Pass it on!

Back in May at the HOD Readers' Luncheon, Stephanie Bond gave me a "Pass It On" copy of Kill the Competition.

The idea is that you read the book, register on her site (for prizes!), then pass it on to a friend (or someone else) who isn't familiar with Stephanie and her books.

I've finished the book, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It made the hours on the airplane from Scotland to New York pass quickly, and I'd recommend it to anyone who likes light romantic suspense.

So now it's time for me to Pass It On. Since all the Playfriends already know and love Stephanie, I'm offering it to a blog reader who wants to try a new (to her) author without committing any cash to the effort.

If you'd like to read Stephanie's Kill the Competition, send me an email (problemchild@writingplayground.com) with your mailing address and let me know. All you have to do is promise (in writing) that you will Pass It On when you're finished. (If you want, we'll put another announcement up here on the blog to find it a new home. That would be fun...)

Since this is a holiday weekend, I won't make it to the post office until Wednesday. So you have until Tuesday night to send that email. I'll chose one entry at random and mail it to you.

Problem Child

A HEA IRL

(That's a "happily ever after in real life" for those of you that are internet lingo challenged.)

We’re all here because we love romance, right? It’s all about the HEA, riding off into the sunset and as in so many of the books, finding the heroine happily married and pregnant in the epilogue.

I’m blogging from Oregon today as I help my best friend start off on her own HEA. I’ve known her since I was ten years old. I’ve known her longer than anyone else that wasn’t related to me in some way. Despite ending up at different high schools, in different social cliques (she was a track star, I was a computer geek), going to college in different states, and not even seeing each other for almost six years, we still consider each other best friends. Why? Because I can pick up the phone at any time and hear her cheerful voice, always happy to talk to me, yet the conversation is familiar, as though we’d just been to lunch together that afternoon. I’ve never even MET her fiancé, but that’s not a problem. She loves him, I love him. Simple as that. If he ever does anything to hurt her, I'll hunt him down and...well...let's just leave it at the good stuff, shall we? :)

Only she could convince me to fly cross country on a holiday weekend and shell out the cash that requires. Only she could get me to wear a LIME green maid of honor dress with a smile. Only she could get me to seek out the nicest gift on the wedding registry and buy it without flinching. She ranks.

So, off I go. I’m probably nursing a hang over at the moment from last night’s bachelorette revelry. I’m hoping by the time you read this that I might have scribbled out a couple pages of DD in my notebook. As it stands when I left Wednesday, we were doing pretty well – pushing 50% completed. Not bad for two weeks work, even if I am taking a couple days hiatus.

Hope your 4th of July weekend finds you well. Enjoy the holiday. Don’t mix alcohol and explosives or eat the potato salad that sat out four hours unless you want to spend your evening in the ER.

SP

33,750 / 70,000 (48.2%)

Discipline - or lack there of

I know I've discussed my jacked up process before. Probably not in detail - at least I can't remember doing it. Suffice it to say that I write out of order, skip entire scenes and chapters with the express intention of filling them in later, and generally write in chaos. I know, surprising :-) Organizational skills are not my shining glory (I turn to PC when I need help with that! Speaking of which, do you have that packing list for nationals?)

Anyway, during this 6 week challenge I've undertaken with Angel, SP, and PC, I not only asked myself to complete a rough draft within 6 weeks (which shouldn't be that difficult for me as long as I maintain my schedule), but also to write in order (the true challenge). Making myself write this way is going to shave time, heartache, and headache from my editing process. I did this for my first two books, and then somehow my need to jump around took over my intelligent realization that I was only making things more difficult on myself.

So far, I've managed to stick to linear creativity. But it hasn't been easy. Little flashes of later scenes keep jumping into my mind (especially if I'm stuck with something that comes before). What's good about this though is that each time a specific scene appears in my imagination, a little more detail is added. So that ending scene where my hero and heroine meet after he's devastated her for the second time is getting stronger and richer. Hopefully, by the time I get to that point the scene will simply flow from my fingertips almost fully formed.

Until them, I'm trying to fight it down and let it build.

What part of the creative process do you struggle with? First drafts? GMC? Editing? Building 3 dimensional characters?

Instigator

48,750 / 70,000 (69.6%)

Blow-Out Sale! All Ideas 30% Off!

Who amongst us wouldn't rush to that sale and max out the credit card?

An idea. That's what stories are all about. Some infinitessimal spark of thought that starts a chain reaction, which eventually leads to a premise and characters and hopefully ends with a story.

But where do ideas come from? Look at any interview with any author and inevitably that question will be there. "Where do you get your ideas?" Heck, I've asked it myself.

I read one author remark that she got her ideas from Nordstrom and was particularly fond of them because of their liberal return policy. Wouldn't that be great? To just drive to the mall, go into Nordstrom or Dillards or J.C. Penney, walk to the idea section and rifle through the racks until you found one you liked and that fit you as a writer?

Sadly it isn't that simple. On the other hand, in a way it IS that simple. You just have to keep your eyes and ears open to everything that's going on around you. Ideas can come from television or movies, newspapers or magazines, and yes, even the mall.

I've become a shameless eavesdropper. I will listen intently when I'm at the doctor's office, having a solitary cup of tea at the coffee shop, or browsing the racks at my favorite discount clothing store. It's amazing what people will say when they think no one is listening.

I'm writing this ahead of time, but by the time I post it, I'll have flown to the Georgia coast to visit my sister. I'll have been at several airports. My sister and I will be going to the beach. We plan to take a tour of one of the barrier islands. We're going shopping in the village. We'll most likely sit on the pier and people watch -- and listen. I'm hoping to come back home next week with a few new ideas for stories. *

I just sold my fourth short story to a magazine -- True Romance this time. Where did the ideas for all those stories come from? One was from a news article I saw online about a man who committed suicide over income tax troubles. One was from something I read on an email loop added to something that happened to a family member. The third started as a 1000 word writing challenge about a blinded firefighter, and when the magazine editor said she was looking for stories about soldier, I decided that firefighter could become a soldier. It was going pretty slowly until I stumbled upon a piece in Reader's Digest about an explosives expert serving in Iraq and then the piece just took off. The story that just sold was inspired by how my son met his wife and then proposed three years later.

Then of course there's our infamous road trip from earlier this year and the drug bust in the adjoining room. That one's still filed away until I can work it into a story.

Of course sometime you get an idea but you also have a dilemma. Do you take that juicy bit of family gossip, change the names and enough of the circumstances to protect the innocent and build a story around it? I'm still struggling with that one and if any of you have any thoughts on the matter, I'm open to discussion.

So... where do you get your ideas (other than the Idea Department at Best Buy)? And once you have that little spark, how to you build it into a roaring fire?

* Darn Delta Airlines. My flight was late leaving Huntsville, but no worries. I was supposed to have a two hour layover between flights. That got cut to one hour and then promoted to four hours and fifty minutes when my connecting flight was cancelled. Thankfully I had a book, but you can only read for so long. I didn't hear any good gossip (darnit) but I did have a nice dinner at Atlanta Bread Company courtesy of Delta.

Home Again!!

Yay! I'm home!

No matter how much fun I have on vacation, it's always good to come home. (Although the stacks of mail, piles of laundry, and empty fridge are a bit daunting!)

But I'm terribly jet lagged, having only clocked about 90 mins of shut-eye in the last 28 hours, so pardon me if this blog goes a bit awry.

But I have to tell you this...

Last Friday, my in-laws took me to the Royal Highland Show in Edinburgh. I was ready for all kinds of Scottish-y goodness--bagpipes and kilts, thistles and tartan, etc, etc.

Think cows, sheep and horses instead. A real agricultural fair.

Now, we've established before how I'm not an outdoor kind of girl. Let me also state for the record that I am not a "country girl" either--the 'burbs are my home.

But there I am, watching sheep judging, examining really BIG tractors, not wanting to think about what I was walking through (and wishing I had another pair of shoes so I could burn the ones I was wearing...), and amazingly enough, having a great time.

Amazing Child, of course, had a blast, but I was surprised that I enjoyed it so much. And I learned so many new things, like:

--Horses are really, really big.
--Bulls are really, really, REALLY big.
--There are like 40 kinds of sheep.
--Even dressed up in their Sunday best for the judging, livestock still stinks.

But beyond livestock, I learned a lot of other cool stuff as well, like:

--Scotland has a Youth Hostel in a haunted castle.
--Mead is actually kind of sweet, not beer-like at all.
--Australians make sweaters and socks from opossum fur.
--Hay bales are really not that comfy to sit on.

So I was completely out of my natural element, but came away with so many new experiences and wonderful ideas that it was well worth my time (even if I hadn't enjoyed it). Have you ever been completely outside your comfort zone but came away with new knowledge or just a wonderful story to tell?

Now, I'm off to bed to try to sleep. But before I go, I need to wish Darling Geek and Amazing Child a very Happy Birthday today!

Problem Child

The Dreaded Middle

Yep. I'm there.

Things were going along just fine, then BOOM, now I'm stalling and backtracking. As you can see by my less than stellar count below. I should be 50% of the way to my goal.

I had a plot chart, but these things never go according to plan. My characters are having conversations that I didn't authorize and extending their stay in Las Vegas. Then they told me they weren't having sex at the appointed time. How dare they?

Actually, except for some frustration while I wait for them to point me in the right direction, I'm glad they are leading me around on a leash. At least my characters are talking to me and I've learned how to listen.

I shouldn't complain so much about the much maligned middle. I have a general idea of where we're headed. It's like a map that shows you a road through the middle of nowhere, but you've yet to discover what the actual scenery looks like. The extras just define the journey.

But I want to run headlong and have the story pour out of me without the pauses and struggles. I can always tell when I'm back on track because the flow picks up again.

How do you know you're on the right track? Is it in the feel of the story, the speed with which it comes to you, or just those exhilirating aha moments when everything becomes clear?

Angel

23,000 / 50,000 (46.0%)

Up to the Challenge

Wow. What a week! I am officially of day five of my six week writing challenge and when I am done today, I will have nearly a hundred typed pages done. I will admit that I have NOT been writing thus far in rough draft form, but I think that’s coming as I get closer to the middle. I don’t think anyone has been as surprised by my rapid progress as I am.

I doubt I can keep it up at this rate the full six weeks, but at 10 pages a day, it will only take me 4 weeks. I’m really just paying it forward for the days I know I won’t be able to write. I did pick the six worst weeks of the year, so it pays to get ahead. I have a wedding in Oregon, two business trips, July 4th, a HOD meeting and Nationals in Atlanta during week six. Thank goodness I rescheduled my Lasik to August!)

I have done well so far, though. I really do have to attribute my success to a late night at the Krispy Kreme and a lazy Sunday spent in front of my story board. Angel and Instigator met me for a Girl’s Night Out in celebration of Angel’s birthday. After dinner and a movie, we headed to Krispy Kreme for dessert – one of the only places in Northern Alabama open after 9PM. :) We spent two hours over hot sticky glazed goodness discussing my new book. We answered all the tough questions like - what would make a 2500 year old virgin finally break down and give “it” up?

The next day, I typed up my notes. I had to let it sink in for a day (primarily because of my baby sister’s birthday extravaganza) but on Sunday, when DB passed out on the couch, I dug out my story board.

My storyboard is made from one of those tri-fold science fair poster boards. It’s broken into 20 squares (one for each chapter) then covered in color-coded post it notes. Sure, I could do this on paper, but I really like the sticky notes. I can just move stuff around from chapter to chapter when I’m still thinking about the story and not have to scratch out or erase anything. So, I thought and I moved and I looked at my holes and I thought some more. I shouldn’t admit that I sat at the kitchen table for two hours doing this, but I did.

When it was done, I used the storyboard to write a chapter by chapter outline of my book. So far, I’ve been able to stay pretty close. Amazing what a little pre-planning can do.

If you're a writer, what's your favorite pre-planning tool? Character interviews? Collage? Spider charts? If you're a reader, what are the key features that an author has to capture in their story to keep you interested? (So I can make sure I have it in there :p )

SP

25,000 / 70,000 (35.7%)

And They're Off

This weekend starts the beginning of a frenetic pace I lovingly refer to as July. Each year I look at my red covered calendar and wonder how I could have lost such complete control of my life - and made several bad decisions. You see, the only one I can blame for the idiotic pace of this month is myself.

This Sunday my Baby Girl turns two (Happy Birthday, Angel! Mommy Loves You!). Quickly following that is my eight year anniversary (which seems crazy to me. I swear I was just picking out my wedding dress last week). The week after that I turn 30 (which my sister felt the need to point out to me in a sickeningly sweet email. Like I could forget.). Sweet Pea turns five on the 25th - my Baby starts kindergarten this year. Yikes!

My sister is due to deliver my nephew sometime in those weeks (my other Nephew will also turn 2 only days before Sweet Pea). And somewhere in between the birthday celebrations, crying jags because I'm no longer a twenty-something and jubilation over a new family member to love I have to prepare for nationals. And finish this rough draft I signed on for.

I suppose it could be a good thing my family seems to delight in packing every ounce of celebration into one month during the year - at least we don't drag it out. I could have said no to the challenge - maybe should have - but I really, really, really need to get this rough draft finished before we head to Atlanta.

So here I am, with my head about ready to explode with GMC, scene ideas, birthday party preparations, packing lists (yes, I have one :-) - oh and did I mention that I'm running the contest for the playground in July and August? It's going to be a great one (if you haven't already signed up for Angel's A Night of Suspense contest do it now -----> the link is on the sidebar of the blog).

What's my point? :-) I indulged myself tonight. I played at work today (writing and getting caught up on some mundane things that needed to get done). I watched TV (I'm addicted to So You Think You Can Dance and Big Brother). And I swam. We bought the girls a pool for their birthdays.

We've been in it every night after dinner since DH put it up a couple weeks ago. We all enjoy it. But what I love the most is that all of us, all four of us, seem to slow down for those 30 or 40 minutes each evening. We play, joke, and splash each other. And really cherish the company. I'll be honest and say that our lives are scheduled (not in the PC sense :-) to within an inch of our lives - they have to be. I hadn't realized how often I let other things - duties, responsibilities, even the dream of my writing - come between spending quality time with my family.

This year I'm going to work hard on not letting July take over my life like it usually does. There's plenty of time for the things that need to get done but I only have this one year for my girls to be 5 and 2.

Instigator

37,500 / 70,000 (53.6%)

Another simple pleasure

My uncle sent me this photo today. This is the Red Pig Barbecue restaurant in Concord, North Carolina. Or it WAS the Red Pig because it was demolished to make room for progress. This hole-in-the-wall was just a few blocks from my maternal grandparents' house. Several barbecue places in Concord claimed the name "Red Pig" through the years, but this was the original.

North Carolina is known for its barbecue. None of that sickly sweet red sauce. No sir! Not at the Red Pig. My mouth waters just thinking about the seasoned pork, the bun and the slaw.

Did you have a favorite hole-in-the-wall restaurant growing up? Do you have one now?

When you have no idea what to blog about

"There are plenty of good five-cent cigars in the country. The trouble is they cost a quarter. What this country needs is a good five-cent nickel.

Franklin P. Adams, U.S. Journalist, 1932

I was at the mall food court not long ago and spied the Ben & Jerry's store. Ice cream sounded good until I took a look at the prices.

$2.55 -- small cone
$3.45 -- regular cone
$4.40 -- large cone
$1.99 -- add a scoop

I beg your pardon? I can buy a whole gallon of Blue Bell for five dollars.

And what about the last time you went to the movie theater? Aside from the price of the ticket, how about the price of those concessions? I could buy enough dry popcorn to feed a third world country for what a bucket of popcorn costs at the multiplex. And I swear they put diuretics in the soft drinks because I ALWAYS have to go to the potty at the critical point in the plot.

Gasoline prices are out the roof and folks can no longer afford a Sunday drive in the country, just taking in the scenery and stopping at a gas station for snacks. The simple pleasures of life (like an ice cream cone) are simply getting too expensive.

Of course, some of it is relative to the times. When movies cost a quarter, a new home cost $21,000, a stamp was a nickel and a gallon of gasoline was thirty-one cents. Betcha Pop didn't pull down a six-figure salary either. And Mom most likely was a stay-at-home mom who cooked real food, baked cookies and hung clothes on a line outside in the backyard.

The "olden days" are a mixed bag. Sure we could play outside after dark and not worry about sexual predators, but we also had no immunization against measles, mumps and chicken pox. I remember each of those diseases well. I missed Valentines Day in the second grade because I had the measles.

We didn't have cell phones back then. We also didn't have people taking cell phone calls in the middle of an eight-dollar movie.

What simple pleasures do you remember from your childhood? And what kinds of simple pleasures do you engage in with your family?

The Playground Monitor

P.S. I will be out of town visiting my sister on the Georgia coast next week but should have regular access to a computer and the Internet. Maybe next week's blog will be about the beach or eating shrimp with your fingers or sitting on the pier in the village and watching the ships going in and out of the Brunswick harbor. Or maybe I'll find inspiration during my vacation and write about writing.

Tuesday post from Problem Child

Wow, is it really Tuesday? This time last week, I was in Northern Ireland seeing the sights, and this time next week, I’ll be home.

So here I am, in Back-of-Beyond Scotland (which, while isolated, is possibly one of the most beautiful places on earth). Internet access is limited to dial-up only (yikes!) and I’ve had one phone call since June 6th. (That was my mom, calling to check in.) That’s left me with a lot of time on my hands. Time I’ve spent traveling back roads of Ireland and Scotland, time I’ve spent taking walks with DG and AC, time to think. And I haven’t had time to think in a long while.

Most of you know that I’ve been pretty stinkin’ busy the last seven months or so. I’ve run from pillar to post, out of the frying pan into to fire then into the spilled milk. I didn’t realize how busy I was until I left the to-do lists behind. I didn’t know how much noise was in my head until I noticed how quiet it was all of a sudden.

I finally relaxed for the first time in a long time.*

And I really liked it.

So, while I’ve been claiming for a while that I was going to cut back, I hereby state, in public, for the official record, that PC is no longer responsible for the Universe. I’m committed to a couple of things that I’ll see through until they are finished, but I’m practicing saying NO and delegating responsibility (ask Instigator and Smarty Pants about what happens when PC delegates).

I can’t promise that I won’t get really busy again; after all, I still have to run my corner of the world. But I can’t go back to the frazzle-fest that was my life until recently.

So I owe my baby B-I-L and new S-I-L a word of thanks. Granted, getting to their wedding contributed a bit to my craziness, but coming to their wedding has done me a world of good. Here’s wishing Heather and Jono a wonderful HEA.

And here’s wishing me a less stressed HEA as well...

Anyone else have to learn to say no? How’d you do it?

Problem Child

* Well, at least until DG took AC to the top of some very big rocks during some pretty gusty winds...THAT was tense.

In the mood for love... or at least writing about it

Ladies, I can honestly admit that this Fast Draft Challenge is doing interesting things to my writing. Some days I'm really enjoying it and others, I'll admit, it is kicking my butt.

I signed up to write 10 handwritten pages each day, which works out to 5 computer pages. Doesn't sound like a lot, but I'm finding it is harder to work into my life than I thought. And not because of the time factor.

When you are required to churn out 5 pages each day, and know that if you don't then tomorrow it will be 10, then you sit your butt in your chair and write, regardless of where your muse is at the moment. Some days I can pop out those pages, no problem. Other days its like pulling teeth. I dread those days, let me tell ya.

Still, I push through, because being able to stay in the story and with the characters like this is great! It energizes the story and works very well with my particular writing process. And on those days when it doesn't, I try to find ways to motivate myself besides just using the white knuckle technique.

One new thing I've done for this book is a story collage. This is a combination of pictures/storyboard/character chart that is more art than a planned project. I'm adding to it a little everyday as I learn more about my characters and the story. I've hung it next to my desk and enjoy just looking at it. My characters feel more real because their pictures and names are on it, and their primary qualities/flaws. I'm searching for location pictures and various other things I want to add. It's been really fun to create and I'm getting more interested in this area of prewriting. Very cool. Studying it for a few minutes can help me really touch base with this story and what I'm trying to get on paper that day.

Music, as we've discussed before on the blog, helps me to get motivated. Last night, for instance, my day ended on a bad note because I had an argument with my daughter. Never fun. Usually the time after my kids go to bed is when I finish up my writing for the day, but with all the upset I just couldn't settle down. So I proceeded to put a CD in the player and pop on the headphones. I played a song that I recently realized embodies some of the issues for my heroine, I think it is called Already Gone by Kelly Clarkson. As I listened to this song through several times, I regained a sense of who my heroine was and why I wanted so desperately to tell her story. Then I went on to write my pages for the night.

But sometimes, the best motivation in the world isn't going to cut it. Saturday night I was overtired from excitement from my Laurie placement (see post below) and the exertion required to wrangle 4 children instead of 2 (I don't know how some women do it!). My brain literally shut down. No writing was going to happen that night. So I said, Okay. Fine. And I proceeded to add some stuff to my story collage and turn in for the night. One reason I can do this ocassionally (read: few and far between) is that I built a little extra leeway into my daily page goal by rounding up. That helps on those days when I can't be Superwoman. :)

So, that's what's up in my writing life this week. Hope I haven't bored you to tears. What do you do when you have to write to meet a deadline (self-imposed or not)?

Angel

16,500 / 50,000 (33.0%)

Congratulations Angel!

Angel placed 1st in the Short Contemporary category for the Lauries!

Please join me in giving her a whooping Playground

SQUEE!

We're really proud of you, Angel.

Rough (ROUGH!) Draft

So, you all know that several of us are starting on the journey of a new book. This will be my 4th book and hopefully will take significantly less time to complete (barring a joyful delay like a request and revision on my 3rd book). Although I’m late to jump on board, I’m putting myself to the torture of a 6 week draft.

Ugh.

This will be especially hard for me because I am one of those weird people what write in final draft form. I go from start to finish in order, with grammar and text as well done as I think they should be (until a CP tells me otherwise, then I revise a bit). My plot usually changes dramatically from my initial idea, my characters tend to go off on their own tangents, and sometimes I don’t even know who the bad guy is until he reveals himself. It’s an interesting process, but a slow one. It’s usually about a year from the creative spark to the final, revised draft when I putt around on my Muse’s schedule.

When we signed up for this challenge, I had to ask the other Children - what do your rough drafts look like? Mine look like my final drafts, so I didn't know what I should aim for. Their answer, a double challenge for me - is not just words on paper but imperfect words on paper with omissions, scenes skipped, descriptions left out…this is personally painful, I have to tell you. It may, however, be my answer to the muddled middle. I usually let my characters evolve enough in my head for me to figure out what’s going to happen. If I hit a point I don't want to write yet or I need to think about, I just stop. This means days or weeks without writing as I work through it. I don’t get the luxury of that with such a tight timeframe. Now I have to put in "{add sex scene here}" and move on. Real romantic, huh?

I’m officially not going to start until Monday. I’m still recovering from my cruise (which was great – see photo below) but exhausting. I need to plot a little more, poke the playfriends for some GMC development, then off I go. Being a pessimist, I’m not sure what 6 weeks will bring me, but I’ll try. That pesky little percentage complete bar will certainly be a motivator – especially with Angel and Instigator two weeks ahead!

In true, neurotic playground fashion, maybe I’ll make a list of everything I need to do before I start. Uh…what do I need to do? Although its not my first book, this may be the first time I attempt to write a book in a structured, organized format instead of running with the Muse. Can my pseudo-pantser self get organized enough to be a partial-plotter? I should have a plot outline right? Maybe a short synopsis? Fill out one of those character sheets? All my characters have blue eyes, so not too hard, there. What else? A GMC card? Help is appreciated here, people!

SP

7,250 / 70,000 (10.4%)

This first picture is me at Yale...Glacier, that is. Each glacier in College Fjord is named after an Ivy League school.

This is me at sunset outside of Ketchikan. By the way, it's about 10:30 at night.

Life is strange

Life is sometimes very strange. It constantly amazes me how I can get exactly what I'm asking for and still not be satisfied with the end results. Case in point... As some of you might be aware, I bring Baby Girl to work with me (and Sweet Pea on school holidays and during the summer). Now, they are 2 and 5 respectively and - I can't say as I blame them on this - spending the entire day at the office with Mommy is not exactly their idea of joy. But you gotta do what you gotta do. Day care is too frickin' expensive (especially for 2) and I have the ability to bring them into the office with me so... During the summer they're both with me, which I thought would be a good thing. Baby Girl likes to be entertained by Sweet Pea, the perfect solution to my inability to get anything constructive done. Instead, I spend most of my day refereeing, putting them in time out, parceling out toys and rotating the video schedule - forget actually doing work like paying the bills, invoicing clients, even answering the phone can be a bit hairy if one of them is yelling. Now, it helps that I have excellent, understanding bosses (and that one of them happens to be my father), but really.

Today, both of my girls are with my Mother. Peace and quiet reign.

And I'm going out of my mind.

I miss them. All week I've been looking forward to the chance to get caught up and maybe get some writing done. Right now, I'm sitting at my computer screen, staring at the blank page and wondering what they're doing. God help me when Baby Girl starts school. I really won't know what to do with myself.

So, what have you gotten in life that didn't turn out the way you expected?

Instigator

Challenge Total:

24,000 / 70,000 (34.3%)