January 1, 2017

Happy New Year!

For some, 2016 was a tough year. We are now turning a new page. This is a great time, with all the hubbub of the holidays past, to figure out what is wanted in our life. What would it take to be happier? Have we put too much time into things we didn't enjoy? It helps sometimes to write down a few things-- big and little.

When we  know what we want, next comes-- what will make it happen? When the thought comes (and it usually does)-- it's hopeless, can't change anything-- block defeatism and see it for what it is. Think outside the box. Look for ways it is possible. 

Now, it might be at a cost higher than we are willing to pay-- then revise the goals.  The big thing is to move ahead. We can't control outcomes, but we can control our actions. Life is about always moving ahead-- sometimes with baby steps but always onward and upward. We can only do that when we know to what we want to go.

 

series or serial

I would say that today I am much more aware of starting a series than I once was. I began what became the Arizona historical series with no clue. I was satisfied when I finished Arizona Sunset and thought that was that-- except, then I began to think about a strong secondary character and then another one. Before I had even brought out the first, I knew there was going to be a second book, Tucson Moon. Brothers under the skin or were they?

Those first three Arizona historicals all came out of existing characters-- with no advance planning. By the third, Arizona Dawn, I knew the epilogue was introducing a future heroine. The fourth, a novella, Rose's Gift, had me firmly in the camp of writing a series, with the next three in my mind before I wrote the first of the Taggert brothers (Echoes from the Past; Lands of Fire; and Bound for the Hills).

That left me with seven Arizona historicals with one more gelling around in my head by say next winter. That one has to be written, set in 1906 Arizona and California, because it's part of the families that make up the contemporary, suspense, paranormal series of an Arizona family of witches. How did that family come to use magic will be in the eighth Arizona historical.

See how series grow like topsy. They evolve and even when they are planned... sort of, it's still interesting (to me at least) how they grow into more than I originally had expected. Stories get more complex, characters become intriguing, and they show potential for just one more story.

In between writing, or at night when my back needs a break, I've been reading what amounts to a serial. I hadn't exactly planned it that way, but the author, who shall remain nameless) is a friend of other authors. I am always interested in how someone else, who does well, tells their story. It's been educational, but although this book is supposed to be funny, to me, it's not. My sense of humor is not non-existent, but I think it comes more out of natural events than what seem to be forced. I like to laugh but just not be told when I should, I guess. The heroine is such a loose cannon that I'd hate to even know her in my personal life and not that interested in knowing her through the books.

A serial is connected stories but not necessarily with any conclusions- except maybe the last one. So in the book I am reading, the author has a series of events happening, but no story arc at all. It's just walking through these events. I've looked at the reviews for this author with LOTS of reviews, hundreds. Most like her humor and style, but there were those, like me, who absolutely did not. No writer can satisfy everybody, and she satisfies an awful lot of readers; so sure she can manage without my approval.

In my own reading, I enjoy stand-alones or a series, where you can step into it anywhere along the way-- even if you'd be happiest perhaps picking the characters up where they begin. But each story has a separate love story and a conclusion-- even if there are threads running into the next stories. I've never tried writing a serial, maybe never would; but I've written several series, some lengthier than others. 

I think I'll write more about the appeal of the series on Saturday as this has gotten long enough.

Organization

Blogging is rather like writing a book except there is no ending unless you give it one, and some of the blogs I have read regularly eventually have done just that. There also has not seemed to be the same kind of organization. There is a bit more organization in topical blogs, but I write about what is on my mind or what happened to make me think of an issue. That doesn't come out linearly.

Labels, being an organizational tool, weren't high on my list of desirable parts of blogging. I am probably the last blogger to adopt them. Although I do have titles, my titles serve more as teasers than explainers. I was supposed to have a subject too? Well I mostly did but often woven in were several lesser ideas.

When I finally got around to using labels, I saw that for it to be really useful, I would have to go back through the blogs from when I began again in February 2006 and label them all. I put it off as I knew that would be tedious and force me to skim them to figure out the subjects-- assuming there was one somewhere buried in the prose.

Finally I took the time to do the job and found some modicum of organization to the subjects. Now when I put a label at the bottom of a blog such as this one, if the reader is interested in seeing all the blogs I have written in that general area, they can click on a key word and voila. I used general terms to allow a type of subject (like creativity) to be looked through-- rather than specific, trying to avoid one label that fit nowhere else.

I realize you techie types knew all this long ago, but I'm not a techie type. I am more a learn-what-I- need-when-I-need type. Doing labels was not high on that list for a reason that goes back to the title of this blog-- or rather lack of said.

For the writer of a blog, the advantage of labels is to see how frequently we have written on the topics we claim are of most interest to us. In my case, the answer was pretty often. It also showed me where I have written less than I'd like about a particular idea.

Labels, if you haven't yet tried them, give a bit of a chapter quality to the writing. When I finally did mine (I am still tweaking the titles on the list), I was surprised there was more pattern than it had seemed.

If you have ever written a manuscript, you know chapters are critical. Each one is an entity of its own. Most particularly in novels, you try to have a form, a flow to those chapters. Ideally, one leads into another. With blogs, that kind of form is generally missing in all but strictly topical blogs, but through labels, you can find a bit of it.

I like to live a fairly orderly life but have very limited organization. No books in my bookshelves are alphabetical, no spices lined up. Not that I am against organization; but there are two blogs on the subject in my 227 for the current 'Rainy day thoughts,' and this is one of them.

Anyway I figured I better write about this for unorganized types like me, who don't read directions, who work by feel, and who like their books lined up by how they look together over who their authors were-- and besides if I am going to go to the trouble of organizing, I want someone to know it. :)

Clearing the Deck

Basically my month of August has been and will be about clearing debris out of my life-- both emotional and physical. I got started by redoing where I paint. I had been working in one end of the living room but decided if I cleared out and used instead the room I call the solarium (which had mostly become a storage area), it would leave the living room more open.

As it turned out, the solarium got more of a remake than that and these pictures show what it looks like now. The computer, an old one, recently upgraded, will be handy when working from digital photos or even when using it to experiment with an idea before bringing it to canvas.

Wherever I paint, I like to have a few things to look at that inspire me (the paintings at the end of the room will be changed) and have room to step back from my own work. In the case of the solarium, bamboo blinds still have to be installed at the windows to block afternoon sun. This south facing room isn't ideal for art but you work with what you've got in life.

The door is also one way into the vegetable garden, and this much-treasured basket, which had been my mother-in-law's, is for gathering produce.

A 30 cubic yard dumpster is already about 1/3 full and part of the August plan which has been about clearing excess from around the house, the harness shed, and if the dumpster isn't full by then, the barns. Last time a dumpster came, the barns went first and the rest lost out. I do learn my lessons-- eventually.

My goal is to get rid of everything that wouldn't be taken if we left here. It's not that selling this farm is planned, but one of the advantages of moving regularly is you don't accumulate so much of what can only be called junk.

Just beyond the solarium was a deteriorating deck and fence. I've been helping remove them by dragging the cut-apart remains to the dumpster. I also managed to get a long sliver in my arm from the rotting wood. Go Rain! I do have a knack for those kinds of moments in any outdoor project . This was with leather gloves and a long sleeved shirt, but I have to get at least one sliver to know I was working.

You'd think August would be for hanging out at the beach or maybe a mountain lake, but on a farm, it rarely is. I see the clearing outside as a metaphor for what I am trying to also do inside me-- get rid of what isn't working. Outside is usually easier.