I'm Back!

So I took a little hiatus (two weeks is little, right?!). What did I do with that time? I traveled to Japan with my husband and oldest three children.

It. Was. Amazing.

Knowing we would be doing a lot of walking, we took backpacks rather than suitcases. It worked out really well because we did do a lot of walking (an average seven miles/day, our highest mileage was 13). We crammed as much as we possibly could into those two weeks traveling from Osaka south as far as Fukuoka, then to Tokyo and as far north as Lake Akan and back to Sapporo for our flight home.

We got to reconnect with friends from a few months ago, from twenty-five years ago, and with my cousin and her husband. We saw lots of shrines, ate lots of katsu curry and noodles (seafood is not our thing) and in the Hiroshima train station there's a place called Hearth Brown that has killer bread (a dash of almonds and powdered sugar on top and vanilla custard inside--to die for!)

Japan is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. I am very blessed to have been able to go back to some of the places I lived so long ago.

Part of a temple in Miyajima.

 

A statue in Yokohama.

One of the world's top three night views: Hakodate, Hokkaido.

The beautiful countryside of eastern Hokkaido.

Cross Post

I'm on a tight schedule so for my post today, head on over to Five Pages of Something where I blogged about the exciting topic of...drum roll please...punctuation. You don't think that merits any enthusiasm? Read it and see.

Happy Post-Mother's Day Post

Yesterday was Mother's Day. A lovely celebration of the women who have cared for us, steered us in the right direction, loved us. Notice I didn't say 'birthed' us, although for me, the amazing woman who gave me life is a treasure and I love her dearly.

I think of all the women who have influenced and guided me. To them I say, thank you for believing in me, thank you for caring, thank you for being an example. Happy Mother's Day.

To the women who read this, wherever you are, please don't underestimate your power to be a force for good. Our children need you, our world needs you. You can and do make a difference. I am grateful for the good women in my life, my mother, my late mother-in-law, wife to my father-in-law, sisters, friends, accountability partners, neighbors, the woman at the bank who always remembers my name, teachers, and the list goes on. So in the essence of 'do what is right', or 'choose the right', I say: Right On my friends, Right On...

A Favorite Quote

One of my favorite quotes goes like this:

"If you do not pay the price needed for success, you will pay the price of failure."
          --James E. Faust

How important is your goal to you? Are you paying the price needed to succeed? I currently am at the pennies-in-a-jar stage of trying to reach my writing goal. This quote reminds me that I cannot slack off, I cannot give up, I cannot leave it to someone else to write my stories. They are mine, even if the ideas are old and worn, the stories are uniquely my own. It's a beautiful thing. Pay up my friends and, as always, Write On. The world needs good books.

I Hate Being Wrong!

I am not sure why I get so bothered by bad grammar and mis-spelled words, but I do. Love my dad, but his grammar needs some work. I'm not perfect at it (as was brought to my attention), but I do make an effort to be correct. Over the years I've worried about the mote of poor grammar on the home front, but recently, I discover that I've been carrying around a poor grammar beam! Yes, a beam.

Here it is: 'til is NOT a word, it is "considered a spelling error". The words, interchangeably used, are till or until. 

This is what Miriam Webster has to say: 

till (til) 1. up to the time of; until: to fight till death 2. before (used in negative constructions): They didn't come till today. 3. before, to: My watch says ten till four. ... Usage. TILL and UNTIL are both very old in the language and are interchangeable as both prepositions and conjunctions. ... TILL is not a shortened form of UNTIL and is not spelled 'TILL. 'TIL is usually considered a spelling error, though commonly used in business and advertising: Open 'til ten.

My deepest and most sincere apologies to anyone who has been victim to my ignorance!

Write on my friends, but do not write "'til".

"Pick a Fight with the Toughest Guy on the Team"

My husband likes to listen to sports/talk radio when he is in the car. Generally, I don't pay too much attention to it, but one day we were driving and the announcer, Ron Wolfley, said something that stuck with me. I apologize I don't remember the story, because I'm sure it was a good one (something about fighting). His brother told him to "pick a fight with the toughest guy on the team."

At first glance, one might question the wisdom in that, but I believe it's true. These are just a couple of things I learned from this:

First, if the guy we're picking a fight with is the toughest, we may reconsider our decision. It requires us to think about our choices. Perhaps gives us a chance to do something smarter.

Second, if we're going into a fight with the toughest guy, we dang well better be prepared. We should know our opponent and we should be training harder and working smarter every day.

Third, a fight doesn't necessarily mean face to face combat. It could mean the promotion we want, it could mean that book we want to write, it could mean being the best mom and wife, it could mean olympic medals, or it could simply mean we face each day, each challenge with a smile, determined to beat the toughest 'guy' on the team.

Write on my friends and may your challenges be a little lighter!

Forgetting

My special needs daughter turned 14 yesterday. She'd been talking about her upcoming birthday for months. Sunday night I told her we were going to skip Monday and go straight to Tuesday. Her expression was priceless, almost as if she were trying to decide whether that was possible and was adamant that we not bypass her birthday.

In that conversation, my brain flew right over Monday and went straight to Tuesday, hence my forgetting to post here. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

How does that apply to writing? I knew you would ask... I'm a pantser (which means I don't generally outline), I let the story take shape as I go while having a general idea of where it will end up. The problem with not having an outline is that sometimes I forget where I was going with my story (and that comes from not writing every day, too). But thank goodness for creativity. My brain just comes up with something (and since I forgot, who knows, maybe it was what I intended in the first place). But seriously, I have found that even if I don't have a detailed outline, if I just have a page of what I imagine, it's very helpful.

The cool thing about that page or sometimes two is that it's a quick write, just the skeletal details flowing as fast as you can get them out. No need to worry about how things will happen or sensory things.

Are you a pantser or an outliner? Share a quick tip in the comments for how you outline (or don't).