school as I am from retirement. I have never been one to despair about aging. And I do not fear death.

I am worried, however, about accomplishing all of the things I want to and making sure that the most important thing is staying the most important thing. 

It was stressful in a way, but also a good reminder to me. Especially on the week of Easter Sunday. I am religious, so this experience made me all the more grateful for the resurrection and the concept of eternity.