A Light Through the Darkness

It’s a wet Beltane, but that’s a good thing – we need the rain, and it smells green and growing outside.  I spent my Beltane at the hospital, getting a Remicade treatment, and I slept through it.  I’m so tired!  But so much has happened in the past week, I’m not surprised!

I’m now officially a member of Dark Knights Paranormal, a member of the TAPS family of ghost investigators, and I did my first OFFICIAL investigation with them this weekend.  That meant I got in at 5 am on Sunday, and managed to scratch my eye taking my contact out.  Wow, an auspicious beginning.

Tonight, I’m going to have a little to-do list, and I don’t know that I’ll get through it all.  Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?

To-Do on a Rainy Beltane:

- Put away folded laundry in living room

- Fold laundry in dining room and put away

- 100 pages on beta read

- Daily Pages

- Make bbq sauce for tomorrow’s dinner

- Make lunch for tomorrow

Yeah, that’s a good list.

Originally published at The words of Valerie Griswold-Ford. You can comment here or there.

No writing yesterday on Forgotten yesterday, but I wrote all the emails I needed to (now I just need to actually send them) and wrote the back cover copy for Spells, which I also need to email.  By the time I got home yesterday, my hands hurt so badly that I took some muscle relaxants and watched the Red Sox win their 4th game in a row (yay!) before going to bed.

Today, my hands still hurt, but I’m going to see what I can write.  I’m listening to a podcast now, and then I’ll do my Daily Pages (I need music to write to that) and then work on the plot summary.  Later today, I’ll type up the poetry and stuff for writer’s group tomorrow.

Such is the life of a working writer.  Glamorous, no?

Originally published at The words of Valerie Griswold-Ford. You can comment here or there.

I’m trying to make myself a little more accountable lately.  Hopefully, this time, the change will stick.

Miles walked today: .87 (I walked 1.07 miles yesterday, so I’m not sure where I am.  I’ll figure it out for tomorrow’s blog.)

Morning Pages: Day 63 – I’ve done two full months, and I think it’s finally become a habit.

Words written: 300 words on the Forgotten plot summary, and one and a third handwritten pages on the Time Travelers story.

Originally published at The words of Valerie Griswold-Ford. You can comment here or there.

First, thank you to all those who posted birthday wishes – I do appreciate them!  I’m spending my birthday at home, cleaning and waiting for the furnace guy to show up again, because that’s how adults spend their birthdays, apparently.

Hubby let me sleep late (yay, hubby!) and I’ve already done my morning pages for the day.  There’s baseball in an hour, and lots to do, so we’ll get to the list as soon as I update you on the novel progress.

I’m about 10k in, give or take.  That’s going to change, because I’m finally getting to the point where I need to sit down and outline it, which is what I’m doing.  I need to do some research too – I’m not quite in Sapph’s head yet, which is disturbing, considering the novel is in 1st person.  The part I’m having an issue with is how she thinks about being wealthy – I need to do some research on heiresses and their lives.   Luckily, when Mom and I were perusing one of the thrift shops we hit yesterday, I found a biography on Alice Roosevelt Longworth entitled Princess Alice for a dollar, so there’s a start.  I need to hit the library and see what I can find on folks like Christina Onassis and (ugh) Paris Hilton.  Folks like that.

On to the to-do list!

1. Clean bathroom.  Completely.

2. BASEBALL at 1:35 pm! *this will be listened to while cleaning*

3. Walk

4. Fold and put away laundry in dining room.

5. Put away dishes.

6. Make bbq pork sandwiches for dinner/lunch tomorrow.

7. Take out chicken to thaw.

Off to begin!

Originally published at The words of Valerie Griswold-Ford. You can comment here or there.

I’ve been so freaking busy the past three weeks, I don’t know if I’m coming or going.  No time to blog, no time to really write (although I’ve done my morning pages faithfully every day – 53 days in a row and counting!), and no real time to myself.  That needs to change – I’m getting stir-crazy, and not in a good way.  I like commuting in with someone (my friend Carolyn and I have close enough shifts that we can share the hour commute in and out, which saves gas for both of us), but that used to be my “me” time, and so it’s gone.  I need to find another way to get that time in.  It’s only two weeks into this arrangement, so I’ll figure it out.

Need to do things today, even after the 5 hour nap I had.  My house is a mess (per usual, I’m afraid – I’m a pretty lousy housekeeper even at the best of times), I need to take stock of laundry, and I need to make food for the week.  I’ve found that doing that on the weekend means I have a bit more time to do things during the week without worrying about food.  And since as of right now, I’m in training mode, food (more exactly: GOOD FOOD) is very important.

Yep, training mode.  Argus and I are going to run the Nottingham Old Home Days 5k in September.  Eek!  I’m determined to RUN this one and not walk the majority of it, like the last 5k I was in.  I’ll keep you guys updated on my training.  Starts tomorrow, btw, with running at the gym.  Gotta see if I still have the Couch to 5k app on my iPod later.

So, here’s the to-do list for today.  It looks long, but I slept 5 hours, so I have about 5 hours to do things.  Plan is to be in bed by 11:30 pm.

- Daily Pages

- Put away dishes in the rack

- Wash dishes in the sink

- Make Portuguese Stew for dinner tomorrow night (http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/aida-mollenkamp/portuguese-sausage-and-bean-stew-recipe/index.html)

- Fold laundry and put it away

- Pack lunch for tomorrow

- Finish Spells galleys

- Pack gym bag for tomorrow

That’s a good start.  I need to get the dishes going, so I can start the stew.  Hard to cook in a messy kitchen, and mine’s a disaster.

Originally published at The words of Valerie Griswold-Ford. You can comment here or there.

I hate Daylight Savings time.  Just sayin’.

Also, I can’t update my website from work.  Nor can I look at Pinterest anymore (dammit!) and I can’t read my G+ stream.  I can post from my Google Reader to my G+ stream (don’t ask, our firewall is WEIRD) and I do have my phone, so I might hop on Twitter or Facebook from work on break, but it’s not a lways on.  So please, don’t think I’m ignoring you.  I’m not – I’m just busy.

However, I’m finally starting to settle into a routine.  I’m getting ready for Balticon (yay!) – I’ll be helping run the Needleworker’s Tea there again, and we’ll be launching Spells and Swashbucklers – with pirates!  And rum!  I’m also doing a LOT of crocheting – lots of babies coming this spring!  It was a fertile late summer/early fall, apparently.

Finally, I’m writing.  I’ve done my daily pages for 44 days straight so far, and I’m working on several projects.  Forgotten, mostly, but some other things as well that I’m pretty stoked about.  More later, as I can.

Originally published at The words of Valerie Griswold-Ford. You can comment here or there.

Starting Word Count: 6966
Ending Word Count: 7568
New Words: 602

Starting Lines:
“That happened in the crash?” I wondered how fast she’d been going when she hit the tree.

Ending Lines:
It hadn’t been; Marguerite herself came out to apologize for the lack. “It usually comes around 9 am, but for some reason, it’s late today,” she said, putting the glass of juice in front of me. “I’ve put a call in to Neil, asking him to bring in a few copies when he comes in. He should be here soon.” She smiled down at us. “Now, what would you like for breakfast?”

Darling:
The oak table, scarred by generations of diners, dominated the room. It was lit by a stunning silver chandelier, and our chairs faced the large bay windows that looked out over a formal garden. Two places had been set with sturdy stoneware plates and mugs, and a thermal carafe was set between the settings. David reached for it hungrily, even though I knew he’d already had at least one cup of coffee in his room. I’d woken up to the aroma wafting in through the connecting bathroom.

++

Finished Chapter 1, and on to Chapter 2.  Also, apparently I didn’t have the word count widget set up right in Scrivener.  Oops.  Still, 7.5k isn’t bad.

Sapph is NOT going to be happy when she finally gets that newspaper, let me tell you.

Originally published at The words of Valerie Griswold-Ford. You can comment here or there.

Starting word count: 2326

Ending word count: 2903

New words: 577

Starting lines:

He leaned on his cane, looking down at me, wry amusement and pain warring in his blue eyes. I didn’t recognize him, but he apparently recognized me. “Really, Sapph,” he continued, not bothering to extend a hand to me as I just gaped at him. “You’re getting wet.”

Ending lines:

She’d been pretty, once. Now, with half her face covered by a bloody curtain of hair and her teeshirt in scorched shreds, her right arm hanging uselessly at her side, she was a horror.

Darling:

I snorted. “I don’t believe in angels. Or demons, or anything else like that.” My fingers curled around the door handle. I didn’t want to turn my back on him, but I had to see what, if anything, was still inside.

“It doesn’t really matter if you believe, Sapph.” He walked over to the other side of the car, not noticing the slick mud. “Their existence has very little to do with anyone’s belief.”

++

You know, I’m not writing a zombie story, but damn, that ending line sort of looks like I am.

Originally published at The words of Valerie Griswold-Ford. You can comment here or there.

Even when you don’t get home until 3:30 am from a ghost investigation – it’s still a day of rest.  A day to catch up on Once Upon a Time (my new favorite show, next to Castle and Bones), write, do laundry and dishes, and just renew myself.  I really do like this new schedule – I feel more alive.  And the words are coming again.

The words are coming because of a few things: I’m doing the daily pages every day at 750words.com, I’m taking the time to do things like watching TV again (a few selected shows only), and I’m reading again.  I just finished The Between, by LJ Cohen, and now I’m reading Hard Magic, by Laura Anne Gilman.  Because of that, and the fact that I’m on the right schedule, I’m getting words.

Which is good, because I’ve set myself a goal of finishing the first draft of Forgotten, the book I’m currently working on.  I haven’t talked much about it here, and I won’t for a while, but it’s a totally different world than the Horseman books.  Ghost stories, in fact.  I love ghost stories, and now, I’m free to write the books I want to read.  So, first draft of Forgotten is on deadline for May 30th.

I need to post a honey do list for this year, but I’ll do that later.  The big things on it, though, are Forgotten, the first draft of Schrodinger (whatever the title will be) and getting both Spells and Swashbucklers and Last Rites onto the shelves.  And, in non-writing stuff, I need to redesign the website.  Badly.

But today, I have just a few things to do:

- vacuum the living room

- empty the drainboard

- empty the sink

- Daily pages

- 500 words  on Forgotten

- Update the calendar in the living room

Lots to do today, and daylight, as they say, is a-burnin’.  Good news is, I don’t have to get up at 6 am tomorrow.

Originally published at The words of Valerie Griswold-Ford. You can comment here or there.

It’s been a busy week!  Go live at my new job, writing busily on Forgotten, and starting to look for a house.  Yes, we’re going to buy our first (and hopefully last!) home!  It’s very scary, but fun.

I’ve managed to write my daily pages every day this month (I’m going to do that after I finish this) and I’m well on my way to making this a permanent habit.  Wish exercise was this easy!  And yet, I think I know how to make exercise that easy too.

Today, I’m going to do some research tonight, helping out on another ghost investigation with Dark Knight Paranormal, so I don’t have a lot of time to do stuff today.  However, I’m on my real schedule (yay!!!), so I should be updating daily here again.  No more getting up at oh-god-o’clock in the morning!  I love 8 am – I don’t even need an alarm clock!

Okay, enough burbling.  I’ll have a more indepth post tomorrow, I hope – and I’ll be able to tell you more about what’s coming up for me!  Also, the return of the Honey Do list, and what projects I’m currently finishing up/starting/in the middle of.

Originally published at The words of Valerie Griswold-Ford. You can comment here or there.